Blackwater Bloody Mary Neo Setup

[nabokovfan87]

Flashlight is the best tool for seeing what I can't see for me. Apart from the dark net.  The white of the parasites and stuff "pops" with the contrast, especially on the dark shrimp. 

In the photo below, this would be how I would visually with my eyes look for eggs inside the carapace.

Using the light across the surface of the sand to cast a shadow to see for molts and baby shrimp.  (Same thing I do when I look for them after WCs in the bucket).  I would not be able to keep shrimp without the light, honestly.

Found a worm on the glass, then a lot more.  Rhabdocella looking things.

This is my "inspection table" of sorts.  the net is splayed open as best I can and there is water for the shrimp.  He scoots around trying to find out where to settle, but it's a male shrimp so they just NEVER sit still.  I can then use the magnifying glass, phone, lens, whatever to try to see what I can see.  Using a flashlight and turning off the tank light helps too!  (I did this towards the end to try to help the camera focus).  There's about 15 blur shots where the camera or shrimp moved and I thought I had a perfect shot of the thing on it's nose.

This is just demonstrating a visual inspection, net against the inside of the glass so I can say "yep this is the right one to look at".  I learned that from Cory's netting video.  I can then wait for the shrimp to go to the back of the net (thank's MST) and then pull the net up to the surface.

A lot of blur, I apologize.  Hopefully in one of these we can see something.

This photo below is probably one of the best shots of the thing.  I can't tell what it is, placement is super weird.

The white string looking thing here is just dog hair in the netting that I'll remove. I tried to get a clear shot to compliment the one above.

You can kind of see it in the blur here, knowing the location.  I don't think that's antanae and you'd expect it to have dropped off the shrimp by now, right?

Zoomed in a little:

Edited June 23, 2023 by nabokovfan87

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Yes. This looks consistent with scutariella japonica.

I can make out the forklike appearance.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

1 hour ago, nabokovfan87 said:

Rhabdocella looking things.

Oh those? My jar has those. They are fine. Healthy ecosystem.

Rhabdocoela

Edited June 23, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[nabokovfan87]

11 minutes ago, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Oh those? My jar has those. They are fine. Healthy ecosystem.

Rhabdocoela

Yeah.... I'm not worried about it. Just as long as it's not the shrimp SJ scooting around while I'm literally treating for said parasite. 😩

It looked too big to be that, but when I first noticed it moving on the glass it was all scrunched up.

 

27 minutes ago, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Yes. This looks consistent with scutariella japonica.

That's what I thought too. Unfortunately.  I would've expected it to fall off by now or something.  It doesn't seem to be affected.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

7 minutes ago, nabokovfan87 said:

Just as long as it's not the shrimp SJ scooting around

I doubt it. If hosts are present they should be on a host.

8 minutes ago, nabokovfan87 said:

That's what I thought too. Unfortunately.  I would've expected it to fall off by now or something.  It doesn't seem to be affected.

Did you shake the hell out of the Prazi? Diluted it in a bottle also? It doesn’t distribute well if just added in straight.

[nabokovfan87]

2 hours ago, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Did you shake the hell out of the Prazi? Diluted it in a bottle also? It doesn’t distribute well if just added in straight.

The meds are definitely doing exactly what they are supposed to.  I did every step, shook it like 5 times.  Then on the back it says, in addition to dissolving it for shrimp, to pour it directly where the filtration is so that it pushes it all over the tank.  I split it over all of the filters.

I grabbed more photos.  This is a female, similar thing on her "nose".  Hopefully one of these is clear. I also took video, you can see her freak out when what I think is the SJ moves.  (this is apparently a confirmation that it is indeed an SJ I'm seeing in the location I'm seeing)

I took 2 videos, the second one, right at the end (end of the entire video) you see her get really upset.  She's stressed and so whether I need to dump in some paracleanse (prazi+metro) or salt or Ich-X/paraguard, I'll do whatever need be to try to get this stuff off.   I don't like seeing the female stressed like that.  The malachite green (Ich-X/Paraguard) I found an article that links to specific studies on it's use and a variety of other substances tested to treat vorticella and it mentions specifically the type of parasite it works for.  I need to check to verify that SJ falls under that category. 

I'm also going to go back for my own reference and potentially reach out to Flip Aquatics. I've gotten my amanos from them as well as Aquahuna and they mentioned a few times if you reach out they can tell you what they do.  I am trying to avoid the big, intense salt dip and go for something that works well.

