Dying shrimp

[walker26]

I'm glad they appear to be thriving now, what did you change between the two batches?

You might have a Pavlov's dog situation where they know filter off = food, when it goes off they come out to grab food and when it's on they hide away digesting the food. If you feed them without switching off and spread the food around they might spend more time out foraging.

I’m not 100% sure as I tried several things at once in an attempt to stop any more deaths. Over the course of a couple of days I did all this: reduced the water changes from 10-20% everyday to 10% every few days. I started dosing Seachem Equilibrium with water changes in an attempt to raise GH, it raises water to 3GH but drops to 2GH over 24hrs, apparently the Fluval Stratum substrate is responsible for this but should settle eventually. Equilibrium is also raising the TDS to 180-200. I also added a small piece of cuttle bone. pH is sitting around 6.8-7.0 depending on the day and wether you believe the meter or the API master test. I think that the tank maturing a bit more may have helped as well, as there is now more biofilm and algae.

I’ll try feeding with pump left on and see what happens. The issue is the flow tends to suck the food out of the feeding dish, although I’ve only ever seen 1 shrimp eat out of it and micro worms just drift around in the flow and sucked into the filter.

[LookoutTrout]

I use a turkey baster to feed bloodworm, you might find you can get the worms low enough to the substrate that they don't get sucked straight into the fiter.

[LookoutTrout]

If you've reduced your water changes keep an eye on nitrate levels. I had a bamboo shrimp so was doing 10% per week but my test kit didn't arrive until a few days after my shirmp died and then I found nitrates were off the scale and took several 50% changes to bring down.
I don't know if nitrates killed it but it had been sowly getting pinker for a while and I now know that's not a good sign.
I'm trying to control nitrates with plants before getting more shrimp but that is harder than I expected.

Edit: I was doing 20% changes weekly and the nitrates still kept going up, 50% keeps them in check until I get enough greenery.
I don't feel like I feed much but I have a lot of fish and the daily bloodworm cube probably adds a lot.

[walker26]

If you've reduced your water changes keep an eye on nitrate levels. I had a bamboo shrimp so was doing 10% per week but my test kit didn't arrive until a few days after my shirmp died and then I found nitrates were off the scale and took several 50% changes to bring down.
I don't know if nitrates killed it but it had been sowly getting pinker for a while and I now know that's not a good sign.
I'm trying to control nitrates with plants before getting more shrimp but that is harder than I expected.

Edit: I was doing 20% changes weekly and the nitrates still kept going up, 50% keeps them in check until I get enough greenery.
I don't feel like I feed much but I have a lot of fish and the daily bloodworm cube probably adds a lot.

Thanks. That’s been my concern. It’s been sitting around 5-10 ppm but has been as high as 20ppm and then I’ve done a couple of 10% water changes 2 days in a row to bring it down. I want to get some more quick growing plants, @fr499y has recommended Polysperma, that I’m going to hopefully get some of in the next few days.

[LookoutTrout]

My Polysperma grows well even with a lack of phosphates as the fertiliser I was using didn't have that or nitrates. With phosphates my Rotala Rotundafolia makes a nice dense bunch that even the small fish would struggle to swim inside.
One plant type can gobble up nutrients another needs so there will be some experimenting to do.

[walker26]

The Java moss is growing but not very green. The Java fern has grown 2 new leaves. The Limnophila has grown quite a bit but covered in brown algae. I need to block some natural light that hits one side of the tank all day.

Another 2 Sterbai eggs hatched in the night, not seen them yet though. Hopefully the other 2 in there are still too small to eat them. I think they need another 2 or 3 weeks before I can add them to the main tank without the Angels eating them.