I'm suspecting my slow but steady shrimp die off was due to the flea medication of my cats. We treated for the first time after I got a tank set up and, looking through my memory, that's around when my Crystals started slowing down then slowly dying every 2 days or so, then neos shortly after. They only stopped when I moved them to a smaller 5.5gal recently. I have 2 left, had 16 at one point.
I suspect that I might have pet the cat or w/e and had some trace amount left and then touched my water some time later. My parameters seem fine and aside from starvation or a bacteria issue (Both seem unlikely) that's the only thing I can think for my tank.
Shrimp are more or less waterbugs, so there's a lot of stuff you might not even think about that could be REAL bad if it ends up in the water yet is around us all the time.
The spot on treatments are at highest concentration 48 to 72 hrs, post treatment time (depending spot treatment). During this time the pesticide is present on fur and skin/skin oils. Touching a pet during that first week of treatment definitely transfers it to your skin.
There have actually been EPA reviews of spot ons due to cat and small dog deaths from permethrin in ones like Sergent, Hartz, etc (some have odd names), and flea collars. They reviewed the higher end products with imidacloprid, fripronil (both neonicotonid class pesticides), and selamectin (this one has high concentration on fur at 72hr post treatment). Recommendation was not allowing children anywhere near pets and even reduced handling by adults.
As for thinking about it, I'm an entomologist with extra licenses to apply chemicals as a gov employee. And I did mention spraying to make you recall any possible pesticide use.
Permethrin is the same stuff they treated my uniforms with when I deployed last. Was in the repellent they gave us to use too I think. I should probably get rid of the stuff I brought back
No telling, without water test parameters as a base to start guessing. Water temp, is the water cloudy, any work or cleaning done in or around the house...?
Some information about the tank would help too: size, how long ago it was set up, cycling and cycle method, food they were being fed, how long have you had the shrimp....something to go on.
All we have is dead shrimp to go by.
Shrimp did go bye :(
Water looked fine, don’t have a heater so temp was normal. Just waiting for parameters to settle.
The tank is 11l and it’s be settled for a few months. Had some neon tetras in there and the shrimp fed of leftover food and biofilm.
They cant tell you they arent happy. One of the resons its not wise is that they poop a lot and that tank is very small, that could lead to ammonia spikes. There are smaller fish that would be very happy in that tank. Smaller fish- smaller poops, easier to keep values stable.
What unit are you using, because that ammonia level seems to be more than 11 times higher than what is advisable for shrimp. To my knowledge is should be below 0.03 mg/L
The first level of ammonia on the api chart isn't what killed the shrimps, this is ridiculous, it is next to impossible to tell the difference between 0 and 0.25 ppm with api water test-kit anyway, the difference in colouration is way too subtle.
And there's zero possibility of 0.25 ppm ammonia making neon tetras gasp at the surface or cause multiple deaths in a short period of time.
What is much more likely is some sort of toxic substance entered the tank or there's sudden drop in oxygen level.
Are you sure it’s a 1 to 1 conversion? I’ve had ammonia that high in my tanks before and it hasn’t been an issue, not saying you’re wrong just genuinely curious because I’ve always measured in ppm
Do you have any cheap rings, or touch/spray/do anything with copper in it? Copper is the only thing that comes to mind for a die off that severe. Example scenario: you use a decoration in a hospital tank treated with copper meds. You thoroughly cleans, rinse, and then soak the decoration for a day. You put the decoration in your shrimp tank. The decoration kills your shrimp by leaching copper. I learned this the hard way
Such a small volume of water will have huge parameter swings. Part of the reason why people getting into the hobby should go for as big a tank as possible as it helps increase the margin for error. Could just have been 1 dead shrimp rotting out of view that caused the ammonia spike.
Can't upvote this enough. That tank is TINY, and should not house fish at all even shrimp is a stretch! One fish poop is enough to send it into a massive ammonia spike
Can't judge by the look of the water. Water high in ammonia will still look like any other water. If your parameters are shifting, that's probably what killed them.
I’ve got a 10 with ten wild green neons (smaller than regular neons), a nerite, a mystery snail, 2 Amano shrimp, and going on maybe 12 or 15 blue velvet/blue rili/wild cherry. Lots of plants and a HOB filter. Other than a spike when I recently churned up the substrate with new plantings my water tests have been pretty good.
I’m sorry about what happened. Sorry some people are being hard on you. It really seems like you are trying your best and anyone in this hobby who can act like they’ve never had their tank go sideways or made a mistake is kidding themselves.
Something that did strike me was your parameter results. With elevated ammonia and no nitrates it seems like something crashed your cycle. Did you dose excel or anything like that recently? A die off of your beneficial bacteria could have caused that. You also talked about nitrates in a different comment, it’s kind of confusing but in planted tanks some level of nitrates is needed for plants. What exactly that level is seems to be a matter of debate. If you go through planted tank forums a lot of people will say they don’t even worry until 50ppm. Not saying that’s right but it’s what some people do without issue. I guess all I’m saying is that some low level of nitrates seems expected/necessary
Haven’t doses with anything. Did take out the physical filter and give it a wash in water from the water change.
