# My strange cherry shrimp experience - long read



## yum

This is a bit of a read. Hope you don't get bored. It's Friday and I have a lot on my mind so I'm rambling a bit.

So, I started keeping RCS in my 20 gallon El Natural tank some time ago (2 years?) and they adapted well and started breeding without any intervention on my part. I barely change the water and usually top off from my brita water pitcher. Tank mates ranged from red flame guppies, ottos, pygmy cories, snails, etc. Nothing aggressive or that could harm the shrimp.

Then I noticed as time went by the shrimp went from a deep brick red, to a more orange and lighter and ligher shade. I thought perhaps it's b/c I have very low lighting (less than 2 watts per gallon) or that it was light brown substrate (Schultz aquasoil). None of the spawn ever became as large or as red as the original "big mama." Around the same time I noticed my pond snails and MTS seemed to be dying early with thin shells. So that got me thinking that something was missing from my water that was necessary for good shell growth. So I started adding "Snail milk" to the water every so often and also dropped in common egg shells. Nothing seemed to bring back the color or size. But they seem happy and active and still breeding, albeit small and not so intensely red.

On a lark, I tossed in a dozen shrimps into my dad's 55 gallon along with a couple assorted plants a few months ago (mainly 2 swords, bacopa, guppy grass, potted in soil capped with gravel). His tank is not really well cared for, it's got a HOB penguin filter, assorted color gravel, plastic plants and packed to the gills with assorted mollies. Let's just say less than ideal conditions. So, I thought the plants would improve the water quality and provide some shelter for the shrimp. Aside from the general lack of water changes, I was really thinking the shrimp would be quickly gobbled up by his 2 clown loaches. I'd visit every once in a while and peek into the tank to see how things are going. The shrimp were usually hiding and surprisingly not eaten yet.

Fast forward about 4 months and KABLAM! Cherry shrimp population explosion in my dad's tank. I'm talking plague proportions. Every inch of the tank covered in super red giants! I'm completely at a loss for an explanation. He doesn't take any special care of his tank, borderline neglectful at times. He is not careful with his water changes, doesn't monitor a thing and feeds basic flake food to the entire general populace. I think that once the guppy grass started to fill in a bit, the shrimp had a place to feel comfortable and safe. Then the first population boom happened. He's since cleaned out a lot of the big mops of the guppy grass and then the second population boom happened. Oddly enough one of the remaining mops of guppy grass is centered around the intake of the HOB filter. LOL. The lighting in his tank is much brighter than mine but he rarely turns the lights on. He only turns it on when he gets home for a few hours at night whereas I have mine on a timer from 7am-9pm. During the day it gets a bit of ambient sunlight but that's it. Another strange thing is that the fish in his tank seem to be dying off, the mollies have stopped spawning and one of the mollies and a rasbora have an odd growth on their head. It would be a fair assumption to say that when the fish dye, they aren't scooped out immediately (if ever) and the shrimp make a feast of it. Could that possibly be it? Ha ha! He's raised a horde of carnivorous cherry shrimp! I thought for sure the clown loaches would feast on the shrimp but these shrimp are fearless. I have no idea what the shrimp eat since he doesn't feed them anything specifically for them and you know what greedy eaters mollies are.

So this past week, I scooped about a dozen of his monsters and put them into my tank. These were easily double the size of my adult shrimp and the colors just off the charts. It's been about 5 days and I think that the "dad shrimp" are starting to lose their intense red color. I included a bunch of egg carrying females from my dad's tank and I'm very curious to see how they turn out.

What's the deal? Everything in this scenario seems to contradict what the experienced shrimp keepers have stated. Any ideas on how to bring the color and size back in my tank? I live in Chicago and he's a few miles from me in the 'burbs so water should be about the same. He does have a large conche shell in his tank. Could that be the source of his powers?

On a side note, I set up a small half gallon el natural with a couple shrimp in there and the single female became more red than my dad's batch. I'm talking blood red and extremely dense but not very large. This small tank has top soil, capped with black gravel, some bacopa, guppy grass, moss balls. I also rarely change the water and just top off.

Speculation: could the larger tank size explain dad's larger shrimp? Could my shrimp simply be dying young like my snails?


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## James He

EI requires weekly 50% water change, am I right?

My experiece the shrimp doesn't like bright light. I cut back lighting and shrimp started to carry eggs and I stopped dosing any fertilizer.


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## Sugar Cone

As for the coloration, could it be food? Maybe your dad's fish food has the right stuff in it. Like, if salmon and flamingos didnt eat all the carotene they do they wouldnt be pink. Maybe its similar with shrimp?


