lost 2 shrimp in 2 weeks

[gusto1]

Hello,
In the past 2 weeks I lost 2 shrimp, a coral banded and fire shrimp, My nitrates are around 20 ppm which I know is a little high, is that high enough to kill the shrimps? I was doing biweekly water changes maybe I should do them weekly? I also have a 75 gallon with a dsb of about 2 inches of sand, is that enough sand. the tanks been up for about a year.

Thank you

 

[mystikdragon7]

With your nitrates being that high I would think that's why your shrimp died. Inverts can't handle high nitrates, I would think anything above 10ppm of nitrates is too high for inverts. Work on getting your nitrates down by doing a water change every other day or so until they are in a good range, then I would do weekly water changes. What type of filtration do you have?

If you are going for a deep sand bed, then two inches of substrate is not enough. I think six inches is good, however, there are plenty of threads on RC to read about DSB's.

 

[gusto1]

I have a protein skimmer, thats the only filtration, will 2 to 3 inches of sand cause high nitrates.

Thanks