What is happening?! Please help!

[charlotte1995]

Hi there,

I bought 2 amano shrimps on Tuesday, I have never owned them before. I have had 4 minnows for almost 8 weeks now with no issues at all, they are fine. I have done a 20% water change since I bought them (which was a nightmare that I will make a separate thread about). The tank has plenty of algae for the shrimps to eat. When I first introduced the shrimps they were obviously very stressed and circled the tank at full speed for around 3/4 hours. They then remained pretty still and I noticed that one had shed its shell. The next day I noticed that the shrimps were still very quiet. The smaller one who had shed had been hiding under an ornament for several hours and I didn't want to stress him out by interfering with the tank so just left him be. I read that it can be normal for them to hide when you first introduce them to a new tank and for them to be particularly quiet after a shed. However, last night I started to become a little worried as I hadn't seen the smaller shrimp all day, so I lifted the ornament to look at him and found him on his back. I immediately thought he was dead, however nudged him very slightly and he moved across the tank, only to flip upside down again. He did right himself a few minutes after and moved very slowly only a few centimetres across the tank all night. Upon close inspection I could see that he was moving his little legs but nothing else. The larger shrimp did not move much all day. This morning I found them motionless, with the larger one sat on top of the smaller one, but neither of them were up right. I nudged them slightly with my net and the larger one moved across the tank, only to land on his side and he has since moved onto this back. Neither of the shrimps have moved all morning and I'm guessing that sadly they will die shortly. I'm just wondering if anyone knows what could have gone wrong with these shrimps and could suggest any changes I could make for future shrimps. I provided them with shrimp pellets but neither of them have eaten from them. My tank is a 10L Marina 360 and the filter appears to be running fine. Any advice would be greatly appreciated please.

Charlotte

[SPACKlick]

Hi there, do you know your water parameters, particularly GH, KH, Ammonia, TDS and if you have a test Copper.

What water conditioner do you use when treating water you add to the tank?

[Drifty]

water parameters and tempter?

[plankton]

Welcome to the forum.
Amanos usually take a few days to settle down, especially if there are fish in the tank.
You should never disturb them while they're settling and/or moulting.
The answers to @SPACKlick's questions will be important as well to see if there's anything else going on.
Also - how did you acclimatise them?

[charlotte1995]

Hi there, do you know your water parameters, particularly GH, KH, Ammonia, TDS and if you have a test Copper.

What water conditioner do you use when treating water you add to the tank?

Thank you for all the replies. I've just done a water test - the results are: GH - 180, KH - 80, pH - 6.5, NO2 - 10 and NO3 - 200. I have used the API aquarium test strip for these results. I can see that the pH is on the side of caution, but the nitrate results are in the danger range. I'm not sure how I would be able to alter the nitrates in the water? And the conditioner I use is the API tap water conditioner. An update on the shrimps - they are both still alive but barely by the looks of it.

Thank you,

Charlotte

[charlotte1995]

Welcome to the forum.
Amanos usually take a few days to settle down, especially if there are fish in the tank.
You should never disturb them while they're settling and/or moulting.
The answers to @SPACKlick's questions will be important as well to see if there's anything else going on.
Also - how did you acclimatise them?

Thank you Well the pet shop didn't advise on how to acclimatise them and it completely slipped my mind to ask until I had left the store. I went by the information that I found on shrimp websites - I acclimatised them the same way I did the minnows. I floated the bag for 15 minutes, then added some of the aquarium water to the bag and after another 15/20 minutes I emptied the shrimps and remaining water from the bag into the aquarium.

Charlotte

[SPACKlick]

GH - 180, KH - 80

KH is a little lower than perfect for Amanos long term but nothing to worry about there for this behaviour.

pH - 6.5

Amanos are fine in this, doesn't want to be too much lower but it's fine.

And the conditioner I use is the API tap water conditioner

Good, this takes care of copper just in case.

I floated the bag for 15 minutes, then added some of the aquarium water to the bag and after another 15/20 minutes I emptied the shrimps and remaining water from the bag into the aquarium.

