I recently started keeping shrimps in my 23 litre El Natural cube tank. The tank itself is almost 3 years old. Since the introduction of the shrimps a week ago I've lost maybe 10 or 15 out of 25 I bought. The tank's inhabitant before this is only ramshorn snail. I thought this might be because of lack of oxygen in the tank because there's so many mulms and snail poop in there and I haven't done any water change since months ago maybe almost a year. In the morning when the lights on the surviving shrimp will be hanging on the top of the tank clinging to the duckweed. Sure enough after introducing sponge filter connected to airpump they're actively roaming the tank and no casualties since. Now what concerns me is my tank is quite acidic with 6.0-6.4 pH and almost 0 KH. Is it okay for them or should I correct this?
New to keeping shrimps. Advice needed
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What type of shrimp do you have? Yes, shrimp would prefer if you have 7.0+pH and some KH and GH.
It's Red Cherry. I've added crushed corals in the tank since yesterday but haven't seen any change in pH, though the KH has raised slightly.
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It'll take time for the coral to affect the pH.
You did the right thing by adding an air-pump. This tank has collected a lot of debris. Decomposition of that debris would explain oxygen deprivation and shrimp death. I suspect this tank has very poor plant (or algal) growth. No photosynthesis going on to add O2 and bring up pH. I would clean tank out, change water, and get the KH up to 2-3. This can be done by adding baking soda (NaHCO3), 1/2 tsp/ 10 gal. (I like to use KHCO3 these days, but baking soda will do the job.)
Crushed coral will take several weeks or months to get GH and KH up.
Increasing submerged plant growth would counter-act this problem, but that's another issue for another forum and another day.
That's explains it. The tank is overgrown with crypts and a big clump of swords in the corner but I haven't seen any new leaf growth since. Around 1 and a half year ago the tank have been stagnating (even the majority of the Hygrophila and Bacopa are gone) and I have been dosing hardwater nutrient every month or so (my water source is really soft, almost 0 GH) but to be honest since the plants aren't melting and the snails looked fine I have neglected to dose. I kinda liked the slowed down growth because I didn't have to prune so often 😁. Now I started dosing regularly again and everything started to kickstart. The shrimps are looking happy too even without the airpump though I still turn it on at night to be safe. Thanks again @mistergreen and @dwalstad for the invaluable insight.
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