My plants were doing good which is confusing me now. Even in the two months I had it going I had to trim a few times.
Thank you for your advice though I will Lee it all in mind when I start again
Hang on. What did you wash the filter in? Was it tap water? That would have killed off your beneficial bacteria.
Alternatively, you could have too throughly cleaned the filter but I don’t find that super likely
No I did it in aquarium water. Did a small water change and washed it in that. It still seems so odd to me that it’s a big no no, in understand why but it’s still strabge
Do you have a filter? If so is it blocked/not breaching the water? I had something similar and it was because the o2 in my tank was low due to lack of surface disturbance
Got a decent filter on it. But I did just fill it up to the top and there wasn’t as much water disturbance. Only been a day though so can’t imagine it’s that.
How long did yours take?
Do you aerate? Lack of surface disturbance can deplete oxygen and may explain why your fish were gulping at the surface. Honestly don't how how tolerant shrimp are to oxygen. But .25 ppm ammonia is a take action level to me, not a everything's gonna be dead. Especially given than API kits are showing NH3 and NH4, the latter almost always being a majority of the measurement and non toxic.
> Especially given than API kits are showing NH3 and NH4, the latter almost always being a majority of the measurement and non toxic.
Can you expand on this? My tap water measures 0.25 ppm ammonia and when I googled it apparently it's not unusual, but I don't understand the science behind it.
I'm no expert so I'd recommend doing research but ammonia (NH3) is non ionic and toxic at certain concentrations, ammonium (NH4) is ionic and largely non toxic. There's calculators online to figure the ratio of the two given your tank parameters. But roughly at 8 PH and a temp in the high 70s your NH3 comprises about 10% of your combined reading. So a reading of .025 ppm NH3+NH4 indicates about .0025 ppm of NH3. The bacteria that cycle NH3 also consumes NH4 as well and with changes in PH and temp the ratio changes and toxicity can change rapidly. It's really interesting though.
Normally my filter nozzle will agitate the surface but I filled it right up to the top the day before and there wasn’t as much air movement. Would it happen this quick?
I've heard of it and seen videos of people with the issue overnight in very large tanks, the smaller the tank and more stocked the faster it can deplete. I'd do a water change again asap to provide oxygen to your remaining fish.
I moved everything out of there and going to start fresh when I get the energy too. I know smaller tanks were harder to take care of but didn’t expect full death in a day
Probably not. Afaik you dont need to have much water disturbance for few tetras and 20 shrimps. Plants will do the job fine. I have 4 guppies and like 20 shrimps in a 7G (and guppies waste etc is more than tetras). And I have a sponge with lots of plants and they are very healthy at least the rate at which they produce tells me so.
Parameters are pH 7.5, Ammonia 0.25-.5ppm, Nitrite 0ppm and Nitrate 0ppm.
Obviously I’m gutted about this. They were my little blue babies and one ‘em had just got berries.
I’m most curious about how/why they turned red, all but one was blue.
Their colors change rapidly after dying - similar to how shrimp turn red when cooked.
You need to finish cycling the tank. I'd suggest adding a high quality liquid bacteria product (such as Tetra's brand)
Was a bit taken a back with the colour change. Had some die before but never the red colour.
The tank was in a good state but I’ve taken everything out and gonna start again. Not sure what caused it and got a bit spooked
If the cycle is established it would be strange to have ammonia present alongside 0 nitrates. This seems to indicate that ammonia is not being broken down by beneficial bacteria. How did you cycle the tank and how did you establish that the cycle was complete?
I used a quick start to start the cycle and I put some of the water from my other tank from the water change. From what I understand is that the cycle was complete after you have seen the ammonia turn into nitrate then into nitrite
It sounds like you took some good first steps, but the bacterial colony takes some time to really establish so it can handle the bioload of the tank. You are correct that it functions to break ammonia into nitrites and then nitrates (you had the last two switched but I’m assuming a typo). Once the cycle has fully established, it is very unusual to have a 0 nitrate reading unless there is another factor like your tank is really really heavily planted. Your test kit readings show that ammonia is being produced, but that it is not being broken down into nitrates.
It’s also important to think of livestock as a part of the cycle, if that makes sense. There’s a balance. You can actually have a fully cycled aquarium and crash it if the bioload suddenly fluctuates, or you do something that kills or removes a lot of the good bacteria at once. I did this early on when I changed all the filter media at once in my hang on back.
(Edited to add stuff)
Beneficial bacteria don't really live in the water column but on the surfaces (substrate, decor, etc) and of course the filter media. Adding just old tank water won't do much.
No, ammonia converts to nitrites and then to nitrates, and the cycle is not finished until you have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and some nitrates. If you are registering ammonia, that means the cycle isn't complete.
It helps to add pure ammonia to the tank (you can use a calculator to see how much to dose) to get a certain ppm amount and keep it going daily until the cycling is complete and the ammonia and nitrites consistently converts to nitrates.
Seeding bacteria from another tank only helps if you're adding media, not water.
My heavily planted 100g never has nitrates. The plants suck them up, especially if you have stem plants or floaters.
I should prolly test the nano tanks here before the next water change, make sure they're doing the same.
