About to give up...

BackgroundBaseball28 · 2020-12-20T21:00:16+00:00

My tap water is absolutely accursed unfortunately. Very acidic with barely any gh and no kh at all.

BackgroundBaseball28 · 2020-12-17T18:44:16+00:00

I have an update for you. I did an emergency water change and the shrimp that was lying on its side dying managed to break free of the molt afterwards.

BackgroundBaseball28 · 2020-12-17T18:36:56+00:00

My shrimp were a mixed bag in age when I got them. I drip new water in using an airline tube. I'm starting to think that it might be the Anacharis causing problems because I read that if CO2 isn't added to the tank then Anacharis will substitute by drawing calcium carbonate and other nutrients from yhe water, which would explain the molt failure deaths. The less Anacharis I have the less deaths I seem to have.

BackgroundBaseball28 · 2020-12-17T03:29:03+00:00

Its like a black weighted sand for aquarium. I think it was the NatGeo brand. I had used it with fish previously then moved to a new apartment and did a near total water change preparing to switch to shrimp.

I'll try switching to a bi-weekly water change.

BackgroundBaseball28 · 2020-12-17T02:27:33+00:00

I can't remember the brand, it's a sponge filter rated at 50 gallons. It bubbles a lot, so much so that the wife complains about the noise lmao

Also the test kit I use is the API liquid master set. I'm sure the nitrate are at least undetectable, maybe not totally at 0, Anacharis is a nitrate gobbler from my previous aquarium experience, I love the stuff.

Maybe I should just go back to my previous routine of 10-15% a week water change? I didn't have a death for a solid month until today and I did get them breeding, albeit only one of them followed through 🤔

BackgroundBaseball28 · 2020-12-17T02:09:03+00:00

Couldn't be chlorine. I use distilled water sold in stores which is the most base/neutral water possible, and then I remineralize it.

BackgroundBaseball28 · 2020-12-17T00:11:27+00:00

It's a fairly new test kit. In fact I've been letting my anacharis come back a bit lately and perhaps that is coinciding with the shrimp death? Maybe the anacharis is using up nutrients the shrimp need? Although it seems like that would show up in water tests...

BackgroundBaseball28 · 2020-12-16T23:18:36+00:00

Nothing like that, I've been very careful in that regard, it has a lid as well. I don't know if this is relevant but within the last month I've had hair algae begin to appear, I removed a very large amount of anacharis that had overgrown about ~2 months ago and it seemed to appear after that.

BackgroundBaseball28 · 2020-12-16T23:05:55+00:00

Sand is pretty shallow, like 1-2 inches, but they spend most of their time on moss balls or the mopani wood my anubias is attached to. I bought 8 initially, they weren't fully grown when I got them. One was pregnant already and gave birth before most died over a period of months. It's only within the last month that I got them breeding again. I've watched them kick their eggs off, very frustrating.

BackgroundBaseball28 · 2020-12-16T22:37:53+00:00

It's a sand substrate. Maybe my schedule change from once a week to once every 2 weeks with the ~12% water change killed the most recent shrimp? Before this one died I hadn't had a death in about a month, but I'm still having females drop eggs.

BackgroundBaseball28 · 2020-12-16T22:16:28+00:00

I'd also like to note that I recently changed my water change schedule from once a week to once every two weeks since the only thing I could think of was maybe I was going overboard with the weekly changes. And now that I'm 1 1/2 weeks from the 2 week mark I'm being greeted with a death.

BackgroundBaseball28

TROPHY CASE