so i purchased a few yellow neos from shrimpfarm.com a few weeks back and it seems that they are slowly dieing off in my tank. one by one ive been finding dead ones at the bottom of the tank on the substrate untouched by anything. i have them in an 8 gallon with a bunch of rcs and rcs shimplets and an albino bristlenose. any ideas to why they are the only ones dieing off?
yellow neo deaths
- Thread starter oobydooby
- Start date
Not an expert, but RCS are hardier to ph levels than most shrimp. Have you checked the levels in the tank? What's the temperature? Are they dead, or just not moving along the substrate? I've had Amano shrimp do this to me a few times, and it was all based on water quality. When you find them, are the discolored?
Ph is steady at 6.8 temp is 78.. They are definitely dead they don't move... Their color is still good.... My water parameters are perfect no ammonia nitrite or nitrate.. Maybe I got a weak gene pool? Aren't yellows and rcs pretty much the same when it comes to water parameters?
pbmax
Active Member
First, yellows should not be kept with RCS - they're the same species and will readily interbreed and produce wild-type coloration that you can't sell as either yellows or RCS.
Second, N. heteropoda tend to prefer a slightly higher PH - 7+. Obviously your RCS are fine with this so it's not a huge deal, but that's the general guidance.
Third, shrimp die. This is especially true of new shrimp you just bought and acclimated to a new tank. Your water parameters can be absolutely perfect and they may still die. I've read that this may be because of different fauna living in the tank you've acclimated them to as compared with where they came from. To eliminate this potential cause you have to do a long two-step acclimation - acclimate them first into a clean quarantine tank with treated tap or (better yet) reconstituted reverse osmosis water, and then slowly add bits of your tank water to the QT tank over a period of days. I don't remember the exact details of it (I read it in an Amazonas magazine article) but it apparently eliminates shrimp losses on acclimation to a new tank.
This has happened several times to me over the years and can be quite frustrating.
Second, N. heteropoda tend to prefer a slightly higher PH - 7+. Obviously your RCS are fine with this so it's not a huge deal, but that's the general guidance.
Third, shrimp die. This is especially true of new shrimp you just bought and acclimated to a new tank. Your water parameters can be absolutely perfect and they may still die. I've read that this may be because of different fauna living in the tank you've acclimated them to as compared with where they came from. To eliminate this potential cause you have to do a long two-step acclimation - acclimate them first into a clean quarantine tank with treated tap or (better yet) reconstituted reverse osmosis water, and then slowly add bits of your tank water to the QT tank over a period of days. I don't remember the exact details of it (I read it in an Amazonas magazine article) but it apparently eliminates shrimp losses on acclimation to a new tank.
This has happened several times to me over the years and can be quite frustrating.
pbmax
Active Member
What I meant by fauna in my last post is primarily bacteria. It's entirely possible mineral content plays a role as well (GH, KH, and TDS are limited in what they measure).
Out of the tap my water has a GH (calcium hardness) of about 50 ppm and a KH (carbonate hardness) of about 70 ppm - this comes from a deep, untreated community well. The PH is generally around 7.6 - 7.8, even with the low KH that I have.
I use that water unaltered in many of my tanks (including my thriving malawa shrimp and blue velvet shrimp tanks), but I buffer it with Seachem Alkaline Buffer (primarily carbonates) which pushes my KH somewhere over 100 ppm so I can avoid PH crashes. With my KH as low as it is if I overfeed or use soil as a tank substrate I end up with a PH that dives through the floor - neocaridina and the fish I keep don't like this very much.
Temperature varies from the low 70s to the upper 70s in most of my tanks, though I do keep RCS in an unheated tank that's usually round 65.
All of my tanks are planted, some heavily, and I use dry ferts (plantex csm+b, potassium nitrate, and monopotassium phosphate) in many of them plus flourish excel (though I avoid this on my dirt tanks and some of my shrimp tanks; my RCS and malawa aren't bothered by it).
Not all of my shrimp tanks are successful, unfortunately. I'm watching my blue bees and yellows slowly die for unknown reasons in one of my tanks. I'm guessing there's something in that tank that I don't have in any of the others that the shrimp just don't like. Like your tank, all the parameters I can measure are fine and some shrimp are okay, but others are dropping off one by one.
I'm glad I helped suck you into shrimp and planted tanks
I'm not so glad I helped suck you into the money pit that is dead shrimp... I've wasted hundreds of dollars on shrimp and crays that didn't make it, but there are others that have absolutely thrived for me. The hobby definitely has its ups and downs.
