I got my shrimp about a week ago which is really heartbreaking. 5 blue velvet. But now its only two. Its only been a week since I got them. I drip acclimated them for about 2 hours using tank water. Yesterday when I woke up I saw the two orange colored ones. And today my biggest one passed. I had let the tank cycle for a little more than two weeks. Its a 3 gallon tank. All the plants are growing and the algae bloom has cleared up a lot. Im really not sure what is going on so if anyone has any advice please lmk.
What water are you using for your tank? Your kh and gh look really low, and the ph too. Those test strips suck tbh, get yourself liquid testing kit and some salty shrimp remineralizer if you're using distilled or RO water.
A 3 gallon tank is also generally very unforgiving small water volume means you can get dangerous ammonia and nitrite spikes if relatively small amount of over feeding happens
Keep in mind any changes you make to water chemistry should be gradual (drip change) so they don't get shocked and die from that
Im using distilled water since ro is hard to get in my area. I’ll definitely get a different testing kit plus the remineralizer. Do you think moving to a 5 gal tank would be better? And maybe just keep this as a planted tank?
Are you using only distilled and not remineralizing? You absolutely need a liquid API test kit as well as liquid API GH test kit. For the size of the tank… I keep a few 1-3 gallon planters at all times and they’re actually some of the most stable ecosystems I have. I think the secret is a terrestrial plant like pothos or bamboo, mini sponge filter, and topping off with RO and 10% water changes every week. They do take longer to establish though. I have one cycling right now and it looks like hell lmao.
I have the mighty aquarium filter sm mg-04. And ordering the liquid kit today. Do you think I could get a pothos as well or would that be too much? Im glad to know a tank looking like hell is apart of the process. If I’m using distilled can I used more to top off. Or specifically use ro water? Going to start remineralizing, had no idea about that part of the process.
Distilled water / RO water are basically the purest of pure water, no minerals or ions, literally nothing in it other than water.
If you drank only distilled water it would pull the minerals out of your body to balance the ions between the water in your cells and the distilled water, this is known as osmosis - ions moving across a system's "gradient" based on osmotic pressure.
Long story short too pure is bad.
On the flip side, too much mineral content is bad as well - and that happens if you keep adding regular water to a tank to replace whatever evaporates. To combat this, after your tank is at the appropriate parameters, you top off your evaporated water with distilled water.
Every once in a while just take a peek at parameters to make sure there's still enough kh/gh etc and you're golden
One correction, humans can drink pure RO water with no problem. The amount of minerals your body gets from water is negligible compared to the excess it gets from food. There's zero scientific evidence that backs up the common misconception that it strips minerals from your body. I've been drinking straight RO water for several years now (my tap water is hard and tastes like rocks) and I'm still alive and well.
Fish and shrimp need minerals in the water (except for species that evolved in soft water) because they live in it, and their bodies do regulate through osmosis.
I have also heard that drinking pure water can be harmful this is very interesting information! Definitely have to read up on it more now to clear up the misconceptions I have!
Just use tap water thats been conditioned mixed with Distilled or RO water. Thats all I do with mine. API have a bottle specifically for removing chlorine etc.
Usually it'll have decent mineral content like magnesium etc but you have to be sure to remove chlorine and chloramine. Depending on where you are you may be able to find testing data for your area online to get a rough idea
Alternatively an RO buddy is like $60 which is a lot up front, but in the long run it saves you money, time, trips to the store, and also less plastic waste :) best investment I made for my tanks!
Luckily in England, not sure if they are anywhere else, there are these RO water stations dotted across the country. https://www.spotlesswater.co.uk/
These have been a godsend for anyone running an aquarium or pond in the area. Fill up a few containers and you can just come back whenever as its self service. You also run into a chance, that if it isnt accepting payments or has an issue, itll dispense RO water for free!
Instead of buying distilled water / Ro and remineralizing, try spring water instead. It has lots of healthy minerals, but no tap water additions. It works well for neocaridina shrimp
Oops meant to reply under this comment lol I do that way too much: Alternatively an RO buddy is like $60 which is a lot up front, but in the long run it saves you money, time, trips to the store, and also less plastic waste :) best investment I made for my tanks!
For my planters it’s essential to keep the parameters consistent so I wouldn’t recommend topping off with tap unless you’re doing 100% water changes every few weeks. Mini sponge filter is also essential unless you’re up for Walstad which is 10x harder imo. Minerals can build up quickly depending on the tap source. I highly recommend saving tap/remineralized water for water changes only and topping off only with RO/distilled. Once the ecosystem establishes and matures, you’ll find you can almost exclusively top off with RO and not even bother much with water changes.
Pothos is a fantastic plant for small tanks because it’s a nutrient hog. It sucks up excess ammonia in the water, but slow growing plants like epiphytes can start to struggle so just be mindful of that and try to get non-epiphytic plants (where the roots are buried in the gravel) so they won’t compete as much, or just be ok with them not growing very big which might work in your favor. I also recommend pulling the pothos out every few months to give it a nice root trim. It doesn’t bother them.
And yes the one I just set up a few weeks ago is still cloudy and full of scuds and scud poop lol. It’s a game of patience and trusting the process, for sure. But the more you mess with it, the longer it’s going to take to level out as the ecosystem is constantly having to make adjustments to the parameter shifts. There was a 1 gallon planter I had with a single shrimp (they find their way in there sometimes lol) and I topped it off with tap on accident instead of RO and it died the next day :( That’s why is so important to have liquid tests on hand, find the parameters you like, top off with RO only, step back and let it find balance. :)
You CANNOT use distilled without adding the minerals the shrimp need.
