Amano turning pinkish

[NeonJulie]

I have (3) amano shrimp in my 20g work tank, with (2) snails and a few golden white cloud minnows.

The temp is 75-77, the pH stays at 7.2, there's no ammonia that I can tell (unless a temporary spike from the overnight deaths), no NitrItes and 20ppm NitrAtes.

One of the amano's started by getting the dots on him more red, and then the next day they were even more red, and now he looks pretty pinkish allover. The other two amano's are still the typical green/blue/brownish. He's very bright in comparison, and I'm worried since the only pink amano I've seen died...

Anyway, he's eating and working fine, and the three of them have been stacking up on to eachother (which made me nervous but it looked like they were cleaning eachother off?)

Do I need to be concerned? Do amano's change color to pink shades and stay that way for days at a time? Is there something wrong?


Thank you all for your help, I've never had these guys before and I <3 them each!!!

[NeonJulie]

It died today. That's ashame, no one else in the tank did (none of the white clouds, snails, or the other 2 regular colored amanos). The temp was at 76, but I'm not thinking that's too hot for an amano. pH was 7.2, no ammonia, nitrites. Wondering if the swinging temps and water changes were too much for it, but it's been pinkish/red colored for about 5 days straight.

I guess no one had any insight about this, wonder if that was the reason he died, or some other reason.

[Arakkis]

It was probably stressed out. The pink color in the body is it's own protiens de-naturing

[NeonJulie]

!!! Oh no, that sounds awful...

[msjinkzd]

I am sorry I missed this post, usually dramatic color changes in shrimp are a sign of impending doom. There is no way to know how old your shrimp was when purchased so it could have died for numerous reasons. I usually try and keep my nitrates at 10 or under in my invert tanks. SOrry for your loss :(

[NeonJulie]

I don't think he was very old because he wasn't full grown. With the other two bought, they were all probably 3/4" to 1" so it would have grown more. :/

I don't know what to do about my NitrAtes - they never change! I have 11 moderate to high plants in there! For a week, there were only (2) fish (not much of a bioload!) There is a fair amount of algae, but I haven't gotten rid of more than half of since I don't want to risk running out of food for them, and the snails.

I do more than 50% water changes about twice a week, and still, even the next day, the NitrAtes never budge. I clean the filters out of any goop, I rinse the sponges in tank water every few days... I have to assume there is deathly remains still in the tank or substrate from the losses previously.

The other thing is the substrate is mixed, it's the larger normal gravel size, with the finer Flourish. It makes siphoning kind of challenging, but it still gets stirred up - not that I find anythign to vaccuum up really.

The plants, some of them, are kinda fluffy/fuzzy. Maybe there's some rotting going on whiel they try to recover from the low light of before, and the mailing process (it's only been 1-2 months since they were shipped in, so there's still some fuzzy/brown stems and leaves.)

Also I see remainders of spongey-material that the plants shipped with that were caught in the roots. I'll try and do another water change today or tomorrow. The good news is all the new guys, and the two that survived the unfortunate discussed above, they all appear to be doing well?

I mean, I know 20 NitrAtes aren't great, but if it always stays at 20, would they adapt?

[Arakkis]

Shrimp are fickle guys, all sorts of stuff can spell doom.