Shrimp Catastrophie - Need Help

James0816

James0816

AC Members
Feb 14, 2007
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Man, I gotta tell ya, I'm facing my worst disaster ever here and am completely totally clueless. And this is all occurring in one tank - one species!

Here goes:

10g - Occupants: Oto's, Tiger shrimp and one Yellow shrimp (from my original starting shrimp days believe it or not).

The past few days have been nightmarish and today is no exception. I'm losing 20+ shrimp per day in this tank.

I've been doing 25% water changes. I haven't dosed in ferts. Water parms from test yesterday show the following:

pH: 7.2 - NO3 - 20, NH3 - 0, Temp has been flucting prior to yesterday between 70 at night and 80 during the day.

I suspected a bad heater and replaced it with a know good one. I come home today and temp was 84! What the #$@%!!!!!

Immediately turned on the air stone. Fished out another near 20 deceased shrimp. I'm lost. Completely and utterly lost. My whole Tiger colony is at jeopardy and I can't seem to fix this.

At first I suspected bad water, which is why the water changes were being done. I have since ruled that out since all my tanks are using the same water source and are flourishing. The Oto's are fine. The one lone Yellow shrimp that is the oldest shrimp I have is fine. This is only happening to the Tigers.

And another kicker, 95% of the fatalities are adults. I have lost a few babes but not many.

There has been absolutely nothing added to this tank. No changes in feeding, filtration, lighting, plants, etc.

I'm getting ready to check the TDS and I'm suspecting these are going to be high with the way the temp was fluctuation.

In a word .... HELP!

At wits end here and just no clue where to turn. I thought about pulling out a few Tigers and putting with my Dark Greens but I believe they would cross and that wouldn't be good. I need to see about relocating some to save the colony from this plague.

If anyone can lend any possibilities in this, I am allllllll ears. Can the temp flucutuation cause this much destruction even though not that huge (except for today)
 
idk man but thats terrible. im sorry for your losses. i hate heaters and keep my shrimp tank at whatever room temp is (there just cherries) no heater on my multie tank and a heater on my 20 bolivian tank just because they like it hot.
 
Update: TDS is not a factor. It's at a perfect 136; right in target range.
 
Do you have anything funky hanging in the substrate? I would also go bare bottom QT tank with the side colony. Pull a sponge filter off a different known good tank and maybe some forage plants from a seperate tank as well.

Keep up the water changes there, see if they can stabilize in a tank without substrate. Completely anecdotal with no scientific basis, but I know it seems every time I have ever had a tank with unexplainable deaths the frustration lead to a substrate change which seemed to stop it. Seems all them nooks and crannies were breeding grounds for "something".

And I know this is exactly zero help.
 
Nothing in the substrate that would stand out. I'm still leaning on this heater issue but can't believe it would be this huge of an impact. Time will tell as I get the temps back where they should be.
 
Carnage continues. Just got home and pulled out yet another dozen or so out of the tank. Mainly babes now as that's pretty much all that's left. There are still a few adults. Couldn't net them out so what I did in a sense is do a 10% water change using the syphon tube to pull them out and refilling with spring water.

Also packed the filter with carbon. Temp still looks good at around 77. It may be back to normal but I'm going to drop a few more degrees intentially due to this issue.

The quandry I have now is trying to save the colony.

I have a couple of feasible options but not that great:

1) A well established severely overgrown 5g that is currently housing (2) guppies and (10) RCS. The baby Tigers might be too small for the guppies but there is a ton of cover.

2) Is a 'junk' 10g that is only half filled. I got some AquaSoil a couple weeks ago that came out of an established tank (courtesy of macclellan). This tank isn't near ready for full setup as it is still cloudy from the substrate and I just threw some plant clippings in it. Some MTS came with it and they are doing fine in the tank. I can fill the tank the rest of the way with spring water and hope for the best.

I want to pull at least (13) babes from the Tiger tank as a back up colony.

If anyone has any other thoughts or suggestions, I am alllllllll ears.
 
I am sorry that you've had so high of a mortality rate. I understand that you've tested the water in your tank(s) for solids, and I assume that you've tested the usual parameters (pH, Ni, etc...). However, have you tested your source water for changes in chemistry?

I *think* that the problem is caused by a trace element, that is stressing the shrimp. I'm lead to believe so by the pattern produced by the die off. Adults have a harder time handling stress than young shrimp. It is also possible that the deaths may be caused by a disease or parasite, but they're usually obvious signs (bioluminescence, a white string visible in the shrimp). Have you closely examined any of the corpses?
 
I wonder if it's possible that you some how got hit by a virus or other pathogen. The issue with breeding these kinds of things is that your genetic pool tends to hit a bottle neck because you're essentially line breeding these shrimp with no new genetic input. As such, if one is susceptible to a pathogen, chances are, they're all susceptible to it.

If you're using city water, it's possible that something has gone awry with the water chemistry -- perhaps something that you wouldn't or couldn't test for. The spring water should help, but I'd be inclined to suggest getting distilled or RO water. Just make sure you're slowly incorporating that into the tank. Your shrimp might not be the healthiest if something is causing them to die en masse, so any sudden changes in water chemistry (including things you can't/don't test for) might be enough to push them over the edge.

I'm sure there are other considerations, and it could easily be a combination of factors...the fact that your yellow shrimp is fine while the others are dying off does kind of suggest that there may be some genetic component to this. How long have you had the same shrimp stock? Maybe it's time to buy a few dozen new shrimp off another breeder to introduce some genetic variability into your shrimp?
 
pixl8r said:
However, have you tested your source water for changes in chemistry?

Have you closely examined any of the corpses?
Click to expand...

I have ruled out the water source as a possibility as this issue is occurring in one tank only. All other tanks and shrimp are fine. As well, the deaths are only in the Tigers. Oto's and Yellow shrimp that are in the tank are just fine.

I haven't examined the corpses because to be quite honest, I wouldn't know what to look for. To me, they look like a regular expired shrimp.
 
digitalphrage - interesting item of note. I can't fathom that a genetic disorder would just suddenly appear from the out of the blue and wipe out an entire colony though.

I will definately be introducing new blood into the colony (if it makes it).
 
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