This is as simple as it get, why are my shrimp dying? What are the main causes of shrimp death?
- Water Parameters
- This is the first reason that your shrimps are dying by the numbers – 1-2 per day or weekly. Why is water parameters the number 1 reason for shrimp death? The old adage goes like this, if you want to keep good quality shrimp, first learn how to keep good water parameters. If your tanks have good water parameters, everything else will fall in place.
- I have in my other post talk about water parameters and my water parameters recommendation.
- If my water parameters are fine – (like many of us) then why are they still dying?
- Source of shrimp
- This means that the source of where the shrimp came from be it from source, at source or during transit might have already weaken the shrimp.
- Ammonia poisoning, poor genetics, too much in-breeding
- Pick your source wisely and don’t mix sources! (Please refer to the 4 main criteria of shrimp breeding – under choose your breeder)
- Genetics of shrimp
- The genetics of shrimp from the start is already weak
- when a cross of two individually line bred shrimp comes together the difficulty level just increased many folds
- for example a PRL vs a BFT – the PRL have better and more stable genetics compared to a BFT but that doesn’t mean the BFT will die easier, they just don’t breed as quickly/as easy as the PRL. (Pure line)
- Too little or too much water change
- i usually recommend at least 10% water change and if the tank volume is large (100L) and a few shrimp, a 5% water change will do.
- On a very stable tank and shrimp, even changing 50% at once hasn’t proven to be an issue (Remember point 1 and point 2)
- Stirring too much soil up during water change, creating a sudden spike and then returning back to normal
- Source of shrimp
- Itchy hand syndrome
- There is no need to add bone meal, Cutterbone, decorative item, tons of plants, feeding excessively, adding wood, adding rock, adding any other thing other than reminerizer during WC
- Mixing source A,B,C,D shrimp in 1 tank – stick to your trusted source
- Putting your hand in there every few hours to move decorative item around.
- Feeding more than twice a day – if you have a lot of shrimp
- Your feed should be altered to the number of shrimps and should consume all of the feed within 2-3 hours. If not, cut the feed to a smaller portion and feed. if not, consider adding more shrimp.
- Adding new soil in large quantity inside an established tank, tried that – adult shrimps does ok, shrimplets die.
- Shrimp like all living things die
- All living things die – we like it or not. There is no way we can keep all 100% of our shrimp alive and this is esp. true if they’re genetically weak. For example i haven’t experience a PRL die for a long time but occasionally i still get a selectively line bred shrimp dead (it’s part and parcel of shrimp keeping)
- With the above, please note that if you’re doing selective breeding – have backup shrimp ready – That means if you have a tank ratio of 2M and 6F please have more Males and Females ready to go because if the 2M dies off, basically you have nothing to breed with.
- Plan your purchases carefully and if your budget permits have a good breeding ratio – 2M – 20F x 2 sets with additional 1-2 males as backup in other tanks
- For more in depth information – please read other post on breeding tanks.
The above is with the assumption you’re using RODI water as your primary water source during water change.
If you understand and fully grasp the concept, you’ll enjoy your shrimp breeding journey a lot better!
