Tank not doing well...

[Loudness]

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My 2ftx1ftx1.5ft(H) tank. Near 3 month old. Today, i have another death of crs. No idea why, water parameter are ok. (activated carbon are added 2 weeks ago)

Crs from 10 dropped to now 3. Previously 4 of them have no problem for a week. I also have 10 sakura/fire red inside. When i first introduce them in, 2 sakura died the next day. So far all the sakura shrimplets are gone.

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Frogbits not doing well too. Those micro hair are gone. Roots also rotting. Some young leaf also start to rot. Previously add hornworts, but all rot within 2 days, causing a mess in tank.

Water parameter:
Ammonia: 0
No2: 0
No3: 25 (just water change 2 days ago)
Ph: 5.5
Gh: 3
Kh: no test kit
Tds: 160
Temperature: 24.5 - 25.5

Equipment:
Atman df-1200 packed with mr aqua cr and some biohouse.
K1 media attach to sponge filter
Haelia hc-150a

Was advised to add mosura rich water for the plant and reduce plant stress, but doesn't seems to help. I also do 10% water change every other day to improve water quality, using drip method, about 10 hours to fill the tank.

Just to add on, when i cycle the tank. I over dose vermex, baxter white worms away, baxter white worms and snails away and no-planaria. But did more than 10, 90% water change before introduce any shrimps. Could this be the cause?

Any advise or what should i change?
Lastly add a picture of the shrimp.
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[alvinchan80]

Vermax might have seep into your soil already.. Might be a long term issue...

[Loudness]

Vermax might have seep into your soil already.. Might be a long term issue...

That's what i fear... Any advise? I already have activated carbon inside

[alvinchan80]

Frogbits not growing or rotting sounds like due to water being too acidic if not wrong.. What light are you using? Enough for plant growth?

What soil are you using, by the way?

[Loudness]

I'm using 3ft light for my 2 feet tank. 2x36w PL light for 8 hours a day
9 litre of ada new amazonia on top and 3 litre of H.E.L.P soil at the base with a bottle of mosura old sea mud

[reiner09]

Probably vermex is the problem as mentioned by bro alvin. no-planaria shouldn't cause much of a problem,afterall it is a product made for shrimps. what you can do now is probably try to add more activated carbon( run it with a canister or HOF) ... and by the way changing water every 2 days is tad a little too much , try lessen the frequency .. more haste less speed so do be patient and leave it for the activated carbon to do its' job. you might want to dose addition old sea mud powder in (according to your water volume) as it is written to have some absorbant abilities ( for poisonous stuff?)..

[Navanod]

Your water parameters looks perfect so something else must be killing the shrimps.

Vermex & no-planaria should not be an issue. It's been such a long time and with waterchange and carbon filter, it should be gone by now and wouldn't be "hiding" in the soil. The drug should also breakdown naturally as it is not a copper based poison as far as I can gather (its a worm specific drug that targets the worm's digestion enzyme if I'm not wrong).
However, I'm not so sure about baxter white worms and snails away. Snails medications are normally copper based and any residue elemental copper can be very toxic to shrimps and even plants.

Check to make sure you don't have any "non-aquarium" purpose plastics, rubber or silicon in the tank or in contact with your water.
A slow die off coupled with all shrimplets lost may be some other plasticizer toxins in the water that may leech from plastic. Mainly eggs, and rapidly growing/molting shrimps (esp shrimplets) are affected. I learnt the hard way about this just recently.

Lastly, try to put that carbon filter bag somewhere where the water is forced through it, rather than just floating it near the rain bar. Don't be shy about putting more carbon and changing them more often. You can find carbon filter wool (3pcs of 1ft long) at C328 for less than $4 that may work faster than packs of charcoal.

As for the frogbits, based on the yellowing of only new leaves and the even disintegration of old leaves and roots, I suspect its simply potassium or iron deficiencies, which are very common in shrimp tanks since the normal waste mainly produces nitrate/ammonia (nitrogen) and phosphate.
You can try dosing some seachem potassium (or whatever potassium ferts you can find) and see if that'll help. Seachem flourish may also help to replace all the micro-nutrients although its not a must at this point.

