6 out of 10 died in the 1st week. What happened?

[MarkR]

When my 3 year old broke my ecosphere (miraculously dropped inside another glass container) I transferred the shrimp to another container using the original rocks, coral and water. Over the course of a week, I slowly added water with a pH 1.012 (Instant Ocean salt, Microbe Lift and water conditioner). 3 months later, they are still going strong.

I started a separate 2 liter "tank" with the same water formula, crushed coral for substrate, a few pieces of sea fan and a little christmas moss. Afraid of risking my survivors, I ordered 10 new shrimp from Mustafa about 2 weeks later. When they arrived a week later, they were very active and seemed healthy. I acclimated them to the new water for 2 hours and put them in their new home. The next morning I had 2 that had died and 2 that were listless and swimming upside down. By the end of the day they were gone too. I lost 2 more that week, but somehow the other 4 survived. I would like to get more but need to figure out what the problem was/is first.

Any thoughts?

Thanks
Mark

[sliphorn]

When my 3 year old broke my ecosphere (miraculously dropped inside another glass container) I transferred the shrimp to another container using the original rocks, coral and water. Over the course of a week, I slowly added water with a pH 1.012 (Instant Ocean salt, Microbe Lift and water conditioner). 3 months later, they are still going strong.

I started a separate 2 liter "tank" with the same water formula, crushed coral for substrate, a few pieces of sea fan and a little christmas moss. Afraid of risking my survivors, I ordered 10 new shrimp from Mustafa about 2 weeks later. When they arrived a week later, they were very active and seemed healthy. I acclimated them to the new water for 2 hours and put them in their new home. The next morning I had 2 that had died and 2 that were listless and swimming upside down. By the end of the day they were gone too. I lost 2 more that week, but somehow the other 4 survived. I would like to get more but need to figure out what the problem was/is first.

Any thoughts?

Thanks
Mark

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Possibly the sea fan and Christmas moss. The Christmas moss should go. Was algae present when you added the shrimp? If you are using distilled water or reverse osmosis water you do not need a water conditioner, just the proper amount of Instant Ocean or similar. It's possible the tank was not fully cycled. A 2 litre container has no room for error. Maybe the microbe lift wasn't beneficial either. I prefer waiting 5 to 6 weeks before adding creatures.

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[Dch48]

Yes, the tank probably wasn't cycled enough and there was ammonia present along with nitrites. These shrimp seem amazingly tolerant to nitrites but not to ammonia. It could have been the moss decomposing that caused a spike in ammonia and there was not enough beneficial bacteria present to process it. It sounds like the shrimp were poisoned.

I put mine in while there was still a small nitrite reading and they are all doing fine. There was no ammonia though. Interestingly, the nitrites did seem to adversely affect the Horned Nerite snail but the shrimp couldn't have cared less.

[mike.d]

My guess is not enough cycle time. 2 weeks probably would have been enough time IF you had included some rocks and a small amount of water from your established tank.

You also don't mention anything about light. It can take longer to cycle if you don't have enough adequate light.

[Mustafa]

I'd also say that *probably* the Christmas moss and the sea fan had something to do with the fact that your shrimp died. The symptoms you are describing are clearly that of poisoning. I would take out the sea fan (especially if it still has it's "skin" instead of just being the skeleton) and definitely the moss (which is already dead even if it's green, but will continue polluting the water). The I'd change about 80-90% of the water.

If you ever want to put the sea fan back in there I'd soak it in water for several weeks or so and also remove the outer "skin" if it has one. We've had forum members that experienced issues with sea fans they purchased online before. We've also had members that had problems after introducing so called "brackish tolerant" plants. On that note, I recommend reading this article:

https://www.petshrimp.com/beware-of-so- ... er-plants/

[MarkR]

Thanks for the great responses. At 24 days, maybe my cycle was too short but ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels were normal when I added the shrimp. I dropped a couple of spirulina flakes in to supplement feeding and speed up algae growth along with the sea fan from my original ecosphere tank. I got the other sea fan online. I thought boiling it would take care of any issues but maybe not. Since it's been in there over a month and everything seems to be ok, I assume it's safe now. I've also removed the moss. I'll let you know how things are going.

Thanks again for all the suggestions.

[Mustafa]

So how are things going?