Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Ok here are my conditions. Temp 71F, pH 7.2, ammonia 0 before introducing and 0.25ppm this after noon before I did a partial water change and got it closer to 0 than the .25 by color before the last 2 died. I had a single bunch of plants in the tank. I made a mash of fish flakes that they readily took the next morning. Other than the ammonia level going up a bit everything seemed fine. I got these shrimp Tuesday about 2pm. I floated them for about 30 min. They were released at 4pm. One looked bad from the start, kind of like it had been pinched. I purchased 12 ghost shrimp and got 14. Wed. morning 2 were dead which I removed and then fed them a pinch of tropical fish flakes soaked in a couple drops of tank water and smashed. I placed this in a jar and put it in the tank. It was not long before the shrimp found this and started eating. Everything looked good last night. This morning 4 more shrimp were dead. I checked the water and did the partial water change. By 2pm all but one was dead. I decided to feed it to the killifish purchased at the same time and clean this tank up for the goldfish. The fish have the same water and are doing fine. Any ideas of where I went wrong?

Judging from the fact that 2 of your shrimp died almost immediately one contributing factor to the shrimp death was probably that they were "pre-damaged" during and before shipping. Then...you probaby fed way too much and the ammonia did the rest. Shrimp are much more sensitive to ammonia than most fish.

Mustafa