RE: Amano Shrimp and Chloride

["Gitte" <eladeria at rogers_com>]

Hi Alex,

I wouldn't know about how the Potassium Chloride (KCl) would affect the
algae-eating shrimp, but what is the hardness of your water?  If your
water is too soft, you won't be able to keep the shrimp.  They need the
hard water to be able to develop their shells.

The other (probably silly) question is - - are you sure they really did
die?  These little critters are notorius for being able to hide
themselves almost anywhere.  I put two in one of my smaller tanks (20G)
and didn't see them for another week.  I though they had died, but there
they were, very efficiently cleaning up algae.

I also remember when I first added some of these little guys to my 50G
tank.  Sometime later I found what I thought to be a dead shrimp on the
bottom.  But...it turned out to be just the shrimp's empty shell.  They
shed their exteriors as they grow, and what they leave behind looks
exactly like the shrimp itself.

Gitte

> ------------------------------
> From: "Alex R" <pcalex at hotpop_com>
> 
> I have made two attempts in the past to introduce Caridina 
> japonica into my 30-g. tank. On both occasions, all the 
> shrimp had died within one week. I would like to try adding 
> them one more time. I was recently searching the APD and 
> there came up one possible explanation for dying shrimp, 
> which was high chloride levels. That was in a thread dated 
> December, 2001. I was wondering, did anyone ever experiment 
> and learn for sure if a high chloride concentration is linked 
> to shrimp deaths? Also, does anyone dose a lot of KCl (more 
> than 20 ppm K+) and have no problems keeping Amano shrimp? I 
> do dose a lot of KCl, and maybe if I switch to K2SO4 I would 
> be able to keep Amano shrimp. I also bought a bottle of 
> Seachem Reef Iodide to see if that helps the shrimp to 
> survive. But now that I've read that discussion, I have 
> concerns about the chloride. __ Alex R