Neocardina shrimp Deaths

[LeafJelly]

Hello Im new to keeping shrimp and a few of my first neocaridina shrimp (red rili) have died.... But strangley the 2 crystal red caridina shrimp I had in the tank before the red rilis are still alive? I thought the crystal reds were dead because I didn't see them for a few days. I know my water is hard, and I tried to soften it with RO water while I still saw the crystal reds. The crystal reds aren't dead, and are still alive after 2 weeks. 

2 days ago I got 5 red rilis, they were added to the same tank as the crystal reds. I didn't... Drip acclimate the red rilis 😞 I did drip acclimate the crystal reds. The red rilis were floated in the bag for over 30 minutes. I found 2 red rilis dead one with the head torn off... definitely a failed molt. The other one still in it's shell. Can anyone help tell me why they died?

I thought neocaridina liked harder water. I didn't do a water change since adding the shrimp, I did top off the tank a little with dechlorinated tap. The last things I did to this tank beforw I saw these dead shrimp were, in this order from most recent: added 6 pellets of hikari shrimp cuisine, moved decorations around in the tank making the water very cloudy, removed entire plants that were doing poorly, added new plants from my established tank. Then the day before I also added 4 drops of easy green. Days before the red rili shrimp were added, I dropped in 2 casuarina cones.

Did they die because I didn't drip acclimate? Or is my water not suitable for neocardina? Should I add API pH up?

Water parameters from what I can see, i used the aquarium co op test strips.

Ammonia 0

Nirate 0 or 10ppm... I can't tell

Nirate 0

Hardness 150ppm

Kh 0

Ph 6.4 on test strips. Ph 6.8 with API liquid test solutions.

Chlorine 0

4.5 gallon tank. It has uns substrate and inert gravel. Tank mates are 2 kuhli loaches and 5 celestial pearl Danios. (I know that's a lot :(... Please don't be mean about it)

Edited August 12, 2023 by LeafJelly

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/11/2023 at 7:24 PM, LeafJelly said:

Tank mates are 2 kuhli loaches and 5 celestial pearl Danios.

The CPDs should be fine, but I wouldn't trust a loach in a shrimp tank.

Something like a neo or caridina is just small enough for them to go to town and spend the day stressing the shrimp if not killing them.

I would definitely encourage you to have a shrimp colony setup and then add fish after that colony is established. When something like that isn't an option, I would only ever start by adding cull shrimp to the tank to test how they do long term and see if they can establish themselves.

As far as general shrimp care, there is a lot of great shrimp keepers on this forum and we're all very happy to help out.

Acclimation is an easy one to fix right away and it's something that should be done. Mark's shrimp tanks on YouTube is a Wonder resource for care and it's a person I learned from myself when transitioning from keeping amano shrimp to more specialized neocaridina shrimp.

He does have videos on acclimation, tank setup, as well as keeping shrimp with fish.

On 8/11/2023 at 7:24 PM, LeafJelly said:

Ammonia 0

Nirate 0 or 10ppm... I can't tell

Nirate 0

Hardness 150ppm

Kh 0

Ph 6.4 on test strips. Ph 6.8 with API liquid test solutions.

Your KH being this low would lean me towards only suggesting caridina shrimp. On the photo of your test your PH is 6.0 or below from what I can tell. Something to consider moving forward. For neocaridina you'd want a bit of KH in the tank. Everything else looks ok though.

[LeafJelly]

@nabokovfan87 thanks i'll check out that channel

[Cinnebuns]

Forgive me if I miss something here. ADHD has kicked in to the max plus it's 3:30 am so my brain was really only able to skim and not read very thoroughly. 

I think you already know that it is important to drop acclimate shrimp. Shrimp are actually not very beginner friendly and are more intermediate. They do not do well with changing parameters at all which is why the need to drip acclimate. This even applies to water changes. There are many people who will even drip the water back in after a water change, but myself and many others do a modified version of that which works. You still add the water in extremely slowly. I have a large cup. I basically add 1-2 cupfulls every 1 hour or more. Sometimes, depending on life and such, I can take 2 days to fill the tank back up. 