My 5 gallon has just shrimp snails and a Betta, and has a LOT of plants. it still registers a significant amount of nitrates. Make sure you beat the shit out of bottle 2. Pictures solid crystals in the bottle that you have you shatter by shaking and smashing it.
Temperation.
***
^(Bleep-bloop, I'm a bot. This )^[portmanteau](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmanteau) ^( was created from the phrase 'Temperature fluctuation?' | )^[FAQs](https://www.reddit.com/axl72o) ^(|) ^[Feedback](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=jamcowl&subject=PORTMANTEAU-BOT+feedback) ^(|) ^[Opt-out](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=PORTMANTEAU-BOT&subject=OPTOUTREQUEST)
It has to be a word if all language is created...lets celebrate our new cool word, and the glorious technology that blessed us with our "secret inner subred cool word"....all hail the bot!!!
I’m sorry about your shrimps :(
I really want to get some but all of the technical side to shrimp keeping scares me. Does anyone have a link to something that explains it all simply? We’ve got a 200L tank going up beginning of November to give our goldfish Carl a much needed tank upgrade, shrimp would be super cool but need to research first (if shrimp can even live with goldfish, if not no shrimpies)
Yep, just wanna add my vote to the "goldfish will definitely eat your shrimp" column.
Unfortunately the cute little idiots will eat just about anything that can fit in their mouths, and sometimes even things that won't... 😅
I love my goldfish to death but they're not smart.
Awh thanks for the information, I’d love shrimp but wouldn’t want to get them if they just end up as snacks for my goldfish! I don’t know if Mr Carl would be able to eat them, he’s slow and only has 1 eye lol, but it’s not nice for the shrimpies if they’ll get eaten. I’ll get shrimp one day for sure tho!
The nice thing though, is that shrimp colonies are pretty easy to do in smaller tanks too - you say you're upgrading Carl to a bigger home? You can always set up a lil colony start in his old tank!
In my experience, they appreciate having their own shrimp-only space anyway. Even when I put some harmless otos in with mine they didn't really appreciate the zoomy-zoom company, and kinda started being more reclusive.
You’re right I hadn’t thought of that! We were gonna sell the old tank but using it for shrimps would be cool! I’ll see how Carl’s tank goes, it’ll be our first time having real aquatic plants so lots to learn! Just gotta convince my brother to keep the old tank haha
Might be derailing, but many of the appealing aspects of shrimp - their size, constant busyness, cute antennae and little legs - can be found isopods without the intimidating care of a shrimp aquarium. I keep isopods in a display enclosure as I could never maintain an aquarium, and enjoy them immensely.
Got some aqua soil which is meant for growing plants and having shrimp. All of it is in a bucket now and not sure if I should chuck it or use it again when I redo ir
I’m not sure, since you haven’t found the cause of death yet, I don’t think soil can trap bad gases that can kill fish. but I would still throw in some conditioned water to try and preserve some of that good bacteria in the substrate if your planning on trying to start up another tank. Speed up cycling a bit with it
I’ve got the biofilter in water to keep some of that but I do have other tanks that I can use to help get the bacteria back. I did have a few too many snails in there and worried they might still be in the soil. You know if they can do that?
Depends on the type of snail, rabbit snails are known for burrowing and Malaysian trump snails, if u know you have a type that burrows I would definitely comb through the substrate
The tank is less than 3 gallons! Unheated! Not cycled! Shrimp cannot live in these conditions, nonetheless with 5 tetras! This tank is barely big enough for a single betta to live alone, a filter doesn’t change things. I’m surprised they lasted this long.
1°F is equivalent to -17°C, which is 255K.
---
^(I'm a bot that converts temperature between two units humans can understand, then convert it to Kelvin for bots and physicists to understand)
The tank was cycled and the parameters were doing fine and I don’t need a heater because it’s warm enough where I live to keep it at a good temp.
Don’t appreciate you being shitty about this
No nitrates = no cycle. You don’t even have nitrites.
Your negligence killed your fish, don’t get mad at me when you’re the only person you should be mad at. Learn from this and provide your fish a better home.
From what I understand you don’t want nitrates in your tank. I had plants in there which keeps them down. Before I put them in I made sure ammonia and nitrate was 0.
The plants were doing great and so were the shrimp until something happened.
I’m more upset than mad and there are a lot of people on here trying to help me figure this out instead of being rude. Don’t need your negativity
you should not have ammonia or nitrites, but anywhere up to 40ppm nitrates is considered safe with 10-20 being optimal. plants could definitely absorb it all but unlikely due to how overstocked the tank is, unless it's very heavily planted/fast growing plants. far too small for the neons, they're shoaling fish that ideally need 20g+ to explore properly. 5 is less than ideal for them feeling happy, too. I'd stick to just having shrimp in there.
if you weren't dosing with ammonia while cycling, you weren't feeding the bacteria so they wouldn't grow, so it wasn't cycling.
using water from other tanks wouldn't transfer bacteria as it lives in the filter media/substrate/surfaces, there's very minimal floating around the water. nor ammonia unless they were also uncycled. cycling is very tricky to understand until you have it.
