crystal reds

[MICKSNOWDOG]

hi peoples i have been losing quite a few lately, i am not sure why, i keep the temp at 23-24degrees, and all the readings are good, ph is 7.4ish.
water changes every week of at least 30%
undergravel and sponge filters.
one of the females is carrying eggs, i have a few albino bristlenose fry in there at the moment, should i remove them?

 

[MIX02u]

I don't think the bns are the issue. Ph is a little high for CRS but I think the bigger issue is the water changes. I find that mine do better when I do smaller changes less often. Also matching the water you're changing is important i.e temp, ph, kh - particularly with bigger changes.
HTH

 

[bigbird]

Hi,

Agree with the issue of the water changes, especially since it is much cooler now. I would suggest doing maybe 10% water change twice a week and I used to add my water through a drip into the tank of shrimp. Took about 1hours, but with smaller amount added per minute the water temp hardly changed. good luck cheers jk :thumbup:

 

[Brengun]

Yup big sudden wc is not good for them.

 

[Mooo]

I agree with what has been said above..
You never said how big the tank is, I have had a 70L tank crash, due to over population, As they breed, the numbers rise, causing a stress on the bio load, Rising NitrAtes of above 20ppm will kill em off over night.
Could this be your problem ?..

 

[jessonthenet]

Have you added any new plants lately? If it is sudden deaths it can be poisoning. I didn't think 7.4 was bad for just keeping them I thought you get better breeding results at lower ph. I know they are used to very low minerals and ph in the wild.

You said 30% water change, what size is the tank?

@ mooo

I had 100 shrimp in a 17litre so how many did you have in a 70l to crash it?

 

[Mooo]

Hundreds, was about to advertise for sale and must have taken too long..most died...
My fault for letting them overpopulate and nitrAtes were too high..stoopid Mooo

 

[MICKSNOWDOG]

106lt tank. undergravel filter, sponge filter. yes new plants and just as of the last two days an small algae issue, cloudy water and a film of algae on the glass, i guess from the light. i'm gonna go buy some big snails from the lfs today i reckons, chuck them in there to help. i think there's about 5 out of the original 30 left alive now. the berried female is one of them though which is brilliant news at least

 

[jessonthenet]

How did you prepare the plants before you added them and what type were they? Is there any chance there are any dead pockets in the substrate. Do you keep your plants in pots or directly in the substrate and are there any plants in there that don't seem to be doing very well?

 

[MICKSNOWDOG]

i didn't prepare the plants, i put them straight in the rocks, bananna lillies, amazon swords, some moss stuff that was sent with the shrimp- iguess they eat that, and one plant with purple on the underside of the leaf and green on top.
dead pockets meaning air pockets etc? no, there's undergravel filter through most of it and the gravel is to coarse to not allow air through

 

[AusPleco]

I had crs breeding and over 100 cherry shrimp breeding never did a water chanfe only topped up evaporation, then i lost them all when i bombed house for cochroaches. Got 4 measly cherry s hrimp now and they all female

 

[phear]

cloudy water sounds like an ammonia spike.

 

[Mooo]

How's that berried female going?