why are my ghost shrimp dying?

[plah831]

i used to have great luck with ghost shrimp. they bred all the time, lived for 2+ years. recently, though i've lost 3-4 shrimp in the last 2 weeks. they seemed to do better when i was bad about tank cleaning and had terrible black beard algae.

now i change 50% water every week. ammonia and nitrite are zero. i add nitrates for my plants, but less than half the recommended dose. phosphorus and potassium are also added at about half recommended. i also add traces for plants, and 1 ml iodine after every water change in a 29 gal.

the shrimp get white (milky) before they die, like they're about to shed. i found one that was milky sucking on a dead one for all it was worth, like it needed the life juice from it! i thought the iodine would help with what i thought was molting deaths, but it hasn't.

what should i do? i plan on getting a bamboo shrimp sometime, but i want to make sure my tank is invert-safe before that.

 

[beckham0237]

You dont have any locahes in the tank do you?

 

[plah831]

yeah, i do, but they've always been there so why would they start eating them now after nearly 3 years? besides, the bodies of the shrimps are totally intact.

 

[beckham0237]

Ok, that was really the only thing I could think of, I've heard that Dojos and other loaches can be rough on inverts

 

[nerdyguy83]

When you do the more frequent water changes are you vaccing the gravel? If you are vaccing the gravel regularly and removing your black algae, you are removing a food source for your shrimp. Because I keep my 10g pretty clean (regular vaccing), I can only keep 2 shrimp in it at a time. Any attempts to keep more have resulted in dead shrimp within 24 hours. The two that survived the night last time I added more are now almost twice the size they were initially, and seem to be doing fine. I tried using algae wafers to sustain them, but my mollies love the things and devour them before the shrimp get anywhere near them.

 

[plah831]

my shrimp are getting plenty to eat. i see them eating flakes, taking bites out of the bottom wafers, even picking off some live worms and snails. because of the white coloration, i think it's some kind of chemical imbalance or deficiency, but i can't figure out what exactly.

i am going to get some shrimp pellets, tho, to supplement them.

 

[Chickieepooh2u]

Do they need extra calcium? I've been having the same problem with mine. Months ago I had 17 ghost shrimp, I ended up with only one big one left. I went out and got some more and they seem fine (for now). Only guppies in with them.

 

[plah831]

maybe i do need calcium. although i have pretty hard water (GH = 14 degrees, KH = 8, and plenty of lime accumulating on surfaces), so i assumed i wouldn't need any.

thanks to everyone for trying to help so far.

 

[flyfly]

I have heard that there are two species of ghost shrimp, one fresh water and one brackish, but it is very difficult to tell them apart.

I know I read that here but I dont remember who from, but I do know that I split a batch from the local petsmart into two tanks, my original 20g simple with fake plants and a few small fish and 10g brackish with bumble bee gobies. The ones in the freshwater tank all died deaths like what has been described but the ones in the brack tank lived until I took the tank down. (roughly a year)

 

[plah831]

hmm, that may be it. most of the shrimps that died were all from the same store (Petsmart). knowing their track record, it's very possible that they had the species in the wrong place. one of the deaths was of a girl i had for over a year (she was one of the babies bred from my original pair). i don't know if her death was related, or she was just old, but she seemed to have the same symptoms.