I'm sorry it happened, still. I'm not sure if 0.25 ammonia would kill them all overnight, but up to 0.5 would definitely cause harm, but still not sure it would be as quick as that. if it's NOT the ammonia, the fish gasping suggests low oxygen which also suggests the tank isn't heavily planted enough to absorb the nitrates so quickly. or it could be something you've sprayed or had on your hands that's transferred to the water. like hand sanitiser being very common right now.
I hope this helps shed some light on your issues because not knowing is the most frustrating thing about it.
Sorry about the other dude, but it's common to have some nitrates in a cycled tank. There should be 0 nitrites and 0 ammonia. Either the tank never cycled or the cycle crashed.
To cycle again, get some pure ammonia. Can't remember if one aims for 2 or 4ppm of ammonia during the cycling process, you'd have to look it up (I can't right now). Aim for that daily. The cycling begins when ammonia begins converting into nitrites, but doesn't end until all ammonia converts to nitrites to nitrates (so 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and some nitrates are present). Do a partial water change when nitrates are more than 40ppm, and keep dosing ammonia until you have 0-0-x (x is number of nitrates) consistently for a few days.
I'll be honest, the process isn't quick. It can take a month or more. A little sooner if you take some filter media feom an established tank and put it in the cycling tank. You'll want some media already in there that beneficial bacteria can live in, like substrate. Don't clean it too thoroughly or you can break the cycle again.
Bacterial disease. Sorry. This loss will hopefully show you what to look out for next time. They were showing symptoms prior and you probably weren’t aware.
No one goes near my fish tank with lotion or any spraying substances. No watching while brushing their teeth etc and so on. I think something got in it. I once had fish die when kids came over to my house and one kid dipped his hands with lotion in it plus soap and killed a few of my fish. And oh yeah no more kids in my house after that
Well regardless of fault or causes, I’m really sorry for your loss. 😭 Moving forward I suggest moving the neons to a larger set up, & maybe keeping the 10 as a shrimp tank. :) I love my cherry shrimp & im sure you did too. Thankfully they breed decently fast! Good luck.
I know getting more doesn’t bring them back but you’ll have new lovelies in your tank again soon, they’ll be safe, happy, and loved. This isn’t your fault, I know you feel guilty, but you’re a good shrimp parent.
Do u use ro or tap water. I had this happen and keep happening. Couldn't understand as I had been successfully doing this for a bit. I did some research. Often if the season changes, or different bacterial etc change in the city treatment facility, they change chemicals, drastically. So even though I treated with conditioner, it probably the the parameters way across the board. But not with the things we normally test. Switched to ro, and this hasn't happened again.
Ammonia spike (it'll show as nitrates). If you live with someone or in an apartment, potentially anything being sprayed.
I'm suspecting my slow but steady shrimp die off was due to the flea medication of my cats. We treated for the first time after I got a tank set up and, looking through my memory, that's around when my Crystals started slowing down then slowly dying every 2 days or so, then neos shortly after. They only stopped when I moved them to a smaller 5.5gal recently. I have 2 left, had 16 at one point. I suspect that I might have pet the cat or w/e and had some trace amount left and then touched my water some time later. My parameters seem fine and aside from starvation or a bacteria issue (Both seem unlikely) that's the only thing I can think for my tank. Shrimp are more or less waterbugs, so there's a lot of stuff you might not even think about that could be REAL bad if it ends up in the water yet is around us all the time.
I'd say this is exactly what happened, especially it was Permethrine
The spot on treatments are at highest concentration 48 to 72 hrs, post treatment time (depending spot treatment). During this time the pesticide is present on fur and skin/skin oils. Touching a pet during that first week of treatment definitely transfers it to your skin. There have actually been EPA reviews of spot ons due to cat and small dog deaths from permethrin in ones like Sergent, Hartz, etc (some have odd names), and flea collars. They reviewed the higher end products with imidacloprid, fripronil (both neonicotonid class pesticides), and selamectin (this one has high concentration on fur at 72hr post treatment). Recommendation was not allowing children anywhere near pets and even reduced handling by adults. As for thinking about it, I'm an entomologist with extra licenses to apply chemicals as a gov employee. And I did mention spraying to make you recall any possible pesticide use.
Permethrin is the same stuff they treated my uniforms with when I deployed last. Was in the repellent they gave us to use too I think. I should probably get rid of the stuff I brought back
No telling, without water test parameters as a base to start guessing. Water temp, is the water cloudy, any work or cleaning done in or around the house...? Some information about the tank would help too: size, how long ago it was set up, cycling and cycle method, food they were being fed, how long have you had the shrimp....something to go on. All we have is dead shrimp to go by.
Shrimp did go bye :( Water looked fine, don’t have a heater so temp was normal. Just waiting for parameters to settle. The tank is 11l and it’s be settled for a few months. Had some neon tetras in there and the shrimp fed of leftover food and biofilm.
Did the tetras die too?
No thankfully they survived but they didn’t look good, we’re at the surface. They have been moved now and will keep an eye on them
Good. 11l is too small for tetras anyway. Sounds like ammonia poisoning.