Even with drip acclimating shrimp, you have to expect losses. It's not uncommon to lose even 80% of your starting stock. The basic idea is to have enough survive until they have babies and then those babies will thrive in your water and the colony will go from there. This all goes back to the same issue of shrimp not liking changing parameters. No matter how much you try to simulate the water they came from, it is different. Plus, the environment in general is different. They don't like different. 

You say you are new to fishkeeping. That makes me wonder something else. How long has this tank been established?  You may know about cycling a tank and keeping the nitrogen cycle, but some live stock require more than just a cycled tank but a seasoned tank. Shrimp are very high on this need. Shrimp are constant scavengers for food and require some natural foods we cannot directly feed them. These only come from a tank which has been seasoned which take several months. You can encourage it to season more quickly in various ways but it does take time regardless and involves more than just cycling a tank. 

-  Do you have any live plant?  Especially mosses

-  Do you have any driftwood?

-  Have you included any botanicals?

-  What have you been feeding?

On 8/12/2023 at 4:35 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

I would definitely encourage you to have a shrimp colony setup and then add fish after that colony is established. When something like that isn't an option, I would only ever start by adding cull shrimp to the tank to test how they do long term and see if they can establish themselves.

I want to emphasize this. There is a reason most shrimp keepers have them in a species only tank. Pretty much any fish ever will eat shrimp. Some only shrimplettes but still. People who are able to keep fish with shrimp typically will establish the shrimp colony first before adding the fish. The fish will still eat shrimp, but this means they will be reproducing faster than they are being eaten. It's also highly advisable if not required to be heavily planted to allow the shrimp to hide. There are people I know who have been able to establish a shrimp colony at the same time as adding fish, but these people are very highly experienced and start with a very large amount of shrimp to begin with. 

[LeafJelly]

On 8/13/2023 at 4:47 AM, Cinnebuns said:

.   Do you have any live plant?  Especially mosses

-  Do you have any driftwood?

-  Have you included any botanicals?

-  What have you been feeding?

I have only live plants in the tank, in my opinion it.is heavily planted. There is java moss.

I added driftwood and botanicals that has been in a established tank that's over 4months old. Cattapa leaves and casuarina cones. The cones are new, but the driftwood and leaves are from my established tank.

This tank is only a 3 weeks old, but I added fritzyme 7 and squeezed in the dirty sponges from my established tank.

I've been feeding the biofilm that's on the botanicals, and sera shrimp food. But I noticed the shrimp weren't really eating the sera food, so I got some hikirai shrimp cuisine.

I understand that some shrimp deaths to be excepted, but I'm mostly concerned : is it my water killing them,  the fish, or the bad acclimation.

[LeafJelly]

This is what the tank looks like. 

[Guppysnail]

I’m sorry you are having trouble. Most likely a combination of normal losses due to inability to adjust to new water and acclimation process. 
Your tank is lovely. 

[JettsPapa]

I suspect your low pH and kH may be at least part of the problem.

Also, you said you'd fed six pellets of shrimp food.  That seems like a lot, unless you have many shrimp in the tank.

Edited August 13, 2023 by JettsPapa

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/13/2023 at 3:23 AM, LeafJelly said:

I understand that some shrimp deaths to be excepted, but I'm mostly concerned : is it my water killing them,  the fish, or the bad acclimation.

Acclimation issues definitely didn't help.  Loaches being known shrimp eating fish is a major concern as well.  Water, PH as mentioned above (lack of KH) is definitely not great for neocaridina shrimp.  Too low and it will wear away the exoskeleton.  It also explains why your caridina shrimp are doing well, it's designed for them with those parameters.

