The moss is brand new, as in only added in a few days ago! It was extra from another scape and I’d been keeping it in a bowl and got tired of dealing with that so I put the extra into that tank, which is a couple months old

Ah, calcium is something I hadn’t actually checked! I’ll get a test kit for it and see how it’s doing, thank you :) a few friends I talked to about it also said it might be a failed moult

I did temp match the water I topped off with, it was only about 1-2 cups. If the issue persists after checking for planaria, then I’ll try out RO water and see if that helps. Thanks for the comment!

I think it may be planaria after poking around some, the behavior they were exhibiting honestly seemed pretty parasitic in nature of death and that was the first thought I had, but I didn’t see anything that could be parasitic in my tank. Looking closer, I’m not entirely certain my “Ferris worms” are ferry’s worms at all - I’ll check out the next dead shrimp I find to see. Got a planaria trap coming in tomorrow that I’ll bait and check overnight, and if that proves their presence I’ll go ahead with the No Planaria treatment (after moving my tiger nerite to one of my other tanks)

I’ve got some floaters coming in the mail soon, so hopefully whenever I figure this out and make it shrimp safe I’ll see them a lot more often with less direct light :)

Thanks for letting me know :) I’ll move her to another tank before I use it, then. I’ve got a couple in the process of cycling.

I just ordered some SOBAKEN Genchem No Planaria - really hoping that that maybe helps! Thanks for the comment, that definitely makes me feel better about the substrate choice, I was worried maybe using fluval stratum was stripping too many minerals and messing with molts, but if it’s worked for someone else then hopefully it’s not just that

Called my LFS to ask about their water parameters, turns out other than GH they’re quite similar to those in my tank. Theirs: PH 7.4, KH and GH “about 3”. Mine: PH between 7.4 and 7.6 (between colors), KH 3 GH 7

As a note: I also have not done any water changes since getting them a week ago, though I did slightly top off with some tap water treated with a small amount of seachem prime and Seed.

Thank you!! I definitely let some algae get on there (and also shoved moss in the cracks, since) so it’s not looking as pretty as it once did haha, wanted to give the shrimp plenty to do and they sure have been going at it. Here it was when I’d just rescaped it, didn’t have enough substrate for my original plan but it still looks nice I think!

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Oh gosh it was somewhere around $75 for the shrimp I believe, if we add in tax. $3.99 per fire red neo, $4.99 per Amano

Yeah that’s an Amano hanging out!

Hopefully that means once they grow there won’t be as many shrimp holding secret meetings between the glass and the flat back of my heater lol

Yeah I just needed a few Amanos to help me with my hair algae problem :) cat stepped on the touch controls it seems and set my light to full brightness on no timer while I was out for the weekend and I came back to an unholy amount of hair algae haha, so I’m just letting these dudes live out their lives with all the algae they could eat

Lute is very chill! He’s gone to check out the shrimp so far but no flaring or aggression at all, luckily. I do, however, expect to lose a few shrimplets to him eventually haha but for now they should be safe. Even if he figures it out he’s the kind of Betta who refuses to eat pellets too large/anything I haven’t cut smaller than the equivalent of one of these adults heads (He did get spooked when one tried to land on him though, lol. Poor dude)

On the bright side, these are not ghost nor whisker shrimp! Not sure if folks saw the text for the post but my little clear dudes are Amanos :) Hard to see with the bag distortion but they don’t have any kind of back hump, and they’ve got a different diet and disposition from ghosts or whiskers, if I remember correctly! I also deeefinitely don’t have the tank size for vampire shrimp, them plus my tiger nerite snail are just a fun little janitorial crew (who I adore as much as the very calm and non-aggressive betta they’re in with) for my 10 gallon!

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Flash banged this poor guy at 3am to get a video I could screenshot to show back shape, but definitely an Amano!

They’re so fun to watch swim around!! I was out until like 4am the night before getting the shrimp and the only thing keeping me from falling asleep while drip acclimating the Amanos was watching the little fire reds occasionally float across the tank to go investigate another spot of algae haha

Amano!

Aw I’m sorry to hear that, that’s tragic! On the bright side, my little clear dudes are Amanos so hopefully there won’t be any issues!

Only reason I’m holding it down is because Lute, the betta you can barely see up in the top left corner behind the plants, is a little too curious about floating objects and I’m worried he’d get stuck in it while I’m at work haha

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Shrimp update: they’re all doing great haha. (The orange lava rock is temporary to hold down the cholla wood until it stops floating)

Edit: still all thriving through the night, I put a complete pellet from shrimp envy into the little glass dish in the back and so far 2/16 have found it. Hopefully the others figure it out eventually, I’ll leave this first one in longer than a couple hours just so they have a chance. In the meantime there’s an Amano party on the back of my heater with over half snacking on algae on the back of it