# Shrimp Die Off, Tank Crashing



## Gordonrichards (Apr 28, 2009)

Ugh. A word to the wise, keep up with your water changes people, and don't forget to siphon your gravel out.

One of my breeding tanks started to crash, it crept up on me, did a 50% water change two days ago, 25% today, half of my crystal shrimp population down the tubes.

Emptied house, put them all in a spare planted tank and have crossed my fingers they don't die from shock. Only 2 S+ females and 5 grade A+ females left.

Maybe 18 +/- males.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF


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## giypsy (Oct 6, 2009)

Empathy emanating.
I just went overkill on filtration for my grass shrimp.
Thanks for the reminder, I am due for a vac.


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## CincyCichlids (Oct 14, 2005)

Do you see any planaria in there too? That happened to me years ago and there was a HUGE planaria explosion in my tank... 

Sorry to hear, I KNOW your pain well.


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## Gordonrichards (Apr 28, 2009)

There were always planaria in my tanks. I attribute it to that.
After pulling them out I've lost another 4 females.

I have only 5? berried females left. I'm royal pissed. All I need is one of them to survive though. "crosses fingers"
1-2 more weeks till they pop.


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## chrisjj (Dec 14, 2009)

hi, 

Hope you've managed to keep the survivors?

I'm now to all this....

All's well in my tank so far (6 weeks old) & I do a weekly water changes, but what is meant by "siphoning the gravel" & should I be doing it to prevent a crash.


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## Gordonrichards (Apr 28, 2009)

So far so good. Lost almost all of them actually. Moved them to a 20 gallon, probably an additional 10 or so died.
I think there are only 2 females left that are berried...
I can almost call it a lost cause.

Water changes are good, siphoning the gravel means that eventually particles of food and crap will get stuck in there. If you don't clean it up, and enough crud builds up, water quality goes down.

Eventually the tank can crash, so you want to keep cleaning everything.

I now have about a quarter inch of substrate in two breeder tanks. No more 1 inch for me!


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## chrisjj (Dec 14, 2009)

Mmmmm....

I have 2 to 3 inches of gravel & it's all planted so cleaning it will be difficult.

Oh well, I'll just have to see how it goes!

Cheers


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## Gordonrichards (Apr 28, 2009)

get a glass dish for the food. Siphon the food out after a few hours.


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## tex627 (Nov 2, 2008)

Gordonrichards said:


> So far so good. Lost almost all of them actually. Moved them to a 20 gallon, probably an additional 10 or so died.
> I think there are only 2 females left that are berried...
> I can almost call it a lost cause.
> 
> ...


i would have to respectfully disagree with you on this. In all of my shrimp tanks (5 tanks) I use soil and I dont ever vacuum the substrate, everything is fine. I cant even remember the last time I cleaned the filter. It must have been at least 5-6 months. not cleaning the filter and hoses on a canister for shrimp tanks is actually a good thing. it lets anaerobic bacteria colonize and get rid of nitrates. this might be the reason why my plants arent doing very well but after all its a CRS tank and the crs are doing well so im happy.

you dont need to keep everything clean, in fact, you dont want everything too clean anyways. you might accidentally get rid of too much nitrifying bacteria.

Bacteria in the tank will take care of the waste of shrimp, fish, and other wastes that turn into ammonia. so the "crud" should not be building up. water changes are usually performed to get rid of nitrates and other nutrients that are toxic only in high levels to fish and shrimp, not solid wastes and ammonia.


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## Gordonrichards (Apr 28, 2009)

I'm at a loss here. For some reason the tank crashed and I had death after death. Shrimps were all 3-5 months old or so. 
Everything seems good now that I transferred them to my 20 long, it might be more stable there, I have no clue. 

I hope that the remaining females end up hatching their eggs and I get some survivors. Hopefully one of them got pregnant off a white I had.


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## praxis5624 (Apr 22, 2006)

Sorry to hear of your losses.


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## Gordonrichards (Apr 28, 2009)

Thanks, everything seems to be holding at this point.
Maybe 10 adults survived, and there are about 6? shrimplets, I can see their coloring which isn't too bad, so some of them will survive.

You only need one pair you know?
I'll try again in the spring.

Cherry shrimp on the other hand, are booming. Hundreds. They are now being eaten by my german blue rams. muhaha


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## Gordonrichards (Apr 28, 2009)

*Replanting some of my 20 long crystal tank, siphoned out around 13-15 babies*

Thankfully found more fry in my tank! May my colony survive!!!


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## dhavoc (Mar 17, 2006)

i feel your pain. have had it happen to 2 tanks now. all seems to be fine and slowly they start to die off for no apparent reason.  first tank was a 15g that i had running for 1.5 years (crashed a year and half ago). trashed the whole tank, lost all but 10 or so of over 150+. the survivors are now creating a new population in a ada mini-m in my bathroom. second was a 20g that replaced it. it just crashed last month. same thing, all was fine and they were breeding like rabbits. then slowly they started to die off. didnt notice till only 30 or so of the 200+ remained (tank was extremely heavily planted, and i wasnt pay it much attention). of those, the last 5 are now on their last legs in the mini-m. i put them there only because they are the last of my higher grade CRS (hino's) and i hope some of the genes get passed on with a last breeding. i lost all of my mossuras and flower head (pure white with only a small dotted patch on the head) and there were alot of them...... tore that tank down as well and dumped everything (gravel, rocks) donated the plants or fed them to my crays.

tank is now cycling with the new azoo gravel, last 2 were with AS1 and AS2 respectively. tanks had a high filtration rate, and i never cleaned the canister filters on them. i really dont know what happened to both tanks. expect to order more high grade CRS and start over again in a month. tank is almost cycled already, just need to get the courage to dump another few hundred on new stock.. 

trying out a matten filter setup for crays, will see if that works as good or better. the germans use them alot, as do many breeders in asia. basically a sponge filter on steroids. 

rant over. good luck with yours. oh and if your survivors are already pinkish in the body, sorry, but they are on the way out and probably die shortly.... my puffer never ate so good, i fed any recent deaders to him, and he got to eat ALOT.


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