[Cinnebuns]

On 8/13/2023 at 10:15 AM, Guppysnail said:

I’m sorry you are having trouble. Most likely a combination of normal losses due to inability to adjust to new water and acclimation process. 
Your tank is lovely. 

I agree with this. Normal losses plus some from not drip acclimating. 

On 8/13/2023 at 8:14 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Acclimation issues definitely didn't help.  Loaches being known shrimp eating fish is a major concern as well.  Water, PH as mentioned above (lack of KH) is definitely not great for neocaridina shrimp.  Too low and it will wear away the exoskeleton.  It also explains why your caridina shrimp are doing well, it's designed for them with those parameters.

This makes sense too. 

On 8/13/2023 at 5:23 AM, LeafJelly said:

This tank is only a 3 weeks old, but I added fritzyme 7 and squeezed in the dirty sponges from my established tank

It is important to not that these steps only help to cycle the tank not to season it. The other things you have done however do help season it a little. 

[LeafJelly]

On 8/13/2023 at 5:05 PM, JettsPapa said:

Also, you said you'd fed six pellets of shrimp food.  That seems like a lot, unless you have many shrimp in the tank.

There were 7 shrimp in there, but with the 2 deaths ofc its 5 now. I was giving about 1 pellet per shrimp, its what my local fish store recommended. Does that seem right?

 

On 8/13/2023 at 9:14 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Acclimation issues definitely didn't help.  Loaches being known shrimp eating fish is a major concern as well.  Water, PH as mentioned above (lack of KH) is definitely not great for neocaridina shrimp.  Too low and it will wear away the exoskeleton.  It also explains why your caridina shrimp are doing well, it's designed for them with those parameters.

Ahh, my honest mistake then. I really should've tested my water right before getting shrimp. I tested it earlier in the week shortly after adding the RO water, and the GH was between 150 and 300 ppm, the KH was maybe 40ppm. I went and got the neocaridinas thinking my KH wasn't 0... 😞 
I just tested my tap water and the KH is 80ppm, GH 150ppm. Is this something more suitable for neocardinas? 

Another question. Is GH and KH equally important for shrimp? I was confused when researching online and ppl saying "Neocaridina need hard water" and "Caridina need soft water", and the ACO test strip has soft/hard on just the GH. I looked at just my GH thinking "my water is hard! the caridinas aren't going to do well"

 

On 8/13/2023 at 11:12 PM, Cinnebuns said:

It is important to not that these steps only help to cycle the tank not to season it. The other things you have done however do help season it a little. 

At what point would a tank be season? I hear people say seasoned tanks a lot. I know a year old tank is definitely seasoned, but what would be the sort of minimum to be considered seasoned? I know it depends on many factors, but is there a ball park number? Assuming there's live plants in the tank and a running filter of course.

[Cinnebuns]

On 8/14/2023 at 8:38 PM, LeafJelly said:

There were 7 shrimp in there, but with the 2 deaths ofc its 5 now. I was giving about 1 pellet per shrimp, its what my local fish store recommended. Does that seem right?

 

Ahh, my honest mistake then. I really should've tested my water right before getting shrimp. I tested it earlier in the week shortly after adding the RO water, and the GH was between 150 and 300 ppm, the KH was maybe 40ppm. I went and got the neocaridinas thinking my KH wasn't 0... 😞 
I just tested my tap water and the KH is 80ppm, GH 150ppm. Is this something more suitable for neocardinas? 

Another question. Is GH and KH equally important for shrimp? I was confused when researching online and ppl saying "Neocaridina need hard water" and "Caridina need soft water", and the ACO test strip has soft/hard on just the GH. I looked at just my GH thinking "my water is hard! the caridinas aren't going to do well"

 

At what point would a tank be season? I hear people say seasoned tanks a lot. I know a year old tank is definitely seasoned, but what would be the sort of minimum to be considered seasoned? I know it depends on many factors, but is there a ball park number? Assuming there's live plants in the tank and a running filter of course.