@Odd Duck for Prazipro on the website it specifically mentions that if it's stored correctly it shouldn't expire.  Is this something where, in your experience, I should just try a fresh bottle?  Mine is a year past expiry date.  Hikari mentions this as a "nominal date".
 

Quote

STABILITY
Aquarium Solutions® Liquid PraziPro® is stable indefinitely if kept well closed when not in use. A nominal 2.5-year
expiration dating, from the date of manufacture, is used on the product

 

 

Edited June 23, 2023 by nabokovfan87
added media

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

5 hours ago, nabokovfan87 said:

shook it like 5 times

I shook mine a full minute. Torrey told me to shake it until my arm was about to fall off. LOL

5 hours ago, nabokovfan87 said:

also took video, you can see her freak out when what I think is the SJ moves

Yeah.. poor girl. Think about the girl I first noticed that had it. She had a lot. Can you imagine?

Now I realize we are diagnosing things, but also can I just say that watching shrimps doing their little shrimp stuff is so cute?

Edited June 23, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[nabokovfan87]

32 minutes ago, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Now I realize we are diagnosing things, but also can I just say that watching shrimps doing their little shrimp stuff is so cute?

I definitely agree, shrimp are delightful little things.

I can't imagine having a tank and not having some anymore.

I pulled out as much moss as I could from the bottom of the tank, the little bits that were there.

I'll feed tomorrow? I want to make sure they get some calcium for molting basically.

So far I've seen two with the confirmed SJ. It's unfortunate, but I just want to feel like I'm seeing this stuff disappear and not like I'm just struggling against it like the worms and everything else. 😞

I feel so bad for the little shrimp, especially if all those culls I had in the box were literally just sick.

35 minutes ago, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I shook mine a full minute. Torrey told me to shake it until my arm was about to fall off. LOL

I mean, it was right after the water changes and all that. I was definitely not feeling it. I shook it for a long time though. Set it down to move the stool or bucket or something, shake again a bunch. Repeated doses and we'll see I guess, right?

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

2 hours ago, nabokovfan87 said:

I'll feed tomorrow? I want to make sure they get some calcium for molting basically.

I feed every day.  I use Repashy because it doesn't break down in the water (I add calcium carbonate to it and feed the same thing to snails).  If you are hesitant on feeding, I'd recommend putting a boiled vegetable in there at minimum, because if you don't they're going to go after the molts as soon as they are available.

Why does this

remind me of this?  🙂

Edited June 23, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Odd Duck]

Prazi is quite stable and expiration dates are often a bit random since the law doesn’t take into consideration how stable a substance in, just says “you can’t have an expiration date past XYZ”.  Prazi does need to be shaken very well so shake for at least a minute or so, minimum.

Edited June 25, 2023 by Odd Duck
Typo

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 6/25/2023 at 11:21 AM, Odd Duck said:

Prazi is quite stable and expiration dates are often a bit random since the law doesn’t take into consideration how stable a substance in, just says “you can’t have an expiration date past XYZ”.  Prazi does need to be shaken very well so shake for at least a minute or so, minimum.

That’s what I did. One minute shake, then I put it into a soda bottle full of tank water and shake more in there for dilution, then add the mixture in above the sponge filter. Added extra air for the little guys also since the med is thick.

[nabokovfan87]

One of the big things I didn't quite understand was the time to see results.  Something like salt for some parasites can be instant. Sometimes it takes 2-4 treatments to see the full impact.  This was a new thing for me and seeing the SJ in the first place, only on a few shrimp, not seeing a lot of molting due to WC or meds, and feeling like I need to change water to encourage molting are all factors here that go into how I handle the treatment on this one.  The plan is to do a water change tomorrow (5 days with meds) and repeat that to fully get rid of the eggs and the parasites that are on the shrimp. 

