Re:Chlorides and shrimp

[john wheeler <jcwheel76 at yahoo_com>]

Hey gang,


Roger Miller wrote with snips:
>>First, the idea that chloride has anything to do
with your shrimp deaths is very unlikely.  Chloride is
one of the 7 most common electrolytes found in water. 
It is ubiquitous, we all have it in our water and it
is nothing to worry about.    For all intents and
purposes chloride is biologically inert at
concentrations found in fresh water.<<

I'm no chemist....What I *know* is that shrimp react
very badly when I dose KCL. K2SO4 shows me none of the
same issues with these shrimp. Why?....not sure, but
it never fails. KCL=dead shrimp....for me. 


>>Second, chlorine is a chemically different beast. 
Don't get the two confused.  When dechlorinators
"deactivate" chlorine they ultimately 
turn it into chloride.  Chloride does not get turned
into chlorine by any common natural process,
biological or otherwise.<<

I just started using Amquel. I'm interested to see if
it leads to more shrimp deaths based on this new info
to me.

>>I've been keeping C. japonica for a couple years now
and I dose my tanks with potassium chloride.  And
potassium iodide, for that matter, though I don't 
find the iodid as useful for the C.japonica as it is
for ghost shrimp.<<

Wayne (I think), nor Roger, mentioned how much KCL
they were using. 


>>I've read that C. japonica inhabits fairly brackish
waters in it's native habitat.  If so, then a lack of
sufficient chloride is a more likely cause of 
problems then is it's presence; brackish waters
commonly contain into the thousands of mg/l of
chloride.<<

If they do live in brackish water then Chloride
without the Sodium would be a problem, right? 

from Aqualog Special "Shrimps, Crayfish, and Crabs in
the Freshwater Aquarium", Uwe Werner, author:

"The Atyids represent an, evolutionarily speaking,
very old family of shrimps and include only freshwater
shrimps." <snip>

"As far as the number of species is concerned, the
genus Caridinia seems to be the most important within
this family." <snip>

"The most well-known shrimp of this genus is Caridinia
serrata. It is imported via Hong Kong, from were other
freshwater shrimps are known as well.  Like Caridinia
lanciferons, Neocaridinia serrata, and Macrobrachium
hainense, it lives in running water. These shrimps are
distributed in the upper tributaries of the Lam Tsuen
River in the so-called "New Territories".  They avoid
brackish water. The hardness should be rather low, the
pH a little below 7 (6.8)."

(un quote)

Caridinia japonica barely gets a nod in this
publication (surprisingly...Published in '98) and
seems to be lumped in with all of the other Atyids.
Take this for whatever it's worth to you. I tend to
think that something that sometimes lives in brackish
water wouldn't be able to live for *years* in soft and
acidic water, but that just my theory. 


>>Other possibilities might be; your supplier is
selling you stressed animals, your tank carries a
pathogen that kills the shrimp, your water contains
lethal levels of a metal (copper for instance) that
the shrimp are sensitive to, or that some other
additive that you are using in the tank is toxic to
the shrimp.<<  

Very possible, however; no deaths since I stopped
adding KCL, 1 year ago, and no newly bought shrimp in
one of my tanks. Some are over 3 years old. When using
KCL, I would lose a shrimp once a month, per tank, in
a stock of about 50 (shrimp) all together. 

I know this is anecdotal. YMMV, Blah, blah blah.

Best wishes,
John Wheeler



Roger Miller


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free
http://sbc.yahoo.com