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Yes test strip not accurate. Your water parameter look ok to me. Cherry quite hardy and can withstand large water parameter. Good luck.
To all experts here,
I just started my low-tech shrimp tank (bloody mary, fire red, blue diamond) 3 weeks ago and have some questions regarding the water parameter as I am still facing 1-2 shrimp death almost daily.
PH: 6.0
KH: 4-7 (using test strip, so not reading not precise)
GH: 3-6 (using test strip, so not reading not precise)
TDS: 140
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10
Temperature: 27-29C
Food: Shirakura Minima Breeder and Azoo Max Breeder
I am using a simple ANS 3000 cooling fan to bring down the usual temperature from 29C to 27C.
After each water change, I will just dissolve a pinch of Shirakura Mineral powder.
Question 1:
Are my water parameters ok? Is temperature still too high and TDS not high enough?
I can't seem to find out the cause of the daily shrimp death.
Question 2:
I noticed the rest of the shrimps would feast on the dead ones. Is it advisable to let them feast on the dead shrimps? Or should I remove the dead ones so that it doesn't degrade water quality?
Any advice from the experts will be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
shrimp1.jpg
shrimp2.jpg
Yes test strip not accurate. Your water parameter look ok to me. Cherry quite hardy and can withstand large water parameter. Good luck.
Your parameters look okay... other than the GH and KH being measured with test strips (at this point we can only assume they are okay).
If your shrimps have only been added into the tank recently, the dead shrimps could just be the weaker ones that couldn't overcome the initial stress of transport/introduction or could not adapt in time to the new tank environment (they die off slowly over a period of time). Keep monitoring the shrimps and see if any more of them die over the next few days, eventually there should be no more deaths as the remaining shrimps are the stronger ones.
Its usually a good practice to remove any dead shrimps you can find to reduce the rotting carcass adding extra waste/ammonia into the tank. If the other shrimps are eating the dead ones, its normal behavior for hungry shrimps, as they are excellent clean up crew.
Thanks Dscheng and Urban Aquaria for your advice.
I just bought the API GH/KH test kit. Will test the water tonight for more accurate readings.
By the way, any advice how much I should feed the shrimps? Once a day? Twice a day? Or once every 2 days?
Parameter looks ok, don't over feed them, I normally remove left over food after 3 hours.
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It depends on your tank plant density and age... if you have a mature tank (> 6 months old) with alot of plants, then you can feed much less (around once every few days is sufficient) as the shrimps will be able to graze on the bio-film and micro-fauna that grow on the plants.Originally Posted by Yongliang
But if your tank is still relatively new and sparsely planted, and you have a large shrimp population, then more frequent feedings may be required to sustain their numbers (daily feedings in small quantities that they can finish within 15-20 minutes).
Its all a matter of observing the shrimps (do they swim over and crowd around the food immediately? or the food stays uneaten for a long time?) and monitoring the water conditions (are the ammonia and nitrate conditions stable? Not rising?)... with those factors you can roughly gauge how much and how often to feed.
Oh dear, just tested with API drip test kit... results are so different!
PH: green.. seems slightly less than 7.0.. tested many times... used test drip.. showed lower than 6.4... i don't know which is right
GH: 5 drips to change colour
KH: 2 drips to change colour
Is PH close to 7.0 ok?
The API liquid test kit is more accurate, use those results. Paper test strips are notoriously inaccurate so its quite pointless to use them.
PH closer to 7.0 is fine for cherry shrimps, they can adapt and live in a wide range of pH levels. I keep cherry shrimps in tanks with pH 7.2-7.4 without issues.
The only thing you need to watch out for when pH is close to 7.0, is if you do water changes with higher pH water (usually our local tap water has alkaline pH 7.4-7.6), it can momentarily shift the tank water pH up past >7.0 alkaline level. In a new tank that uses active soil substrate and hasn't established a stable cycle yet, small amounts of ammonia that is present in the water could turn into its more toxic form while the pH is higher, which can affect livestock.
Thanks so much Urban Aquaria for the insightful information. The test strip tested same 10ppm nitrate everyday. Now i am worried... maybe i should get a nitrate liquid test!
Food wise, most of the shrips would dash for the food immediately... now feeding twice a day.. in the morning before work n night before sleep...break the slabs into smaller pieces but they are very tough to break
Yeah, it's better to just get the API Freshwater Master Test Kit, as it contains all the necessary tests (pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) in one package.
Btw, what soil substrate are you using in the tank?
I am using ANS planta soil.. is it ok?
Its okay, just that active soil substrates such as those tend to release ammonia for a while, so the tank would usually be going through a cycling process for around 4-6 weeks (sometimes longer).
It could be possible that your tank is still cycling and the test strips are not picking up the fluctuations in parameters, so just have to monitor the livestock to gauge the water condition.
I have been facing the same issue in the past. Usually in the morning and I am sure they died in the midnight after lights off.
So I have been suspecting if it's due to competition of the plants and bacteria. As I planted the plants on the 2nd day right after WC, so probably the bacteria hasn't build up its colony yet and the plants competed with them. So it slow down the cycling of the bacteria?? So once lights off, ammonia spike due to plants stop taking in nutrients and bacteria colony not well establish enough to adsorb the excess ammonia.
XD It's just my rubbish theory. Not proven.
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