dead shrimp equals canary in coal mine

[tws]

greetings,

iam new to this forum and new to cherry shrimp.


today my single cherry shrimp died.

it has appeared healthy and active for the last month in my heavily planted bowl fountain.

i added three cherry shrimp (purchased from local store) a month ago and only one survived the transition. this single shrimp had been fine until today.

early on i put small pieces of algae wafer into the tank but they refused to eat it so i discontinued the feeding, figuring they could find enough to eat on the many plants available. there appears to be some algae and snails appeared recently and are doing fine.



anyway i'd like to know if this shrimp died of starvation or some other unknown...

my water parameters appear fine taken only moments after the shrimp died…

ammonia = 0
nitrite = 0
nitrate = 0
ph = 7.6

every week i've added a low dose of excel flourish for the plants. until today it has not appeared to have a deleterious effect on the shrimp.

during the last two days (bob) my very red cherry shrimp has been hanging out on the tops of healthy water sprite and not swimming about as is his/her usual activity...

the only other factors that may effect water parameters (I have no way of testing for copper etc…) are a large stone in my fountain and a couple of small rust spots on two galvanized steel wire baskets that are suspended into the water and which contain luffa sponge and peace lillys…

can anyone illuminate what i might have done wrong or give me more information that i can use to test my aquarium and thus the reason for this singular death?

Of course it may have just been a natural death…

thanks for any help...

funeral services are being held this afternoon...

tws

[jclee]

If you have 0 nitrate, then your tank has not cycled yet. RCS prefer well cycled tanks, so it might just be that. I wouldn't give up if I were you. Let the tank cycle fully and try again.

[tws]

thanks jclee,

this might be the problem...

this tank has been going for a little over 2 months...

i'll be patient.

tws

[gr81]

Nitrate 0 is not sign of uncycled tank If ammonia is higher than 0, than it should be sigh of it, but 0 values really not.
If you have so little shrimps in so "big" bowl, they can't starve of food.
Problem will be elsewhere. maybe something fall to watter, some poisons?

[jclee]

Nitrate 0 is not sign of uncycled tank If ammonia is higher than 0, than it should be sigh of it, but 0 values really not.
If you have so little shrimps in so "big" bowl, they can't starve of food.
Problem will be elsewhere. maybe something fall to watter, some poisons?

The nitrogen cycle = ammonia (produced by waste, decay, etc.) is converted to nitrite, which is converted to nitrates, which are far less toxic to fish/inverts/etc. than either ammonia or nitrite are. It is not possible to have a tank that is cycled (AKA the nitrogen cycle is in action) without having nitrates.

I just want to make sure that people don't get a misunderstanding of the nitrogen cycle if they read this thread. A cycled tank will have readings of nitrates.

[Cactus Bastard]

A cycled tank will have readings of nitrates.

Plants consume nitrates.

[jclee]

Ok, I hear ya. I guess I assumed (wrongly) that there were also fish in the tank/bowl, producing more waste than plants alone would manage, but if it's only the shrimp, that makes perfect sense. My bad.

[Neonshrimp]

Hi tws, thanks for sharing the infomation about your shrimp/bowl fountain. I just wanted to touch on the question about whether the shrimp died of starvation or not. It is unlikely your shrimp died because of lack of food. Most tanks/living environments are not sterile and will contain microorganisms or algae for the shrimp to feed on. If they is an unlikely case when no food is available there will be visible signs, most likely physical wasting. If the shrimp are housed in an established and stable environment they should be able go without food for a very long time.

I hope you do not give up on keeping shrimp and that your next endeavour will be a success