My ramblings about keeping and breeding freshwater shrimp and other invertebrates

So I have been having problems with all my softwater shrimp with the exception of my Golden Bees with have FINALLY started breeding for me.   Upon suggestion from Bill Southern I tested the pH.  All the tanks I was having problems with had a pH of 7.5 or higher despite using Aquasoil and 100% RO water.  It seems the Aquasoil no longer wants to buffer my water.  I have tried using Muric Acid (HCI) to lower the pH but it keeps wanting to creep back up after 12-24hrs.

Yesterday I treated a 20gal tank with Wild Type Neocaridina Shrimp with 2 mL’s of Panacur.  Now, about 24hrs later, al the shrimp are live and well.  The Panacur also had no apparent effect on my pond snails, ramhorn snails, Sulawesi snails.  Interestingly, at least to me, the Panacur had no apparent effect on the other tiny organisms that are commonly found in a shrimp tank as I still see tiny white dots moving around on the glass.  I will next try treating a tiger shrimp tank to see how more sensitive species deal with the treatment but I am confident they will be fine.

This being my first blog I did not realize I had to approve all my comments before they were posted…just figured it out.  Guess I am glad I had it set that way since I got about 7 comments for an ED medication that needed deleting (sorry if anyone wanted to read them )

Sorry for the delayed update, life and such.  After 24hrs I didn’t see a single planaria in the tank.  I even tried baiting them with food and not a single one so it looks like it worked.  How I just need to find a good test tank with shrimp to try (shrimp that I could afford to lose if the worst happened).

So I decided to try some to kill the hydra and planaria in my shrimp tanks.  I still am not convinced one way or another that they do harm to shrimp, but better safe then sorry I guess.  Once you have planaria I have found them very hard to rid yourself of them.  I have tried not feeding the shrimp, but it did not seem to have any affect after a month.  Finally, I removed all the shrimp from the tank, but after another month with no shrimp and no food there were still planaria all over the place.  More drastic measures were clearly needed

After doing some reading online I have decided to use fenbendazole.  All reports I have read said it is safe for shrimp but deadly to planaria and hydra.  I plan to use .1g of fenbendazole per 10 gallons of water. Because fenbendazole is not easily disolved in water I got a liquid form.  The brand name was Panacur 100.  Panacur 100 is used on cattle, other forms of fenbendazole are used on dogs and other animals to kill various kinds of intestinal worms.  The Panacur 100 came in a 1L bottle and contains 100g of fenbendazole, and therefore I will dose 1ml per 10 gallons of water to reach .1g of fenbendazole per 10 gallons.

The Panacur 100 was purchased from http://equine-mega-store.com/default.ehtml

I will update with my findings.  I will first try it on a tank without shrimp and then will try it in a tank with shrimp.