With Shrimp it's best to acclimatise a little more gradually than with hardy fish. For future shrimp floating the bag and adding water little and often will give them more time to adjust to the new water chemistry.

NO2 - 10 and NO3 - 200

NO2 should be 0, NO3 should be under 20 at all times. Do the biggest water change you can. Test the water again and repeat until the Nitrite is below 0.25 and the Nitrate is below 20. I've had issues with Amano in 40ppm water over the long term. 200 will stress them pretty quickly.

The presence of nitrites suggests your filter isn't fully cycled or, given the high nitrates, is overloaded. So you may need to test nitrites daily or twice a day and do water changes to keep that nitrite below 0.25. Have you done nitrite and nitrate tests on your tap water?

[charlotte1995]

Thanks so much for all your advice. I just feel like I'm having a complete nightmare here. I've had real trouble doing this water change. This is the third gravel cleaner that I've bought. This one has a pump on it, the previous two didn't and I could not get them to siphon at all. I've watched so many gravel cleaning/siphon videos that I could go blue in the face. I made sure that I had submerged it fully under the water and shook it for so long that I reckon I had probably started to terrorise the poor fish. The one with the pump works but the flow is SO FAST, that in under 10 seconds half of the water has been sucked out of the tank and I've had no chance to clean the gunk away. I've tried light pressure on the pump but it doesn't siphon unless you really pressure hard and fast. There doesn't seem to be a way for me to slow the flow. The tank is now half empty and because it's taken so much out, the clean water I prepared doesn't fill the tank to a decent level. The tank is still full of gunk, my shrimps are dying and it's a disaster. I feel like I'm really failing these fish here. Sorry to moan here but I feel so bad for them. What does fully cycled mean or overloaded in terms of the filter? I have cleaned the filter today because it begun to run slowly, however now it seems to be running at normal speed. My poor shrimps are still lying on their sides but still alive somehow. Thanks again for your help.

Charlotte

[SPACKlick]

Hi Charlotte, I appreciate how stressful a situation like this with pets can be.

First off, the cycle

Cycled in terms of a filter refers to establishing the bacteria responsible for the nitrogen cycle. Fish waste -> Ammonia -> Nitrites -> Nitrates and we remove nitrates with plants and water changes. There's a guide on the cycle linked Here

When a new fish tank is set up it can take weeks for the bacteria (Commonly referred to on this forum as munchers) to establish and before they do the fish waste, ammonia and nitrites can be toxic to fish and other animals in the tank.

A filter only has a certain amount of surface area for the bacteria to grow on. If a small filter is used for a lot of fish, or a filter doesn't have enough media in for bacteria to grow on then you can't grow enough bacteria to convert all the fish waste. That filter would be overloaded by the "bioload" (amount of poop) of the fish it was trying to clean up after. When a tank is properly cycled (has enough munchers) Ammona and Nitrite should be 0 at all times.

So to check.

What size is your tank?
Can we have a picture of your tank? (Not very important but can sometimes offer insight)
What filter are you running on your tank?
You mentioned you cleaned the filter because it was running slowly, How did you clean it?
When you introduced your fish 8 weeks ago did you do any sort of initial cycle of the tank?

You also mentioned that there is a lot of gunk in the tank is this just brown waste from in the gravel or is there a slime/growth on other things in the tank? Again, a picture might help

Second the gravel pumping issues.

With most gravel cleaners like this one


You can start them by pumping or you can sometimes start them easier in a small tank like this Or in a worst case scenario you can suck on the end of the hose (Take your mouth off the hose as soon as water goes over the peak of the hose so you don't drink it). Some of the electronic ones have very high flow rates, Taking 5 seconds or less per litre.

[Tycho]

Hi Charlotte

Unfortunately I've never kept amano shrimp so can help with those but water changes shouldn't be stressful, I I've tried lots of different gravel cleaners and siphons, I recently (last week I think) bought the one below from Amazon and absolutely love it! It will empty your tank pretty quick but it comes with a clip so that you can slow it down if you want. Its really easy to use and clean!

Also, you just press the little pump a couple of times to start it.