I need to go through the lifecycle to understand if this is a weekly or bi-weekly treatment.  bi-weekly would be better for me.  I also do not intent to add the plants and stuff back into the tank just because I will likely be adding salt.  They are in a bucket right now and they are going to sit near the 75G tank and get some light from that source for now.  It isn't optimal and it's not a perfect situation, but my hope is that the at the end of this:

-I have confidence the shrimp are healthy, especially when it comes to internal or external issues.  I would like to see better overall health of the colony when it comes to the patterns on the shrimp and those yellow sections I've noted before.
-I will be better about feeding, what I am feeding, and how that is impacting their health
-I will have wood and plants without any algae that has survived the time elsewhere during this treatment
-I am able to better clean the tank and can use that technique moving forward.
-no parasites

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 6/25/2023 at 5:38 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

One of the big things I didn't quite understand was the time to see results.  Something like salt for some parasites can be instant. Sometimes it takes 2-4 treatments to see the full impact.  This was a new thing for me and seeing the SJ in the first place, only on a few shrimp, not seeing a lot of molting due to WC or meds, and feeling like I need to change water to encourage molting are all factors here that go into how I handle the treatment on this one.

I don't know either. Just learning as I go.  I'm told that, on water change day, I should see the most molts, but that has not been the case for me. They hardly molt at all on that day.  They just molt randomly.  Oh, and their most favorite place to molt is in the food dish.

[nabokovfan87]

On 6/25/2023 at 3:30 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I don't know either. Just learning as I go.  I'm told that, on water change day, I should see the most molts, but that has not been the case for me. They hardly molt at all on that day.  They just molt randomly.  Oh, and their most favorite place to molt is in the food dish.

I get a lot in the sponge filters for some reason or by the moss / alder cone piles!

I fed them some bee pollen today, hoping to help balance out the nutrients a bit. The amanos were very confused by it.

[nabokovfan87]

It's been a day and the theme of this journal in particular continues.... we're in seemingly uncharted waters here.

Yesterday I cleaned the big tank and my plant tank.  Today marks 5 days of the prazipro treatment and so I am going ahead and planning that water change.  Optimally, I would've prefer to have done a few water changes to remove as much of the meds as possible.  Ultimately I opted against that choice this time around.  The goal was to get the tank with a dose of salt and to try to treat the Scutariella Japonica and salt is seemingly the single best thing we have to do so. 

Given everything we know there is 3 main techniques that we have written about for neocaridina shrimp when it comes to this parasite:

1.  A very high salt dose (1T per cup of water) and a 30 second dip with the shrimp.  This removes the parasite and you continually repeat this process to remove them.
2.  A 1T per 5G of aquarium water tank dose, which is mentioned almost in tandem with the above recommendation.
3.  A hybrid method of the above where you drain the tank and start with a very high dose of salt, then add in freshwater to dilute the tank down to that smaller dosage longer term.  Usually this is 5-7 days or so.
 

There are some caveats for the above video before you decide to proceed down this avenue is that the setup and use case is very specific.  This method is done following exhausting other methods prior to it's attempt and was nearly done as a last result of sorts to try to fight this parasite back.  The tank in question also had a lot of young shrimp where netting them all really isn't feasible.

Salt dose per this video is 35G per 1 L of water.  This amount of salt is added to the tank when there is 1 cm of water remaining in the tank until the volume of the tank has doubled to 2 cm.  (converted this is just under 10 tbsp of salt per 1 gallon of water)

I tried to compare the math on my tank and it was seemingly an astronomical value.  I thought long and hard about the process of this and ultimately I opted to try the hybrid method.  My goal was to end with the typical "level 2" dosage of salt per the aquarium co-op article. I spent a bit of time asking around on what salt dose is recommended and what salt dose has been proven reliable before.  I'm dealing with a 29G tank, the amount of salt in question was ~1 cup of salt that I used.  I drained the tank to just above the sponge filters, dissolved the salt into solution and then proceeded to pour this into the tank.

I ran into a few issues, but the key here being that I was using a lot less salt compared to the recommendation per the video and I was diluting this into much more water volume!  The tank was about ~30% full by the time I added the salt in.  I used a specimen container to dissolve the salt.  I was able to get a good portion of it dissolved, but not all of it entirely.  I went ahead and poured in the water that was dissolved spread across the tank as best I could and then added more tank water to the container to continue dissolving the rest. 

After that was done I waited the appropriate time and observed the shrimp. 

Right away there was a small number of shrimp that were on their side and in a bit of shock.  I checked on them, watched them and observed.  Eventually all of the shrimp were up and active and crawling around like they normally would be.

