Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

I just got a new shipment of cherries in and have had a few deaths in the past 24 hours. Tank parameters:
79F
pH 7.8
Nitrate, Nitrite, Amonia 0
Substrate: eco complete
plants: dwarf hair grass, tiger lotus, hornwort
CO2: seachem excel

Can someone maybe help me figure out why they have died... or am I just looking at the moltings?

If they are bright red, they are dead shrimp, if they are clear they are molts.

If they died within a few days of arrival, and the tank is well cycled, I would say it was shipping stress. Search out the name of the dealer you got them from and see if they have been reviewed here.

I got them from a breeder in Alberta Canada (next province to me).

As for the "dead" shrimp, they are white or colorless, not clear.

I would do a large water change and back off on the ferts for a while.

I always get nervous when the words ferts and shrimp are mentioned together.

I just did a 60% water change with zero additives other than dechlorinator. If I still have deaths after this.... what does everyone suggest?

First, are you sure they are dead shrimp and not the molts as mentioned above? Sometimes the molted shells are white in color. Are the shrimp moving around normally and scavenging for food? These are signs of healthy shrimp.

If they are not really active or eating, especially with some food in the tank, then you have a problem. Even too much activity, such as swimming to the top and trying to escape the water are bad signs. If you see this it may be too late, I would just do the water change and see what happens from there at that point. Best wishes.

I always get nervous when the words ferts and shrimp are mentioned together.

I can't stress how risky it is to use ferts in a tank with shrimp, especially when they are stressed (shipping) already

In fishkeeping a cycled tank will have zero ammonia, zero nitrIte with a low reading for nitrAte. In shrimp keeping the nitrAte levels can be as low as zero in a cycled tank.

Is the tank cycled? How long has the tank been set up?

I also don't use ferts.

I've never seen white dead cherries. See if there is any substance to these "bodies". I think they may be molts.

The tank has been set up for about a month before I received the shrimp. The tank was new from the store, rinsed out well before use. I know that I cannot blame this on medication from a previous use.

I had the tank cycled with neons before that and they did great, all active and swimming.

I notice that 90% of my shrimp are at the bottom of the tank looking for food, while the rest are swimming around, some just swimming to the floating hornwort at the top, but maybe 1 or 2 swimming up and down the side of the tank.

BTW I had about 30 shrimp in total.

I also think they are molts. I thought the same thing before, that I had dead shrimp when I saw the white bodies. When I did a gravel vac and got a closer look, I realised they were molts. In the past 8 months I had shrimps, I have seen 2 actual dead shrimp and they looked like most of the shrimp with color, except it was laying on it's side.

in badflash avatar you have a nice molt

Yes, this might help you tell the difference:

yeaulman wrote:The tank has been set up for about a month before I received the shrimp.

4 weeks? Hmmm....did you cycle it? In contrast to what some ill-informed people will tell you, you *must* cycle your tank completely before adding any shrimp. Just having plants in your tank, no matter how many plants, will not replace a cycle. Even if you can't measure ammonia/nitrite it can still be in your tank in deadly quantities for your shrimp.

It was a proper cycle. I must have stated that wrong. It was set up for about a month with fish, and I did a fishless cycle with ammonia before hand, checking on ammonia every day till it was zero. I have done this several times.

The tank had neons in it before I put the shrimp in, but moved them to my 90g planted discus tank.

I am not saying this was definately the case but as stated earlier, there may still have been ammonia that was undetected by testing. This may have harmed the shrimp. Fish and shrimp, even though they share the same environment, have different reactions to the presence of ammonia and also heavy metals (especially copper).