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## ObiQuiet

Interesting! I'm curious to know the answer also. So, *bump*.


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## Dryn

I would also like to know the answer. I am betting that it has more to do with the tank size and possibly diet (protein is good) than anything. Can you post a better water analysis?


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## yum

Mini update: the "dad" batch of shrimp have definitely lost a significant amount of their color. Since adding them I have increased the amount of food I put in the tank, supplementing the crushed flake with hikari mini wafters and algae discs. They're eating well and I think that some of the berried females I brought in have dropped. It won't be long before I start to see juveniles of significant size to judge color but seeing the adults lose their color so quickly in my tank doesn't give me much hope of a new generation of red shrimp. 

In answer to some of the questions/comments: El Natural doesn't promote water changes.

Don't think it's the food that is causing my dad's shrimp to be so much brighter since he does not take special care to feed them. It's plain old Tetra Min. I don't think there is much extra food that falls down for the shrimp. Really not sure what they're scavenging to eat in his tank. Algae? My best guess is either the rocks or a large/old conch shell he's had in there forever.

Maybe it is the light... my small cylinder near the window doesn't get much direct light and the single female in there is really red. I think my next experiment will be to cut my lighting time in half and see what happens!


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## James He

yum said:


> Mini update: the "dad" batch of shrimp have definitely lost a significant amount of their color. Since adding them I have increased the amount of food I put in the tank, supplementing the crushed flake with hikari mini wafters and algae discs. They're eating well and I think that some of the berried females I brought in have dropped. It won't be long before I start to see juveniles of significant size to judge color but seeing the adults lose their color so quickly in my tank doesn't give me much hope of a new generation of red shrimp.


I believe food is key fact as well as micro elements in your tap water.
If you don't do water change very offen. you may loss some key micro elements over time which will effect shrimp body color.

I didn't understand this part:


> brita water pitcher


Is it RO/DI water from this pitcher?

My guess:
snail with thin sell means lack of Ca.

One more question, what's your tank water's PH value?

James


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## NatalieT

James He said:


> I didn't understand this part:
> 
> 
> yum said:
> 
> 
> 
> Brita water pitcher
> 
> 
> 
> Is it RO/DI water from this pitcher?
Click to expand...

Things like this: http://www.brita.com/products/water-pitchers/
You put water in the top of the pitcher, and it runs through a filter into the bottom section, then you pour it into a glass when you want a drink. Basically, it makes tap water taste better. I don't know what kind of filter is actually inside it.

I know from experience that it doesn't remove all that much stuff from the water.


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## James He

NatalieT said:


> Things like this: http://www.brita.com/products/water-pitchers/
> You put water in the top of the pitcher, and it runs through a filter into the bottom section, then you pour it into a glass when you want a drink. Basically, it makes tap water taste better. I don't know what kind of filter is actually inside it.
> 
> I know from experience that it doesn't remove all that much stuff from the water.


I read the manual, it includes active carbon and ion exchange resin in the filter.

So it is a water softener. remove the Calcium and Magnesium from the tap water, add a little bit Sodium into the water.

I will suggest to top off by using RO or DI water.
Add GH booster to control the stable GH level.

Regards
James


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## Gordonrichards

Hmmmm. Weak snail shells... bad diet.

Purchase hikari crab cuisine.
Feed to shrimps and snails.

They need a variable diet


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## ObiQuiet

Gordonrichards said:


> Hmmmm. Weak snail shells... bad diet.


Does this mean you think the symptoms are due to low calcium in particular?


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## mikeykc

Thanks for posting this yum! I'm very interested to see the outcome as well, as I plan on keeping RCS' in my 20 L.


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## Stormy_87

My guess would be that your interbreeding your red cherry shrimp to much. Usually professional breeders breed rcs from different sources. The reason being that interbreeding makes the offspring weak and usually unhealthy. I would recommend for you to buy some rcs from different sources to strengthen your shrimps bloodline and see if that helps.


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## mikaila31

My experience says calcium deficiency won't effect the shrimp.

I made a thread on here about my use of softened water on my planted tanks. My snails tipped me off a long time ago that there was something missing from my water. It was confirmed that I had at least a calcium deficiency. They did this, was kinda neat IMO.... lol


















This is a shrimp in the same tank taken at the same time. I don't feed mine anything really.... I overfeed to make sure they get some food. They didn't show any signs like the snails did...


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## NatalieT

Stormy_87 said:


> My guess would be that your interbreeding your red cherry shrimp to much. Usually professional breeders breed rcs from different sources. The reason being that interbreeding makes the offspring weak and usually unhealthy. I would recommend for you to buy some rcs from different sources to strengthen your shrimps bloodline and see if that helps.