After adding in all of the fresh water to the tank I had a bit of a quandary.  Again, some of the shrimp were in shock.  This isn't an abnormal volume of water change for this tank, but I absolutely understand the shrimp were really stressed out.  I kept watching them and just feel like I had nuked the tank.  😕

I waited 20 minutes and the shrimp that were on their sides, seemingly dead were walking around the tank.  Just like you'd expect with salt baths there is some recovery time!  As time went on there were some shrimp that were not transitioning well.  Saltwater is heavier than freshwater and this seriously comes into play.  Meaning, make sure you are pushing a ton of air to get the water solution fully mixed.  I scooped the shrimp that were struggling into a specimen container to observe them.  If they passed, then they were removed from the tank and I didn't have to worry about other shrimp eating them.  Of the 5-6 that I pulled there was 1 adolescent and the rest were very small baby shrimp.  One of them might make a recovery, but the others unfortunately didn't make it.

It's been about.... 6 or more hours at this point and I just spend another 30 minutes or so with the tank.  I drained out 5G of the tank water in the case that the salt dose was just too much.  I replaced that with 5G of freshwater and I'll keep an eye on things.

So far this is the first time I'm seeing a good amount of molting from the shrimp since treating for the disease, which is good in my view.  As with all shrimp, it's all about that next molt.  I have to keep in mind how they do over time and so it's going to be a waiting game before I feel good about things. 

I was talking with @Chick-In-Of-TheSea about this and all of the things going on.  I mentioned that based on what I am seeing, I would only go high as the recommended, mentioned shrimp dose during treatment.  1T per 5G.  (my dose is 1T per 3G, which I did end up diluting just in case I added too much salt for the volume)

If I see more issues and signs of struggle tomorrow morning then I will end up changing out more water to dilute things even further.  I'll spend some time looking for molts, looking for parasites, and observing exactly how they are doing, but for tonight I am going to try to let them recover.

A lot of the shrimp are hanging out near the airstones trying to sit in the flow.  Just something to note as well.

Edited June 27, 2023 by nabokovfan87
added photos

[Guppysnail]

Good luck with your treatment. 
If it still persists you can try fenbendazole. I did not think of this when @Chick-In-Of-TheSea started her treatment because I have never treated for SJ and I have never treated a tank I could not vacuum so it would be snail safe in the future. 
I’ll tag @Odd Duck because I’m not 100% confident in my understanding of how these meds work but here is what I think I know …

Prazi paralyzes the where fenben binds somehow to some mechanism and actually starves and kills. This might make it a better treatment since any remaining loose in the tank would be dead vs paralyzed. 
 

The fenbendazole experience I have personally with shrimp.  I used Panacur-C for dogs.  I don’t worry about planaria under normal circumstances as my fish eat it.  I will occasionally have it get boisterous in shrimp tanks if a larger snail passed and became a food source  so these are the methods I treated with.  I have used these methods with fish in the tanks also and had no ill affects on fish or shrimp.  I just looked this up and it says fenben is affective on SJ.  

1. I used .1 g / 10g dissolved in a small cup of distilled water shaken vigorously applied every 12 hours for 3 treatments.  Day 4 vacuum and large water change.  Elimination was successful. 
 

2. Dose .2 grams / 10 gallons two doses 24 hours apart day 4 vacuum. Treatment success  

Snails can be added back to tank safely after 1 week and a second vacuum and large water change with carbon being run for the week.  

 

 

 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Thank you for updating the journal @nabokovfan87. I’m learning right along with you. I am sorry for the losses you had, and I hope that the rest of the shrimp are doing ok.

In the race of the turtle and the hare, PraziPro is the turtle. I’ve committed to doing an extended treatment (~1 month including rest periods) because of another’s success, and during this time, I noticed it is ok with my microfauna, even detritus worms and MTS. This timeline corresponds to the Paraguard treatment Rachel O’Leary did also. As you know, most of this time is spent just observing and pulling molts.

But your shrimp seem to have a more severe case than mine, based on your observations of them flipping around and twitching when the worms move, so it makes sense that you are exploring an expedited approach.

Just yesterday I noticed that one of my shrimps that has an SJ flatworm on its head - well, the flatworm had died 🎉. It was all kind of shriveling up. I’m in the third course (week) of treatment at this time. But that tells me that the PraziPro is working. And maybe the detritus worms are not “flatworms” but some other type of worm and that’s why they didn’t die. But they also burrow which affords them protection. As well as the MTS. But I’ve seen MTS chilling on the surface too, alive. Hydra is ok, ostracods, copepods, etc. All good. Oh! And yesterday I did see a group of limpets! Which I thought had died, but nope. They are still alright. Again, yay! 🎉

@nabokovfan87, do keep an eye on your ammonia with the use of salt. Salt slows the BB down. The greater the dose, the more the BB slow and the longer for them to spring back, but they will. It may not be a big deal if you only have shrimp in there, since they have low bioload, but if you have any fish or whatnot in there, the slowing of the BB could be a problem and give you that ammonia reading.