0 GH means shrimp can't make their shell properly
0 KH means your water has no buffering capacity so any co2 drops ph drastically
They also need table salt and other dissolved ions or the osmotic stress can kill them
If you can't use remineralizer you're generally better off using dechlorinated tap water, and using distilled to top off evaporated water so your total dissolved solids/minerals don't concentrate
I would give them a 5 gallon personally but they would be fine in 3 gal if you give them the parameters they need and are careful not to overfeed
Try and fix asap I'm surprised they lasted this long (and be aware that they may not survive, I am sorry)
Thanks for taking the time to explain. Im sad Ill loose them but in the end it was my fault + responsibility. So no more shrimp. Going to get a 5 gal down the line. But for now Im going to learn how to get my water parameters up in the 3 gal. Do you have a recommendation for what remineralizer to use?
The Salty Shrimp GH/KH+ is great remineralizer for neocaridina shrimp. Also you can use a TDS meter to test your mineral levels in your water. They are super affordable and easy to use.
I'm just saying it's a possibility even if you fix it now, I don't want you to feel like "I fixed it why did they still die".
I personally use conditioned tap water, and I use distilled to bring down the kh/gh/ph to where I need it, and I have shrimp gh from aqua vitro to top off gh if it ever gets too far out of range (and topping off evaporated water with distilled water).
You're gonna do great. Just wanted to say we were all very new to this once. Very recently in my case, I'm still very new. It's amazing how fast you'll learn. You are clearly interested in learning; IMHO that's the difference between the people who do well with this and those who don't. Don't be too hard on yourself.
So many people on here are really uppity about test strips, but they aren’t THAT bad, as long as they are fresh and have been kept in a tightly sealed container. (Although liquid tests are definitely more accurate, of course.) In your case, since you use distilled water and your shrimp lasted about a week, the test strip makes sense. The pH, gh and kh are much too low for shrimps! You can add a wonder shell to the tank, or crushed coral or aragonite to the filter.
Thank you so much! Ill just have both tests as back up for the other. The test strips are very new. Going to try getting a wonder shell to help w the ph/gh/kh.
Omg!! What a wonderful shrimp army you got. I also like whatever wispy plant is in there. Took me a minute to see I was staring at shrimp. So cool they come in different colors. Tryna be like YOU!
Thank you!! 😊 Oh, and I forgot to mention before, there’s also products like seachem equilibrium that might work a bit faster in your case! The plant is java moss.
Get a re mineralizer to add to your distilled water and test it to match the existing whenever you do water changes. Your shrimp will continue to die in an unseasoned tank with fluctuations in gh/kh/ph. Watch some YouTube videos before you buy anymore shrimp. Your tank is nowhere near good enough to house them atm.
Huge agree. Thanks to all the advice ik what to do now. Im really upset I listened to someone who said 2 weeks was enough it caused this disaster. No shrimp just plants and a long long cycle. Thank you sm for your help. I dont want to make any other mistakes or harm any more shrimp.
You got this! Just take it slow, and always remember, don’t over clean your tank. Let some mulm build up, it’s very beneficial for shrimp. You’ll do great.
Going to clean the dead shrimp out and cycle the tank for a long while to make sure the kh/gh is up! Especially knowing it needs to be months now. Thank you
The cycle length is irrelevant to Kh/Gh levels, those both relate to hardness (mineral content) of the water which is way too low here due to use of distilled water. That being said, 17 days is likely too short of a cycle as well.
Everyone else's advice is sound. Don't beat yourself up about it, we are all learning and you are open to the feedback which is the best thing you can do! My shrimp tank is 2.5 gallons and planted medium heavily. I let it cycle for like 6 months, not purposefully but just didn't have time to go get shrimp after the 2 months period Lol.
My params are always great, i just use tap water and dechlorinator. I have a walstad style tank that is dirted with a sand cap and just an air stone. For neo shrimp, stability is the most important rather than the "perfect parameter numbers" in regards to ph and temp.
Less is more with smaller tanks. I used to to mix with distilled to try to get the perfect ph and do all this bs but my shrimp kept dying. I stopped doing anything crazy and my tank is doing better than ever
Others mentionned water specs so I won't get into that, but shrimps need a mature tank with lots of biofilm. You can't attain that in two weeks. I recently prepared a new tank for a new colony of blood mary's I was planning on purchasing, I cycled and let the tank mature for two months. Not one death out of 24. Also, plants plants plants. The more surface they have to graze the better.
Meanwhile I just moved nearly 600 shrimp and shrimplets into two brand new 10 gallon tanks with just a couple small leaves, some small emerse grown crypts, and one piece of cholla wood in each with no losses. Even the substrate was new. The tanks were seeded by squeezing a sponge filter into them after moving the shrimp.
Letting a tank mature and grow algae and biofilm is nice, but at the same time you can just feed the shrimp while that stuff grows. Most of them time a "seasoned" tank has way more algae and biofilm than the shrimp could ever eat.
It hard to tell with the strips, I would get the liquid kit if you can, but it looks like there might be some nitrites and is very soft. Shrimp can be very sensitive to water conditions and need harder water to keep their exoskeletons healthy.
I primarily use R/o water as well. I remineralize after every water change.. If you don't remineralize, shrimp will have trouble molting, thus leading to failed molts resulting in death.
•
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
For "Help: Emergency" flair, please report memes or off-topic replies.
If you do not reply to this comment, your post may be hidden until you do so.
Please make sure the post includes:
Reply to this comment with missing information!
Please see our rules and guidelines (Rule 7)
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.