They’re moving!

[libertybelle]

Yeah I feel like the just don’t do water changes is a short term fix. And the counter point is that if there is a bacterial Infection you don’t want to let it take over so clean water will help.

Shrimp like stability but they and the plants also need minerals/micronutrients etc. I do think I was doing too many water changes before because I was practically daily tidying up the sand and replacing whatever water I removed cleaning. This is my first sand tank, I’m used to shrimp / snail poop just disappearing into the gravel! Now I’m learning to accept that a bit of Shrimp/ snail poop is just a thing I’m going to have to live with (and a thing my plants probably need, tbh!) I’m trying my best not to mess with the water unless food is lingering too long or nitrates tell me I should.

I haven’t needed to dose anything for the plants yet. Everything is growing well so I haven’t bothered with any fertilizers or additives so for now it’s just tap and prime.

My cherries are a mix of Sakura and pfr so there is a bit of color variation in there. That combined with not having a macro lens is making it hard for me to say for sure whether there are any spots. There’s certainly not anything obvious that I can see with my naked eye.

Re: oxygenation I do have a tendency to do things with the tank late at night because that’s when the baby is in bed. That includes water changes and feeding. I decided to move those tasks to nap time so any water changes or feeding will be done when oxygen levels will be naturally higher. Might turn up the ac flow too. I currently keep it on minimum.

 

[libertybelle]

Well; fingers crossed, it’s been about five days since I lost any cherries and they all made it through a water change since then. The only thing I did since then was taking out several ghost shrimp who didn’t look well (as described.) Perhaps the ghosts were sickly and their deaths were causing water quality issues? I don’t know but I culled them from the tank and haven’t lost any shrimp since then. I think I’ve learned my lesson about ghost shrimp, they’re just a little too much of a risk for my to add to a tank with other shrimp, because of how rough they usually come in.

Now I have to worry about my other tank, lol, just noticed one of my glofish has gotten really skinny! I’ll post about that one in another thread, though!

 

[Autumnsky]

Good news about the Cherry shrimp.

All these things are interesting to follow along with.

 

[libertybelle]

Well two of the three ghosts left in the tank developed the same symptoms today and I lost one ghost and one cherry. I don’t know if this is an illness the ghosts are more susceptible to or if they’re more sensitive due to poor treatment.

At this point I have to go with there is some kind of illness in the tank and try to treat
(despite not knowing exactly what it is.)

I’m treating one of my glofish with paraguard due to white stringy poop so I put the last ghost in there with the full dosage of paraguard. I doubt it’s soon enough to save it but we’ll see.

I also dosed the shrimp tank with 1/2 dose of paraguard. I really don’t know what’s going on in there but with no predators and textbook perfect water chemistry the only thing left to consider is infection of some kind...

 

[Autumnsky]

How frustrating. Dwarf shrimp are still such an unknown creature. There is very little on their illnesses and treatments.

At this point your attempt to help them with medication is not worse than letting them just perish for lack of understanding what it is that is killing them.

So do what you can. I think a lower dosage would be in order maybe, 1/4 that of which fish get as a treatment, and as low as 10% in some medications.

I am about to purchase fish foods with the antibiotic and dewormers in them and not too sure I would have time, but doing some tests to see about which medications kill them and which do not seem to harm them would be interesting.

Just as a basis on what is a NO NO (kills them) and what could possibly be used to help treat illnesses.

It feels like small knives to the heart every time one dies, every couple days. I have had that experience. It is awful.

Will be interested to hear if you end up being able to medicate them successfully.

 

[libertybelle]

Well I was planning on doing 1/2 dose but fortunately at the last minute I decided to cut it further at least for day one.

I dosed 1ml paraguard in a 10 g tank which is 20% fish dosage. I’ll see how they tolerate it and how the ghost in full strength does.

What medications have you tried in shrimp tanks?

I happened to have paraguard on hand and have read it’s okay with shrimp and is fairly broad spectrum so I thought I’d give it a shot since I really have no idea what the issue is. but I kind of suspect it’s not the ideal medication for either the shrimp or the glofish. It’s geared towards external parasites and as such I thought maybe it might prevent the spread of whatever is messing with my colony.

I might go for Seachem metroplex/ focus for the glofish though I’ve yet to do the research on whether anyone has tried that with freshwater shrimp. This is the first time I’ve actually had to medicate either shrimp or fish; water changes have always been a magic bullet for me in the past so I’ve got a lot of research to do!

 

[libertybelle]

Well I did two doses of paraguard at 20% fish dosage skipping a day in between.

There are no more ghost shrimp in the shrimp tank since they seemed to be the source of my problem.

Lost one more cherry right before dose 2.
It’s now been about a week with no loses.

Could be chance of course; my losses have come intermittently, but we’ll see.