Edited June 27, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[nabokovfan87]

On 6/27/2023 at 6:39 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

@nabokovfan87, do keep an eye on your ammonia with the use of salt. Salt slows the BB down. The greater the dose, the more the BB slow and the longer for them to spring back, but they will. It may not be a big deal if you only have shrimp in there, since they have low bioload, but if you have any fish or whatnot in there, the slowing of the BB could be a problem and give you that ammonia reading

Will do, good point!

On 6/27/2023 at 6:39 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

But your shrimp seem to have a more severe case than mine, based on your observations of them flipping around and twitching when the worms move, so it makes sense that you are exploring an expedited approach.

Yeah. Details are vague as well. I don't like being the "test case" but having clear methods on what to do when it comes to treating shrimp disease is pretty critical to helping anyone who ends up with shrimp that I come into contact with. Ultimately, salt seems to be the best thing we have to treat these guys, but there's basically zero documentation on how to treat a shrimp tank with salt directly.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 6/27/2023 at 11:11 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

but there's basically zero documentation on how to treat a shrimp tank with salt directly.

I posted a comment on MST to ask what he does for SJ. Not sure how much he monitors comments though.

[nabokovfan87]

On 6/27/2023 at 9:32 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I posted a comment on MST to ask what he does for SJ. Not sure how much he monitors comments though.

Very cool.  Hopefully he talks about it!  I asked him about cleaning sand / substrate.  🙂

Reading those studies, dirty substrate makes it a home for those parasites to show up in some instances.

Mark's website:
https://aquariumshrimpkeeping.com/how-to-treat-scutariella-japonica/

[nabokovfan87]

Alright.... Day 1 over with in terms of the treatment. (Phase 2 - Day 6)

The shrimp looks like they are doing ok.  I pulled about 20 or so molts and I am sure there will be more here shortly.  You can see the vibrant colors on some of the shrimp, which is very common for new molts.  The others that look a bit darker, that's the ones that still need to.  There is also in the video above right at the end I tried to focus on, what looks like a blue shrimp? It's a rili of some kind I think, but it's got a bit of a blue tinge. 

One other factor for expediting treatment here, exhausting all methods, is simply put so that I can split off the rili types and culls into a second colony that is already set to go.  I am not decided if they go in with the 75G or if they go in the plant tank as of yet.  Maybe certain ones end up in the 75G.  Undecided.
 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 6/27/2023 at 5:02 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

a blue shrimp

😍

[nabokovfan87]

I just checked again for more molts. I pulled a decent amount, 5-8 or so. I can't really be specific. I wanted to end the day on a high note and so here we go..... This is my shrimp, sitting in brackish and just doing their shrimpy things.

At the very end, I wanted to highlight the smallest of baby shrimp on the glass. They are doing good too.

 

 

 

On 6/28/2023 at 2:24 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

Check it out..... She's a Rili.

 

Edited June 28, 2023 by nabokovfan87
removed blurry photos

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 6/28/2023 at 5:24 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

sitting in brackish

Very cool.  🙂 

On 6/28/2023 at 5:24 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

She's a Rili

🤗

[nabokovfan87]

Just got done with the night check on the shrimp.

Scrolls up to check when the last update was

Alright, well....

Since I overdosed the salt we do have a bit of an update on everything.  Initial salt treatment saga I have above, that day I lost a few.  I also lost a few overnight.  I've done two bucket swaps of 5G of water in the tank and this is simply to try to get things a bit more stable and find the right activity / stress level for the shrimp.  Adding in the salt has done wonders for triggering molts, allowing me to remove the eggs en masse as well as removing the parasite from the shrimp themselves.  I did opt to pull one shrimp today, it was one of them that just looks really poor in terms of overall health and it seemed like it was determined to spread whatever sort of disease was going on.  It is the one I photographed a little bit ago, but it's just simply a very weird looking shrimp with some internal issues visible through the shell. 



@Chick-In-Of-TheSea see above from previous photo compared to the ones I sent earlier today.  I believe this is the same shrimp with that yellow section showing as well as the other discoloration we saw today.