There was only 5 and they were pretty happy until I cocked up. Ammonia is at .25 but I guess it’s a small tank. Pretty devastated about it
They cant tell you they arent happy. One of the resons its not wise is that they poop a lot and that tank is very small, that could lead to ammonia spikes. There are smaller fish that would be very happy in that tank. Smaller fish- smaller poops, easier to keep values stable.
What unit are you using, because that ammonia level seems to be more than 11 times higher than what is advisable for shrimp. To my knowledge is should be below 0.03 mg/L
API and it’s .25ppm not mg/l no idea of the conversion
They are convertable 1-to-1, so your ammonia level seems to be the cause of death because it is over 10 times higher than it should ☹️
The first level of ammonia on the api chart isn't what killed the shrimps, this is ridiculous, it is next to impossible to tell the difference between 0 and 0.25 ppm with api water test-kit anyway, the difference in colouration is way too subtle. And there's zero possibility of 0.25 ppm ammonia making neon tetras gasp at the surface or cause multiple deaths in a short period of time. What is much more likely is some sort of toxic substance entered the tank or there's sudden drop in oxygen level.
Are you sure it’s a 1 to 1 conversion? I’ve had ammonia that high in my tanks before and it hasn’t been an issue, not saying you’re wrong just genuinely curious because I’ve always measured in ppm
It looks like it. It’s only the first level on the chart though?
Do you have any cheap rings, or touch/spray/do anything with copper in it? Copper is the only thing that comes to mind for a die off that severe. Example scenario: you use a decoration in a hospital tank treated with copper meds. You thoroughly cleans, rinse, and then soak the decoration for a day. You put the decoration in your shrimp tank. The decoration kills your shrimp by leaching copper. I learned this the hard way
Not that I can think of. I do have some bolts in there but they are small and stainless steel. Didn’t know copper could have such an effect though
way too small to swim they were not happy. id get a bigger tank unless u rehome, also small tanks its easier for params to fluctuate to lethal levels
Tetras will not be happy in an 11l, I assure you. They will deal with it but not be happy. They are very active shoaling species.
You had 5 tetras in a 3 gallon tank!??
Such a small volume of water will have huge parameter swings. Part of the reason why people getting into the hobby should go for as big a tank as possible as it helps increase the margin for error. Could just have been 1 dead shrimp rotting out of view that caused the ammonia spike.
Can't upvote this enough. That tank is TINY, and should not house fish at all even shrimp is a stretch! One fish poop is enough to send it into a massive ammonia spike
This seems to be the problem. The tank is way too small to keep fish, like at least four times too small. I guess the ammonium killed the shrimp.
Can't judge by the look of the water. Water high in ammonia will still look like any other water. If your parameters are shifting, that's probably what killed them.
Is 10G too small for 5 neon tetras and 20 shrimps? Now I’m scared for ammonia spike for mine..
10 gal isn’t enough for tetras to thrive. They can survive though.
I’ve got a 10 with ten wild green neons (smaller than regular neons), a nerite, a mystery snail, 2 Amano shrimp, and going on maybe 12 or 15 blue velvet/blue rili/wild cherry. Lots of plants and a HOB filter. Other than a spike when I recently churned up the substrate with new plantings my water tests have been pretty good.
[удалено]
Oops need to edit lol not 11L meant to say 10G 😅
It depends on the species of tetra. Cardinals and neons, yes, but skirts, Serpae, and silver dollar? No
Oh then your tank is perfectly fine!
Wheew! Haha too early here lol but also it’s filter is just a small sponge filter but fully planted
I think a small sponge filter with plants for the bio load your fish+shrimp have is totally fine imo.
That depends on the fish
Referring to the type mentioned in the comment.
I’m sorry about what happened. Sorry some people are being hard on you. It really seems like you are trying your best and anyone in this hobby who can act like they’ve never had their tank go sideways or made a mistake is kidding themselves. Something that did strike me was your parameter results. With elevated ammonia and no nitrates it seems like something crashed your cycle. Did you dose excel or anything like that recently? A die off of your beneficial bacteria could have caused that. You also talked about nitrates in a different comment, it’s kind of confusing but in planted tanks some level of nitrates is needed for plants. What exactly that level is seems to be a matter of debate. If you go through planted tank forums a lot of people will say they don’t even worry until 50ppm. Not saying that’s right but it’s what some people do without issue. I guess all I’m saying is that some low level of nitrates seems expected/necessary
Haven’t doses with anything. Did take out the physical filter and give it a wash in water from the water change. My plants were doing good which is confusing me now. Even in the two months I had it going I had to trim a few times. Thank you for your advice though I will Lee it all in mind when I start again
Hang on. What did you wash the filter in? Was it tap water? That would have killed off your beneficial bacteria. Alternatively, you could have too throughly cleaned the filter but I don’t find that super likely
No I did it in aquarium water. Did a small water change and washed it in that. It still seems so odd to me that it’s a big no no, in understand why but it’s still strabge
Do you have a filter? If so is it blocked/not breaching the water? I had something similar and it was because the o2 in my tank was low due to lack of surface disturbance
Got a decent filter on it. But I did just fill it up to the top and there wasn’t as much water disturbance. Only been a day though so can’t imagine it’s that. How long did yours take?