There's so many factors and it's more of a grey area thing than cycling a tank that it's hard to say specifically "aaaaaannnndd....now it's seasoned" but on general I would say it takes at least 3 months. Many people would argue to not put live stock needing a seasoned tank in for at least 6 months but 3 months is possible with doing things to help it along as well as only starting with a smaller number. Seasoning a tank is an invisible process we cannot really measure. It's about building up micro organisms and biofilm and algae and stuff that makes it an ecosystem. Some of that you can see parts but not all of it. Some you can't even see at all. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/14/2023 at 6:38 PM, LeafJelly said:

There were 7 shrimp in there, but with the 2 deaths ofc its 5 now. I was giving about 1 pellet per shrimp, its what my local fish store recommended. Does that seem right?

It really depends on the pellet and the food in question.  I have one that says 1 per 3, I've seen 1 per 5, and I have a new food that says 1 per 20 shrimp.  If you want to take photos or share the brand of food I can see what I can find.  1 per shrimp would essentially be for very small 0.5mm pellet sized food.
 

On 8/14/2023 at 6:38 PM, LeafJelly said:

I just tested my tap water and the KH is 80ppm, GH 150ppm. Is this something more suitable for neocardinas? 

Correct!  This is the parameters I'm running for my colony.  I even have some culls in a tank with lower PH, but it still has the KH and GH accordingly.  The 75G I have with the culls has active substrate which did absorb some of the KH initially, but things are normalized now.
 

On 8/14/2023 at 6:38 PM, LeafJelly said:

Another question. Is GH and KH equally important for shrimp? I was confused when researching online and ppl saying "Neocaridina need hard water" and "Caridina need soft water", and the ACO test strip has soft/hard on just the GH. I looked at just my GH thinking "my water is hard! the caridinas aren't going to do well"

Yeah, I totally understand this.  One way to clarify things is to really dive deep into what GH, KH, and PH are, but I'll explain a bit here also.

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/ph-gh-kh

Hardness is usually synonymous with GH.  KH is usually synonymous with alkalinity.  So when someone says "hard water" they really mean GH.  The confusion here is that caridina shrimp want low KH (alkalinity) and neocardidina shrimp need some KH.  They BOTH need similar GH levels for the sake of the shell deterioration.  Although, caridina shrimp can usually handle a slightly lower GH range than neocaridina shrimp.

Caridina Shrimp:
 

Quote

RECOMMENDED TANK PARAMETERS:

• Minimum tank size: 2 gallons, recommended 10 gallon minimum for a colony
• Temperature: 68° - 72° F (20° - 22.2° C)
• pH: 6.2-6.8
• dGH: 3 - 6
• dKH: 0 - 1 
• TDS: 90 - 130

Neocaridina shrimp:

Quote

RECOMMENDED TANK PARAMETERS:

• Minimum tank size: 2 gallons, recommended 10 gallon minimum for a colony
• Temperature: 64° - 78° F (17.8° - 25.5° C)
• pH: 6.8 - 7.5
• dGH: 6 - 15
• dKH: 0 - 10 
• TDS: 180 - 400

In the notes above.  ~6 GH  is acceptable for both types of shrimp.  Note the difference in PH (i.e. KH) as well for each type.

 

On 8/14/2023 at 6:38 PM, LeafJelly said:

At what point would a tank be season? I hear people say seasoned tanks a lot. I know a year old tank is definitely seasoned, but what would be the sort of minimum to be considered seasoned? I know it depends on many factors, but is there a ball park number? Assuming there's live plants in the tank and a running filter of course.

I would guess 3-6 months or so.  More advanced or experienced keepers can probably get it down to 1-2 months using components from other tanks, but it definitely takes time, months, for a tank to fully establish itself. 

[LeafJelly]

On 8/15/2023 at 2:36 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

 

Thanks that helps a lot! The food I have is the hikari shrimp food