Copper strip reading

[Jmedulla12]

All my amano and cherry shrimp died, but my fish are doing well, so I checked the copper with these SenSafe John’s Copper Check strips. Can anyone give their opinion of the reading please?

 

[Aiken Drum]

The strip doesnt look anything like the test chart. The test kit was probably a waste of money.

 

[Jmedulla12]

Do you have a recommendation for another way of measuring the copper levels or why the shrimp are dying? I don’t want to buy anymore until I figure out the problem.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Ive never had to test for copper, but generally liquid test are better than strips. API do a liquid copper test kit. Your water company should be able to tell you copper levels in your water, but that wont account for any copper from your internal pipework or storage vessel, and wont account for any copper that may have been introduced from anything introduced into the tank.

Might you have used a non invert safe/ copper containing medication?

 

[Andy Sager]

When testing for Copper, you need to have a kit that will test for both Chelated and non Chelated ( a.k.a. Free) copper. Not all test kits do both. ( The SenSafe kit only tests for Free copper which may be why your colors do not match. Most fish meds use Chelated copper. ) Fritz Aquatics has a new Copper kit ( as well as a master kit and individual kits) which tests for both. I've not used it yet but I have been using Fritz products for over 30 years and found them to be very reliable. There is also the API kit that tests for both as well. Some of the other big name brands do not work in all water chemistries.
If you do have copper in the water, a Polyfilter pad ( https://www.poly-bio-marine.com/ ) can remove it. The pad turns blue as it fills with copper for visual confirmation that it's working.

The first thing to help figure out why your shrimps all died tho is what is your full water chemistry? Was it correct for the types of shrimp you tried to keep? What kinds of shrimps were they? How long did you have them before they died?

 

[Jmedulla12]

I had amano shrimp and cherry shrimp for 2-3 weeks. The amano shrimp arrived first, but both started dying around the same time, like 1 a day for a week or so.
Water parameters:
pH: 7.0
Temp: 78F
KH: 50ppm

 

[Andy Sager]

I had amano shrimp and cherry shrimp for 2-3 weeks. The amano shrimp arrived first, but both started dying around the same time, like 1 a day for a week or so.
Water parameters:
pH: 7.0
Temp: 78F
KH: 50ppm

That's not a full water report. What about General Hardness, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate? What did you do to the tank the day before the shrimps started dying?

 

[Jmedulla12]

GH: 25ppm
Ammonia: 0.25ppm
Nitrate: 2.5ppm
Nitrite: 0
Nothing notable the day before they started dying.

 

[Andy Sager]

GH: 25ppm
Ammonia: 0.25ppm
Nitrate: 2.5ppm
Nitrite: 0
Nothing notable the day before they started dying.

Okay for starters, there are a number of things that are possibilities.
There shouldn't be an ammonia level so that may have something to do with it.
My research says that Amano shrimp, while they can handle different water parameters, you have exceeded them with the Kh and Gh. ( From soft water with a GH of 5 and a KH of 0 all the way up to very hard water with GH: 15 and KH: 10. ) And for the cherry shrimp, GH of at least 110 ppm and KH of at least 40 ppm so you are under for that. This shows that Amano and Cherry shrimp should not be kept in the same tank as their parameters are vastly different.
Shrimp are sensitive enough that there is no " happy medium" that allows you to mix unmixable species.
Then there's the fish you say are mixed in with them. What kind of fish are they? Could they have been knocking them off one by one?

My gut feeling is that it's the GH/ KH issue and since you had them for a few weeks, that probably caused an issue when they tried molting so they died as they tried to molt. Bad water generally kills everything rather quickly so the one a day death doesn't sound like bad water was the cause. Wrong water however could if it's not the fish in with them.

Hope this helps.

 

[Jmedulla12]

GH: 25ppm
Ammonia: 0.25ppm
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 2.5ppm
Nothing notable (no maintenance, medication, etc) the day before

 

[Jmedulla12]

Thank you for your help! I will try to resolve the issues you mentioned and get one type of shrimp next time. I have tetra glofish and a nerite snail that are doing well.