Another Reason To Change Water...

[Navanod]

Originally Posted by Xmant

Navanod, I'm not surprise that your shrimps died under your care due to your way of WC.

Originally Posted by berber

wow! bro 40%-50% / week, no wonder your shrimps are dying! too extreme already.. try 10%-20% / week

I also thought it was crazy at first, but they were fine for the last 6-8 months and were growing and breeding like rabbits.
I was careful to age the water, adjust the GH to maintain at 8 and monitor pH/nitrate closely.
This is even a planted tank, with excel/EI fert dosing and CO2 injection.

Yes, it all sounds crazy, but if those are the reason for deaths, why only after so many months?

The only thing I changed was I switched to Seachem Prime a few months ago as well as started dosing Benibachi stuff. That's why I suspected TDS and sulphur.

[saddyboi]

Originally Posted by Navanod

Thats good to hear. How long have you been using it and how much WC did you do per week?

I've been doing 40-50% WC per week for the last 8mths and I followed the 5ml per 200L instructions on Seachem prime.

opps.. sorry din follow up this post.. hehe.. i change ard 10% twice weekly.. used for 1~2 month then tried shizhen and my shrimps started getting berried.. so off goes the seachem prime to my gf's tank and welcome shizhen..

[Xmant]

Originally Posted by Navanod

I also thought it was crazy at first, but they were fine for the last 6-8 months and were growing and breeding like rabbits.
I was careful to age the water, adjust the GH to maintain at 8 and monitor pH/nitrate closely.
This is even a planted tank, with excel/EI fert dosing and CO2 injection.

Yes, it all sounds crazy, but if those are the reason for deaths, why only after so many months?

The only thing I changed was I switched to a few months ago as well as started dosing Benibachi stuff. That's why I suspected TDS and sulphur.

1. What shrimps did yours breed like rabbits? CRS?? How many were there in your tank?

2. What did you use before you switched to Seachem Prime?

[Navanod]

Originally Posted by Xmant

1. What shrimps did yours breed like rabbits? CRS?? How many were there in your tank?

2. What did you use before you switched to Seachem Prime?

Mostly Fire Reds (in the thousands), but CRS too, but I was picky and culled many breeders because they were yellowish.
Was using Genesis from my previous tank (which prob also introduced sulphur).

I was considering my WC routine after yours & Berber's comment (by the way Ber, your CRS are still ok, it was the yellowish CRS from colorful and my initial anyhow buy batch that died)
Big water changes are not the norm and I know I was trying my luck just to follow EI dosing's SOP. But was it necessary?
EI dosers does big WC because they don't test their nitrate and phosphate and were worried about buildups. I'm testing weekly and there were never any buildups...in fact, I had to double dose on certain weeks because nitrate hit zero. Technically, if I monitor TDS (which is the only unknown), I can get away with small WC as well...

Although I'm not sure that WC killed them, I agree with your advice that its of benefit to spilt up and reduce the amount of WC in the future.

I think I'm seeing improvements already. Only 1 dead FR today.
They're not dropping like flies...I'm losing 1 or 2 a day out of a few hundred shrimps, many of which are still reproducing. But it's still worrying...

Coming back to the topic...you don't think its the anti-chlorine/sulphur thats killing them? Just long term stress of large WCs?

[Navanod]

Just ordered a TDS meter

[Xmant]

IMO Fire Red are less sensitive to large WC as compared to CRS. That's also explained why your Fire Red are still doing well. However, it is best not to do too large WC. No matter how well you can mix and match the WC water to your tank water, there will still a difference between them. More sensitive shrimps such as CRS, BDS, tiger & etc may not able to take it.

[Navanod]

Originally Posted by Xmant

IMO Fire Red are less sensitive to large WC as compared to CRS. That's also explained why your Fire Red are still doing well. However, it is best not to do too large WC. No matter how well you can mix and match the WC water to your tank water, there will still a difference between them. More sensitive shrimps such as CRS, BDS, tiger & etc may not able to take it.

I agree with you bro. I think my CRS shrimplet population survival rates could be improved upon.

With that being said, most of the recent deaths are from the FR colony, which is quite puzzling since the CRS are supposed to be more sensitive. CRS are also dying but not as often.

I think there's some improvement after the 50% change with Shizhen on monday. The shrimps are more active and suddenly alot of moulting, even the yamato. Found a dead juvenile FR this morning though...hope thats the last of the sick ones.
Whatever's killing the shrimps should be something in the water...if the dying stops after switching to shizhen, then I'm going to say its something in Prime, likely the sulphur.

Will report again, thanks for the advice guys

[dnsfpl]

imo you must continue the same routine when using shizhen to conclude that prime is the culprit

hope you find the cause asap

[Navanod]

Originally Posted by dnsfpl

imo you must continue the same routine when using shizhen to conclude that prime is the culprit

hope you find the cause asap

Hahaha!! bro you're right!
But would I want to use my tank as experimental subject? Hmmmmm...actually, I haven't changed my change routine YET. The last change was also 50% because I want to clear whatever it was in the water that's causing the problem.
So if based just on that last 50%, and the dying stops, can I still conclude?

Originally Posted by Navanod

(by the way Ber, your CRS are still ok, it was the yellowish CRS from colorful and my initial anyhow buy batch that died)

haha! good to hear that bro! how are the shrimps i sold you? the colors still okay???