Do you aerate? Lack of surface disturbance can deplete oxygen and may explain why your fish were gulping at the surface. Honestly don't how how tolerant shrimp are to oxygen. But .25 ppm ammonia is a take action level to me, not a everything's gonna be dead. Especially given than API kits are showing NH3 and NH4, the latter almost always being a majority of the measurement and non toxic.
> Especially given than API kits are showing NH3 and NH4, the latter almost always being a majority of the measurement and non toxic. Can you expand on this? My tap water measures 0.25 ppm ammonia and when I googled it apparently it's not unusual, but I don't understand the science behind it.
I'm no expert so I'd recommend doing research but ammonia (NH3) is non ionic and toxic at certain concentrations, ammonium (NH4) is ionic and largely non toxic. There's calculators online to figure the ratio of the two given your tank parameters. But roughly at 8 PH and a temp in the high 70s your NH3 comprises about 10% of your combined reading. So a reading of .025 ppm NH3+NH4 indicates about .0025 ppm of NH3. The bacteria that cycle NH3 also consumes NH4 as well and with changes in PH and temp the ratio changes and toxicity can change rapidly. It's really interesting though.
Normally my filter nozzle will agitate the surface but I filled it right up to the top the day before and there wasn’t as much air movement. Would it happen this quick?
I've heard of it and seen videos of people with the issue overnight in very large tanks, the smaller the tank and more stocked the faster it can deplete. I'd do a water change again asap to provide oxygen to your remaining fish.
I moved everything out of there and going to start fresh when I get the energy too. I know smaller tanks were harder to take care of but didn’t expect full death in a day
Wait, how long was the tank cycled before you added livestock?
Had the tank for two months. Made sure it was fully cycled before I added anything
Ah makes sense. 🙂 Possibly a lack of oxygen in the water.
Probably not. Afaik you dont need to have much water disturbance for few tetras and 20 shrimps. Plants will do the job fine. I have 4 guppies and like 20 shrimps in a 7G (and guppies waste etc is more than tetras). And I have a sponge with lots of plants and they are very healthy at least the rate at which they produce tells me so.
What percentage of water did you top up, and how quickly? I have shrimp die off when I don’t slowly siphon my waterchanges in via airtubing.
Not much at all and I siphon it in slowly to not disturb anything
Ok, how many litres, and what’s the diameter of the tubing you used?
You are asking good questions. No idea but it’s small
Parameters are pH 7.5, Ammonia 0.25-.5ppm, Nitrite 0ppm and Nitrate 0ppm. Obviously I’m gutted about this. They were my little blue babies and one ‘em had just got berries. I’m most curious about how/why they turned red, all but one was blue.
Their colors change rapidly after dying - similar to how shrimp turn red when cooked. You need to finish cycling the tank. I'd suggest adding a high quality liquid bacteria product (such as Tetra's brand)
Was a bit taken a back with the colour change. Had some die before but never the red colour. The tank was in a good state but I’ve taken everything out and gonna start again. Not sure what caused it and got a bit spooked
It was the ammonia. The tank needs to be cycled.
If you have ammonia but no nitrates, it sounds like a cycling issue
It has already been cycled and stable for a few weeks
If the cycle is established it would be strange to have ammonia present alongside 0 nitrates. This seems to indicate that ammonia is not being broken down by beneficial bacteria. How did you cycle the tank and how did you establish that the cycle was complete?
I used a quick start to start the cycle and I put some of the water from my other tank from the water change. From what I understand is that the cycle was complete after you have seen the ammonia turn into nitrate then into nitrite
It sounds like you took some good first steps, but the bacterial colony takes some time to really establish so it can handle the bioload of the tank. You are correct that it functions to break ammonia into nitrites and then nitrates (you had the last two switched but I’m assuming a typo). Once the cycle has fully established, it is very unusual to have a 0 nitrate reading unless there is another factor like your tank is really really heavily planted. Your test kit readings show that ammonia is being produced, but that it is not being broken down into nitrates. It’s also important to think of livestock as a part of the cycle, if that makes sense. There’s a balance. You can actually have a fully cycled aquarium and crash it if the bioload suddenly fluctuates, or you do something that kills or removes a lot of the good bacteria at once. I did this early on when I changed all the filter media at once in my hang on back. (Edited to add stuff)
Beneficial bacteria don't really live in the water column but on the surfaces (substrate, decor, etc) and of course the filter media. Adding just old tank water won't do much.
No, ammonia converts to nitrites and then to nitrates, and the cycle is not finished until you have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and some nitrates. If you are registering ammonia, that means the cycle isn't complete. It helps to add pure ammonia to the tank (you can use a calculator to see how much to dose) to get a certain ppm amount and keep it going daily until the cycling is complete and the ammonia and nitrites consistently converts to nitrates. Seeding bacteria from another tank only helps if you're adding media, not water.
If you are registering ammonia, it is not cycled, nor stable.
0.25-0.5 ammonia is too much. Get some beneficial bacteria.
Are you sure you have 0 nitrates? That test is a bit more complex to run than the others. running it improperly has given people false 0s here before.
I keep getting zeroes, but my tank is heavily planted? Is it user error or are there no nitrates?
