Question About Shrimp And How To Keep Them Alive?

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utahfish

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currently i have ghost shrimp in my tank. theyre only 10 for a dollar so when they all die within two weeks i'm not too upset. ive also had amono, rudolph and tiger shrimp yet they all seem to die rather quickly usually after their first molt.

my tank is planted the ph is between 7- and 6.5 which i assume is too soft and acidic for the shrimp to handle. is there anything i can do to raise the chances of my shrimp survival without raising my ph? or is it just lack of calcium in my tank keeping my shrimp from remolting?

my water has zero calcium in it seeing as i use distilled water in my weekly water changes. the distilled water is neutral and helps keep algae away and the tetras like it as well.
 
i have neons, black neons 3 red eye tetras and some glo lite tetras but the glo lites are the most mellow out of them all, seems like they always stay in the same place. the fish dont seem to bother them at all.
 
Distilled water lacks the minerals aquatic lifeforms need--you should mix it (half and half) with spring water or (healthy) used fish tank water. You can add calcium by putting in crushed oyster shells or else buy cuttle bones (for birds), whack it into pieces and put a piece in the tank so it leeches calcium into the water; you should also feed them food rich in calcium. The shrimp also need iodine which they can get from the food--(ok, can't think of which veggies are high in iodine, I used to know this stuff). They also need non-chemical water including no de-chlorinator, no metals either (check your tap water for copper). A lot of ghost shrimp sold for fw use are actually salt water or brackish ghost shrimp so they do not survive long in fw--they all look almost identical (only very minute differences) and since most ghost shrimp are being sold as fish food the sellers usually don't care if they won't live long in fw. Your pH doesn't sound bad--mine is at about 7 and our ghost shrimp (when we had them) propagated just fine.
 
i know i need more calcium for the shrimp but by adding calcium how will it effect my PH. KH GH?
 
I think the package of Crab pellets says it contains calcium so maybe that would be easiest way to get calcium to the shrimps without messing with your water parameters--I haven't a clue if cuttlebones and such affects pH and GH and all that.
 

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