What is going on with my setup?

[Youngming]

Hi everyone. Will like to seek for an answer or perhaps help on why are my shrimps keep dying off slowly like every 2-3 days 1 dead. Here are the setup details:

- 1.5ft tank
- 8w led lighting (on 5hr daily)
- Istan HOF 280L
- sponge filter M size
- borneowild shrimp substrate
- some Christmas moss and moss ball
- temperature 28 to 29 degree (maintaining with cooling fan)
- PH 6.2, GH 6, KH 1, NO2 0, Ammonia 0
- 2 × Cory, 1 x oto, 2 x horn snail.
- 25 × mixture of sakura and cherry shrimp

Some history,
Tank has been running since start of the year. Started off with crs but realised that my simple setup won't work for them so downgraded to fire red/yellow than snow white and now sakura and cherry. Initial ph was 5.3. Increased it slowly using crushed coral to now 6.2. Topping up the tank with mixture of life distill water and treated tap water.

[Shrimplicity]

Ph abit low, temp too high should be around 25 for crs, max 27~28 for cherry

[Youngming]

Alright.. looks like is either I get a chiller or increase the running hours of my fan to maintain at 27°c. And also more coral chips.

[panoramaview]

Hi Youngming, i have cherries and sakuras housed at around 29°c doing fine with a pH was around 7.4 with some coral chips in the tank.

[Youngming]

Thks panoramaview. Will increase the ph and observe first.

[Dscheng]

Cherry can be quite hardy. Can tolerance quite wide range of water parameters. How the shrimp dead? Molting problem? What is your TDS reading? Do you dose anything that contain copper?

[Youngming]

TDS reading is 155. Suspect is molting issue too because will found dead one when there is molt lying around.

[Dscheng]

Post a picture of your setup. Based on your water parameter should be fine.

[Youngming]

20151110_125929_resized.jpg20151110_130011_resized.jpg

Here's my setup. found 2 casualties today.
As of today, the readings are
PH 6.4
TDS 165
GH 6
KH 1
Amo 0
N2 0

[Dscheng]

You have HOF and a sponge filter right? Any bio media use? Your water parameter seem ok to me. What is the white thingy top right hand corner?
Do you dose any fertilizer or other chemical that contain copper? You should know it will be very deadly to shrimp.

Erm, what about nitrates reading No₃ and what type of cory?

[Youngming]

Yes. I have some small larva rocks and Azoo active 4 in 1. The white packing are the remaining azoo active that can't fit into my HOF. I don't have reading for NO3 but my NO2 is 0ppm. Cory will kill shrimp? Anyway the dying of shrimp started before the Cory is added.

[Dscheng]

Please check your nitrates No3, if too high, cherry will not able to make it. How is frequency water change?
Which type of cory? Usually cory wont attack adult shrimp, but they will snack on your shrimplet.

[Youngming]

20% Water change once a week. Sometime once every 2 weeks. I do water change when tds reading is more than 180.

[Urban Aquaria]

The rest of your water parameters look okay... but do get a nitrate test kit, your series of test results are incomplete without it.

If nitrates are high, just do more frequent water changes, reduce feeding and clean the filter more often. Adding more fast growing plants can help soak up the excess nitrates too.

Btw, since your tank has been running for almost a year now, if most of the dead shrimps are the larger ones... it could just simply be the old ones reaching their "expiry" date (especially if they were already adult size when first bought). Shrimps generally have relatively short lifespans.

[Youngming]

Alright. Will get a test kit for nitrate. Thks for all the replies.