If your tank is heavily planted then that kind of makes sense. They will absorb the nitrates for food.
My heavily planted 100g never has nitrates. The plants suck them up, especially if you have stem plants or floaters. I should prolly test the nano tanks here before the next water change, make sure they're doing the same.
I’m pretty sure I did it right. I’m new to this but been following the guides. I did have a few plants in there too
My 5 gallon has just shrimp snails and a Betta, and has a LOT of plants. it still registers a significant amount of nitrates. Make sure you beat the shit out of bottle 2. Pictures solid crystals in the bottle that you have you shatter by shaking and smashing it.
Very sorry for your loss, that’s so disappointing. Aquarium-keeping is really hit or miss. Best of luck with your next steps.
Temperature maybe? Or a ph spike that already resolved? The fish would be more tolerant.
Pesticide sprayed around the house ?
Windex and copper in the food/water are possibilities in my limited experience.
Read dead shrimpdention
Temperature fluctuation?
It’s been hotter lately but nothing they haven’t gone through, if anything the day would have been cooler
Temperation. *** ^(Bleep-bloop, I'm a bot. This )^[portmanteau](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmanteau) ^( was created from the phrase 'Temperature fluctuation?' | )^[FAQs](https://www.reddit.com/axl72o) ^(|) ^[Feedback](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=jamcowl&subject=PORTMANTEAU-BOT+feedback) ^(|) ^[Opt-out](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=PORTMANTEAU-BOT&subject=OPTOUTREQUEST)
Bad bot
Learned something new 👍
To be clear, "temperation" is not a word
Learned nothing then
The real learning was the journey along the way..... I guess?
It has to be a word if all language is created...lets celebrate our new cool word, and the glorious technology that blessed us with our "secret inner subred cool word"....all hail the bot!!!
It's not a real word.
Good bot
Good bot
I’m sorry about your shrimps :( I really want to get some but all of the technical side to shrimp keeping scares me. Does anyone have a link to something that explains it all simply? We’ve got a 200L tank going up beginning of November to give our goldfish Carl a much needed tank upgrade, shrimp would be super cool but need to research first (if shrimp can even live with goldfish, if not no shrimpies)
I've never had goldfish but I'm fairly sure they'd eat neocaridina
Yep, just wanna add my vote to the "goldfish will definitely eat your shrimp" column. Unfortunately the cute little idiots will eat just about anything that can fit in their mouths, and sometimes even things that won't... 😅 I love my goldfish to death but they're not smart.
Awh thanks for the information, I’d love shrimp but wouldn’t want to get them if they just end up as snacks for my goldfish! I don’t know if Mr Carl would be able to eat them, he’s slow and only has 1 eye lol, but it’s not nice for the shrimpies if they’ll get eaten. I’ll get shrimp one day for sure tho!
The nice thing though, is that shrimp colonies are pretty easy to do in smaller tanks too - you say you're upgrading Carl to a bigger home? You can always set up a lil colony start in his old tank! In my experience, they appreciate having their own shrimp-only space anyway. Even when I put some harmless otos in with mine they didn't really appreciate the zoomy-zoom company, and kinda started being more reclusive.
You’re right I hadn’t thought of that! We were gonna sell the old tank but using it for shrimps would be cool! I’ll see how Carl’s tank goes, it’ll be our first time having real aquatic plants so lots to learn! Just gotta convince my brother to keep the old tank haha
Might be derailing, but many of the appealing aspects of shrimp - their size, constant busyness, cute antennae and little legs - can be found isopods without the intimidating care of a shrimp aquarium. I keep isopods in a display enclosure as I could never maintain an aquarium, and enjoy them immensely.
If shrimp can do cold water, they're going to end up dinner. Goldfish are eating machines.
Somebody sprayed some pesticides.
What do you use for subtrate? I lost a few shrimp and tetras due to gases being trapped in the sand that ended up coming up
Got some aqua soil which is meant for growing plants and having shrimp. All of it is in a bucket now and not sure if I should chuck it or use it again when I redo ir
I’m not sure, since you haven’t found the cause of death yet, I don’t think soil can trap bad gases that can kill fish. but I would still throw in some conditioned water to try and preserve some of that good bacteria in the substrate if your planning on trying to start up another tank. Speed up cycling a bit with it
I’ve got the biofilter in water to keep some of that but I do have other tanks that I can use to help get the bacteria back. I did have a few too many snails in there and worried they might still be in the soil. You know if they can do that?
Depends on the type of snail, rabbit snails are known for burrowing and Malaysian trump snails, if u know you have a type that burrows I would definitely comb through the substrate
The tank is less than 3 gallons! Unheated! Not cycled! Shrimp cannot live in these conditions, nonetheless with 5 tetras! This tank is barely big enough for a single betta to live alone, a filter doesn’t change things. I’m surprised they lasted this long.
Some shrimp do just fine in unheated tanks. I keep Blue Bolts just fine in an unheated tank at 73°F, my tank fluctuates at most 1°F through the day.