That doesn't explain what the original poster noticed: Shrimp in one tank became pale. Some of their offspring were introduced to another tank and became bright red. Some of their bright red offspring were, in turn, put back in the first tank. The very same shrimp became pale within a few weeks.

This appears to happen to each individual shrimp: in one tank they're brighter than in the other.

Of course, the most likely explanation is "something different about the food or water"--but no-one's yet figured out exactly WHAT the difference is.

I'm personally inclined to think it's something about the diet: either the particular kind of fish food fed, or the protein from the dead fish mentioned in the first post (dead fish aren't scooped out promptly in the tank with the bright shrimp), or maybe there are some kind of small organisms living in one tank that are too small to see but make good shrimp food.


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## yum

mini update:

thanks for posting the images of the snail shells. that looks just like what my snails look like. that is a really nice red shrimp btw. so jealous!

yes, regarding the inbreeding, NatalieT is right. no new shrimp stock has been introduced to either tank so inbreeding in my dad's tank would also have resulted in dull color and small size.

i have been putting in a lot of food lately. there are only 3 guppy fry and they aren't eating a ton. i put in a pinch of flake food, a pinch of hikari mini wafers and one broken algae tablet. the shrimp swarm the sinking pellets and wafers right away and they are certainly eating a lot. i have also adjusted my timer so there are a few hours of darkness during the middle of the day.

i seem to have another planaria outbreak on my hands. it seems uncertain as to whether they harm shrimp or not but my dad's tank does not have any. i have observed that shrimp recoil pretty sharply whenever they touch one while scavenging for food. they don't just shy away slightly but jerk back quite a distance; just like when a large fish approaches too closely. i dosed the tank with dewormer before to kill the planaria and it did get rid of them for a while with no noticeable affect on the shrimp. thinking of dosing the tank again.

also worth mentioning is that my stealth heater broke again and i have since not replaced it so the tank is room temp; which is about mid 70s now. i've got a new heater to put in this weekend and raise it back up to low 80s.

some of the things i'm doing might be working. i have observed the color loss on the large transplants seem to have leveled off and some of the smaller juveniles seem to be more red.


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## A_Shea

i would say do more water changes, change the diet, and add some more cherries of a different strain in to strengthen up the stock. I read an article from tfh in the, "ask jack." The writer was keeping discus for a very long time in his tank. All of his water quality specs were perfect to the T. The discus were very healthy and growing well with no problems but one. Their color was very dull and out of the ordinary for discus. He did water changes once a week of decent proportion, just as jack recommended. however he was only using ro/di water. ro/di water is completely pure and has no minerals or elements. tap water does. jack said that there are specific elements and minerals that promote and aid to the colors of the fish so using just ro/di water would fade their colors. maybe there is something of this nature going on in your tank. think about it


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## wicca27

I feed mine every couple days frozen brine shrimp mine are bright read


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## ObiQuiet

I happen to have a setup that could be used to experiment with this -- just one data point, though.

The main tank has ~10-15 really red RCS. I took one red berried female and put her into the Q tank to allow the young to hatch and grow large without fish around.

In the last two weeks, this female has lost nearly all the red color.

There are a fair number of uncontrolled variables between the two tanks:
* Different chemistry, though the QT gets its top-off water from the main tank's water changes.
* Different temperature.
* Different substrate (black gravel in the display, none in the QT)

Similarities are fish food and plants.

My guess is that it's the substrate color causing the change, so I'm trying to think of a way to easily turn the bottom black without actually adding gravel.


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## yum

Sorry for the lack of updates everyone. Been pretty busy with work. Tank is also somewhat neglected. Plan to do a nice size water change today and some plant trimming. I will try the suggestion to top off the tank with treated tap water and some frequent small water changes.

The black substrate could very well be a major factor. I think I mentioned my small window side tank that has black substrate and the female in there is incredibly dark red. The one oddity, however, is that my dad's gravel is a hodge podge of various colored gravel and their color is still pretty red. The difference in color is that my dark red cherry is more like a dark matchstick red, whereas dad's is more of a bright fire engine red. I speculate that it could be that he disabled his light timer for a long time, so there are long periods of darkness in his tank. I've since turned his timer back on; it's been a couple weeks now and I'm curious to see if the color has changed b/c of this.


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## ObiQuiet

yum said:


> it's been a couple weeks now and I'm curious


I think the most interesting question raised by your original post was the shrimp size & population differences between the two tanks.


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