Help - two rounds of dead shrimp

[jheadrick]

I'm eager to have found this forum, hope I can find some help. I was directed here to try and find help figuring out what is wrong with my setup. I've failed at two attempts to start a colony. I'm a veterinary surgeon, a hobby farmer, interested in exotics. My reptiles are in bioactive vivariums and I was interested in starting a self contained ecosystem for my youngest son. I had a one gallon plastic tank that I had white coral on the bottom and lava rocks on top of that. I had fan coral in for decoration (learned that was not good). I had the tank open for about 6 weeks, in the sunlight, to try and establish an algal population before introducing the shrimp. I had 10 shrimp in the first order. I could tell there were at least 6-7 after a couple of weeks, doing well. One day there was what appeared to be an algae bloom on top of the water and I couldn't see any living shrimp. That is when I wrote Petshrimp and learned about the coral. I removed this and most of the water, was happy to find out I really didn't lose many shrimp, still had 5 in there hiding in the coral. I had already placed a new order for 12 more, along with snails and an algae ball. A few days after introduction of all of those critters everything was dead. I never did see the snails. Salinity (with marine salt) and temp were all appropriate. I had this jar contained with a lid on it. Partial sun. I never did feed them formally - thought that the algae population was appropriate for starters. I'm curious if there are known toxins I could have introduced or that I can test for before trying this one last time. Thoughts?