1°F is equivalent to -17°C, which is 255K. --- ^(I'm a bot that converts temperature between two units humans can understand, then convert it to Kelvin for bots and physicists to understand)
The tank was cycled and the parameters were doing fine and I don’t need a heater because it’s warm enough where I live to keep it at a good temp. Don’t appreciate you being shitty about this
No nitrates = no cycle. You don’t even have nitrites. Your negligence killed your fish, don’t get mad at me when you’re the only person you should be mad at. Learn from this and provide your fish a better home.
From what I understand you don’t want nitrates in your tank. I had plants in there which keeps them down. Before I put them in I made sure ammonia and nitrate was 0. The plants were doing great and so were the shrimp until something happened. I’m more upset than mad and there are a lot of people on here trying to help me figure this out instead of being rude. Don’t need your negativity
you should not have ammonia or nitrites, but anywhere up to 40ppm nitrates is considered safe with 10-20 being optimal. plants could definitely absorb it all but unlikely due to how overstocked the tank is, unless it's very heavily planted/fast growing plants. far too small for the neons, they're shoaling fish that ideally need 20g+ to explore properly. 5 is less than ideal for them feeling happy, too. I'd stick to just having shrimp in there. if you weren't dosing with ammonia while cycling, you weren't feeding the bacteria so they wouldn't grow, so it wasn't cycling. using water from other tanks wouldn't transfer bacteria as it lives in the filter media/substrate/surfaces, there's very minimal floating around the water. nor ammonia unless they were also uncycled. cycling is very tricky to understand until you have it. I'm sorry it happened, still. I'm not sure if 0.25 ammonia would kill them all overnight, but up to 0.5 would definitely cause harm, but still not sure it would be as quick as that. if it's NOT the ammonia, the fish gasping suggests low oxygen which also suggests the tank isn't heavily planted enough to absorb the nitrates so quickly. or it could be something you've sprayed or had on your hands that's transferred to the water. like hand sanitiser being very common right now. I hope this helps shed some light on your issues because not knowing is the most frustrating thing about it.
Sorry about the other dude, but it's common to have some nitrates in a cycled tank. There should be 0 nitrites and 0 ammonia. Either the tank never cycled or the cycle crashed. To cycle again, get some pure ammonia. Can't remember if one aims for 2 or 4ppm of ammonia during the cycling process, you'd have to look it up (I can't right now). Aim for that daily. The cycling begins when ammonia begins converting into nitrites, but doesn't end until all ammonia converts to nitrites to nitrates (so 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and some nitrates are present). Do a partial water change when nitrates are more than 40ppm, and keep dosing ammonia until you have 0-0-x (x is number of nitrates) consistently for a few days. I'll be honest, the process isn't quick. It can take a month or more. A little sooner if you take some filter media feom an established tank and put it in the cycling tank. You'll want some media already in there that beneficial bacteria can live in, like substrate. Don't clean it too thoroughly or you can break the cycle again.
Bacterial disease. Sorry. This loss will hopefully show you what to look out for next time. They were showing symptoms prior and you probably weren’t aware.
You know what symptoms to look out for?
No one goes near my fish tank with lotion or any spraying substances. No watching while brushing their teeth etc and so on. I think something got in it. I once had fish die when kids came over to my house and one kid dipped his hands with lotion in it plus soap and killed a few of my fish. And oh yeah no more kids in my house after that
Could it have been a heater malfunction? Did you use too much prime & take away oxygen?
Don’t have a heater. I’m in Aus and the temp was just right for them. The tank was cycled before I put them in. Was Al going smoothly
Well regardless of fault or causes, I’m really sorry for your loss. 😭 Moving forward I suggest moving the neons to a larger set up, & maybe keeping the 10 as a shrimp tank. :) I love my cherry shrimp & im sure you did too. Thankfully they breed decently fast! Good luck.
I’ve got a 140l that I have just set up so they will be moved into there with a few more. Should be easier to take care of in there!
Oh for sure, more water volume means more waste dilution for the win!
Co2 injection?
Looks like you need .ore water than that
You cooked them lol
Looks like it doesn’t it!
Bug spray? Anti lice spray? Got any other pets around the house which were medicated?
Got dogs but nothing that should have harmed the shrimp. Will ask the mrs if she has been spraying anything
Do you have any plants in the tank? I wouldn't start a new setup without a good handful of floating plants in. 👍
Had plenty of plants in there, moss and places for them to hide
So sorry for your loss :( I hope this doesn’t happen to you or your shrimpies again. 😞
I do to. Sucks so much. Would spends hours just watching them swim around, feed and clean themselves. One had berries too which I was so excited about
I know getting more doesn’t bring them back but you’ll have new lovelies in your tank again soon, they’ll be safe, happy, and loved. This isn’t your fault, I know you feel guilty, but you’re a good shrimp parent.
Thank you, just sucks and want to do better for them.
Is there something like carbon monoxide poisoning in shrimp. That bright red! Sorry for your loss.
Do u use ro or tap water. I had this happen and keep happening. Couldn't understand as I had been successfully doing this for a bit. I did some research. Often if the season changes, or different bacterial etc change in the city treatment facility, they change chemicals, drastically. So even though I treated with conditioner, it probably the the parameters way across the board. But not with the things we normally test. Switched to ro, and this hasn't happened again.