this is long.... but please read i need help!!! shrimp keep dying....

agoutihead

agoutihead

Member
here is the low down on my situation... i have a 55 gallon tank with about maybe about 30 or 35 lbs of live rock, it has been up and running since the begining of november. i put this in my wall so i dont have a skimmer but i have an ehiem 2217 filter with i believe two bags of carbon in it. i have two micro pump/powerhead which does 100 g/hr in the top left hand and the bottom right hand corners.... for lighting i have a 48" coralife deluxe series double linear strip with lunar aqualight. it consists of two 65 watt true actinic 03 blue and 2 65 watt 10,000k day light straight pin compact floresent lamps and 3 3/4 watt lunar blue moon glow led lamps.
living in the i water i have about a dozen different snails, half a dozen hermit crabs, one electric blue hermit crab, a chocoloate chip star fish, a pink tip anneome with a anenemoe crab. two emerald crabs, one pink emerald crab, a porcelin crab, two conk shells, lawnmower blenny. i also had three damsels until today i have a blue damsel, a black and white striped one and a purple and blue one.
today i opened up my 10 gallon hospital tank and put the black and white one and the blue one in that tank because i want to being to get other community fish.
everything seems to be living perfectly.... but shrimp.... they usually die within minutes of me putting them in there.
i did a 10 gallon water change earlie today and just tested my waters now.... nitrate - 0 nitrite - maybe 0.1 amonia - 0 - ph - around 7.9 or 8.0
all of my levels have always been perfect, my ph has been a little low here or there like it is now... but nothing serious.
i put in a chemical the other day that was called ph 8.2 or something and it brought my ph to the perfect 8.2 but something keeps buffering it out. and i dont know what.
so far i have lost a blood shrimp, a coral banded shrimp and two cleaner shrimp. please some help me out im desperate!!!!!!
 
pontius

pontius

Active Member
do you literally mean "within minutes". if there is a calcium deficiency, the shrimp could have trouble molting and this could be fatal. many new shrimp will molt on there first night in a new tank. but I don't know if this would kill them within minutes.
also, you need to get some kind of ph buffer. I used PH 8.2 upon setting up, and then used Kent Marine Buffer. I stopped using that and started using kalkwasser when I got ready for corals. in almost 6 months, my ph hasn't budged from 8.2 to 8.3. if yours is moving down that quickly, something is wrong. use the buffer to raise alkalinity and the ph will eventually stabalize at around 8.3. if you don't have a sufficiently high alkalinity, your ph is apt to crash at anytime and kill everything in your tank.
 
agoutihead

agoutihead

Member
yeah i literally mean within minutes. i had my first fire shrimp, and i believe that died because that night my tempurate raised 10 degrees because i turned up my heater and forgot to turn it down. but the coral banded shrimp i realized was dead the next morning and the two cleaners both died with in minutes... i dont know why they died. my salinity is at .20 or .21 maybe that is the reason? everything else seems to be doing alright though. i used a buffing chemical every week... like dk buffer or something like that i dont remember. my ph is the only thing that fluctuates and i dont know why. as far as a calcium defeciency... i dont know... i dont have a test kit for it... but i add my calcium like im supposed to.
 
agoutihead

agoutihead

Member
for an hour putting a cup of my water in the bag every 10 minutes or so. it was fine in the bag and so was the porcelin crab i got (that died yesterday too) when i open the bags from the fish store to put water in them, all of the air escapes... i dont know if that effects anything or not? the porcelin crab seems to be doing fine, but like i said the shrimp died with in minutes. i know my salinity is a bit low... but is it really that bad? i mean everything else is doing perfect... chocolate chip and pink tip anenome are great!!!!
 
agoutihead

agoutihead

Member
ok the pink emerald crab i got yesterday, i just realized hes dead now too. he was alive a couple of hours ago i know... i dont understand!!!!!!!!
 
bigarn

bigarn

Active Member

Originally posted by agoutihead
bout, 77 or 78...... i mean everything is perfect
I could be wrong, but I think the temp is low for inverts. I think this combined with the low salinity could be the problem. Just my opinion. :D
 
barry cuda

barry cuda

Member
1. Has the tank ever been treated with copper? I'd suspect your CC star and anemone might not have lived this long if copper was the culprit, but it's worth asking.
2. The low-but-readable ammonia is a problem. Ammonia should always read 0 - if you're able to detect any at all, I'd be looking for a dead animal or checking how much you're feeding. IMHO this could be contributing to the crustacean deaths, along with the low SG. In my experience it doesn't take much of a spike to kill emeralds...don't know about shrimp.
 
agoutihead

agoutihead

Member
no i have never treated my tank with copper, i have been luckiy with no outbreaks yet with the fish, thought hey have only been damsels so far. umm my amonia was 0, it was my nitrite that might have read about 0.1 - maybe. what should my temperature be? i have a thermometor and i try and keep it in the middle of the purple around 75 - 78
 
barry cuda

barry cuda

Member

Originally posted by agoutihead
umm my amonia was 0, it was my nitrite that might have read about 0.1 - maybe.
My bad, I misread your original post. Although detectable nitrite isn't exactly desirable either.
 
agoutihead

agoutihead

Member
i use tap water and then i put prime in it. i have really good tap water where im at. i dont think a ro machine is in my budget right now... besides... what would i do with all of the water in my tank now?
 
barry cuda

barry cuda

Member
Umm, evaporate it and sell the salt creep as "gourmet sea salt?"
:D
But seriously, if you do go R/O there's no need to change all your water. You'd just start using it for topoffs and mixing salt for your normal water changes. Even if you have good tap water, it is probably still much higher in nitrates & other things than R/O would be. IMHO it's a good investment, even if it does sting a bit up front.
 
meadbhb

meadbhb

Member
Hiya,
I'd definately raise the temp to 80 degree's and increase you're salinity to .35.
Also, you might want to try the drip method on acclimating your shrimp. Putting a cup of water in the bag is very stressful. If you don't use the drip method, try a 1/4 cup every 15 minutes for an hour.
Meadbhb
 
agoutihead

agoutihead

Member
you think 80 is a better temp for everything? what is s.g. is 35 salinity? currently like i said im around .21 right now. so you think doing just a full cup of water over an hour is better than 4 cups over an hour? but isnt that still not really enough water to get him adjusted... he was doing fine in the bag... and once i put him in the tank he walked around for a few minutes... then his legs curled up and he died. so far im down 5 shrimp.
 
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