Planted tank shrimp deaths.

Rachel.Cody

Rachel.Cody

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Nov 2, 2014
1,215
20
38
Ohio
I've been running diy co2 on my 5 gallon fluval spec planted tank. It had 11 cherry shrimp and two tiger shrimp in it. I've had the tank for about a month and have had the two tigers in there for about two weeks. Last week I added the cherry shrimp because I wanted more color and there were no more tigers. Everything was fine until last night. My co2 has lowered my ph to about 6.5 and out of the tap it is 7.5-8. To avoid a huge ph swing I left my co2 on over night but last night I didn't put the air pump on. In the middle of the night I need some light in the room so I turned on their tank light to see no shrimp in sight. I keep looking and notice both of my tigers dead. All of the cherry shrimp were up at the filter overflow thing. Two were inside on top of the foam. So I freaked out and turned the air pump on and tested the water. Oh was a little bit higher but it did have about 50ppm nitrite. Before all of my levels were zero. So my question is what happened? Was it too much co2? Not enough oxygen? What caused my nitrite spike? Any help is appreciated so I don't run into this problem again.


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xxUnRaTeDxxRkOxx

xxUnRaTeDxxRkOxx

Candiru
MFK Member
Jul 10, 2011
696
104
46
Denver, CO.
Sounds like new tank syndrome in my opinion, it happens when tanks that are 1-2 months old there's always the possibility that the tank is not yet biologically stable. Meaning beneficial bacteria haven't established themselves in sufficient quantities to be able to convert waste byproducts, and by using a diy co2 system means that it may be pumping out co2 at a faster rate which can lead to gassing out the tank. On my diy co2 system I have a co2 valve to let me control the rate of how fast the co2 is entering the tank.

co2 valve.jpg

This way I don't risk gassing the tank, hope this helps.

co2 valve.jpg
 
Rachel.Cody

Rachel.Cody

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Nov 2, 2014
1,215
20
38
Ohio
I have a little plastic adjustable knob that goes between the tubing on mine but still bounces around. I think im going pressurized soon so I wont have to worry. Hopefully it gets straightened out soon. Thank you!
 
B

brich999

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Jul 3, 2010
4,312
11
38
New Hampshire
Combination of issues likely did the shrimp in. 5g is a small volume of water to keep fragile animals in. Adding diy co2 isnt very precise and can screw with water params. Lastly plants use o2 and produce co2 at night so adding co2 and not o2 may have been too much. 50ppm nitrates will kill most any shrimp but may have been caused by the dead shrimp in a small volume of water. When shrimp start climbing out and into other things like filters its because something is wrong 11 times out of 10.
 
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