One interesting anecdote is that tank 5 (the infamous tank 5) killed at least 5 CPOs (dwarf orange crays - not particularly cheap), many more dwarf cajun crays, and my yellow shrimp never would breed in it. I moved the yellows to tank 7 and they thrived (until the CPDs ate all the babies...oops). Tank 5 was overrun by malawa shrimp and male endlers after that, with some CPDs in between. Now tank 5 is home to a thriving Blue Velvet Shrimp and assassin snail population along with a ton of algae. In that time (2+ years) I vacuumed the substrate twice. What changed!? Who knows.
Out of the tap my water has a GH (calcium hardness) of about 50 ppm and a KH (carbonate hardness) of about 70 ppm - this comes from a deep, untreated community well. The PH is generally around 7.6 - 7.8, even with the low KH that I have.
I use that water unaltered in many of my tanks (including my thriving malawa shrimp and blue velvet shrimp tanks), but I buffer it with Seachem Alkaline Buffer (primarily carbonates) which pushes my KH somewhere over 100 ppm so I can avoid PH crashes. With my KH as low as it is if I overfeed or use soil as a tank substrate I end up with a PH that dives through the floor - neocaridina and the fish I keep don't like this very much.
Temperature varies from the low 70s to the upper 70s in most of my tanks, though I do keep RCS in an unheated tank that's usually round 65.
All of my tanks are planted, some heavily, and I use dry ferts (plantex csm+b, potassium nitrate, and monopotassium phosphate) in many of them plus flourish excel (though I avoid this on my dirt tanks and some of my shrimp tanks; my RCS and malawa aren't bothered by it).
Not all of my shrimp tanks are successful, unfortunately. I'm watching my blue bees and yellows slowly die for unknown reasons in one of my tanks. I'm guessing there's something in that tank that I don't have in any of the others that the shrimp just don't like. Like your tank, all the parameters I can measure are fine and some shrimp are okay, but others are dropping off one by one.
I'm glad I helped suck you into shrimp and planted tanks
I'm not so glad I helped suck you into the money pit that is dead shrimp... I've wasted hundreds of dollars on shrimp and crays that didn't make it, but there are others that have absolutely thrived for me. The hobby definitely has its ups and downs.One interesting anecdote is that tank 5 (the infamous tank 5) killed at least 5 CPOs (dwarf orange crays - not particularly cheap), many more dwarf cajun crays, and my yellow shrimp never would breed in it. I moved the yellows to tank 7 and they thrived (until the CPDs ate all the babies...oops). Tank 5 was overrun by malawa shrimp and male endlers after that, with some CPDs in between. Now tank 5 is home to a thriving Blue Velvet Shrimp and assassin snail population along with a ton of algae. In that time (2+ years) I vacuumed the substrate twice. What changed!? Who knows.
I really appreciate all all the info! I really want to become better with the Neocaridina before I jump into the Taiwan bees I have been eye balling blue bolts and all the bee shrimp for a while... But that's a big leap for me being as new to shrimp world as I am.. Do you have a lot of experience with bee shrimp?
pbmax
Active Member
No worries, that's just the price of admission sometimes.
Hehe, everyone loves blues. You might try JesseM's Blue Velvet shrimp. They've been very robust and prolific for me.
As with all Neocaridina you can't keep them with other Neocaridina (RCS, yellows, sakura, fire red, pumpkin, what have you).
Hehe, everyone loves blues.
You might try JesseM's Blue Velvet shrimp. They've been very robust and prolific for me.As with all Neocaridina you can't keep them with other Neocaridina (RCS, yellows, sakura, fire red, pumpkin, what have you).
pbmax
Active Member
The only real problem I had keeping crays with shrimp is that the crays had a harder time finding food. At least that was my take on it... it could be they died for other reasons entirely.
I did notice that the few RCS I kept in my dwarf cajun tank had a bad habit of losing their legs... so if you have lots of crays, keep your shrimp elsewhere. CPOs are tough to keep in higher densities anyway on account of their aggression.
Personally, if I were going to try CPOs again, I'd keep them in a species tank.
I did notice that the few RCS I kept in my dwarf cajun tank had a bad habit of losing their legs... so if you have lots of crays, keep your shrimp elsewhere.
CPOs are tough to keep in higher densities anyway on account of their aggression.Personally, if I were going to try CPOs again, I'd keep them in a species tank.
Thanks for the plug PB! Blue velvets are great shrimp, I don't have any adults right now as I just took a big batch of them up to Cory for his store Aquarium Co-Op in Edmonds. I do have plenty of little guys which acclimate better.pbmax said:No worries, that's just the price of admission sometimes.
Hehe, everyone loves blues.
As with all Neocaridina you can't keep them with other Neocaridina (RCS, yellows, sakura, fire red, pumpkin, what have you).