The key is to under dose and just give enough to stop the plants from dying. Monitor your TDS when dosing potassium as it will increase.

I cannot be sure what is wrong, so I hope at least one of the above methods can help you.

[Loudness]

Ok i'll place the activated carbon in the canister, and get more of it. Maybe tomorrow will go to lfs check if baxter snails away contain any copper, if there is, believe i would need to change my soil.

I have seachem flourish, but don't dare to dose due to the copper it has. Anyone know if it's safe? Or is seachem potassium safe for shrimp?

[Navanod]

Flourish's copper is not in the elemental form and is not toxic, I use it and its safe in normal doses.
Potassium on its own is very safe and other than its effect on TDS is one of the safest ferts. That's why I either dose the seachem version (which is more or less pure), or in the old days, potassium nitrate (which is no longer available become it can be used to make explosives, sad).

Try the activated carbon first before you go throwing out your soil...even copper can eventually be removed by carbon filters. Note that adding alot of activated carbon will remove some acidity as well and you may see your pH climb up slightly. So don't be too alarmed if you see pH changes.

Good luck

[Loudness]

Flourish's copper is not in the elemental form and is not toxic, I use it and its safe in normal doses.
Potassium on its own is very safe and other than its effect on TDS is one of the safest ferts. That's why I either dose the seachem version (which is more or less pure), or in the old days, potassium nitrate (which is no longer available become it can be used to make explosives, sad).

Try the activated carbon first before you go throwing out your soil...even copper can eventually be removed by carbon filters. Note that adding alot of activated carbon will remove some acidity as well and you may see your pH climb up slightly. So don't be too alarmed if you see pH changes.

Good luck

Noted! Thanks alot. Tomorrow i'll get seachem potassium and more activated carbon.

[Loudness]

I'm abit confused with tds reading. Lets say my tank tds is 160. The water i going to top up has tds of 100. Will the tds increase or decrease?

[reiner09]

I'm abit confused with tds reading. Lets say my tank tds is 160. The water i going to top up has tds of 100. Will the tds increase or decrease?

let's say 50% of 160tds water and 50% of 100 tds water then you probably get 130tds? so if 2L of tds 100 water is changed into (let's say 50L of tds 160 water )..it will probably make not much difference...it goes by proportion ..

but top up is abit different..if water evaporates it means that the tds(tank's water) will increase and by adding additional water in( of lower tds) it will not affect (decrease) the tds very much.. abit difficult to express but yeah..just abit of math here and there..

[huizhong]

How old are your light tubes? How many kelvin? They may be too old for your plants too

[Loudness]

How old are your light tubes? How many kelvin? They may be too old for your plants too

I'm not sure how many kelvin, 1 tube replaced 2 mths ago. Another one quite old already. Maybe it's not light problem? As my spiky moss are growing well but slow. Mini fissiden also starting to grow after getting used to the water.

[huizhong]

maybe it's time to change 1 of the old tube.
may i ask where do you get the styrofoam to contain your floating plants from?

[gryphon]

Best of luck to solve the mysterious deaths.
I suppose you are feeding shrimp food from the usual shrimp-related brands?
Lift up your SS meshes to confirm that they are not rusting.

[Loudness]

Bro huizong,

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This is how i do it. Have a small opening so at least have some surface movement. The styloform board can easily get from c328.

[Loudness]

Best of luck to solve the mysterious deaths.
I suppose you are feeding shrimp food from the usual shrimp-related brands?
Lift up your SS meshes to confirm that they are not rusting.

Yup. All shrimp related brand. Ss mesh will rust?! I didn't know that. Looks like it's better to change it to driftwood

[felix_fx2]

LFS sold ones normally not so easy to rust. But which grade i am not too such... (doubtful if LFS worker will know)

This will article will help you. I learnt this from a certain AQ member.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_steel_grades

[Loudness]

LFS sold ones normally not so easy to rust. But which grade i am not too such... (doubtful if LFS worker will know)

This will article will help you. I learnt this from a certain AQ member.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_steel_grades

Mine are from LFS.. But nvm. I have change it to driftwood. Provide more hiding space for shrimps, but lots of blind spot for me