Home » Community » Misplaced all of my shrimp in a single day. I simply purchased 10 juvenile Cherrys for my tank final Monday everybody was completely happy and tremendous…
Misplaced all of my shrimp in a single day. I simply purchased 10 juvenile Cherrys for my tank final Monday everybody was completely happy and tremendous…
I doubt pH issue unless the tank they came from was much lower, but even then it’s more typical for them not to expire all at once. All at once seems more like a change or toxin or something else to me.
The other question is KH and GH values in healthy ranges but again that typically causes molting deaths not all at once problems.
Have a cat, or someone who might’ve sprayed cleaning products in the room or something like that?
Check copper and chlorine. (I doubt your tank is uncyled but it’s always worth saying) My bet is copper based on the parameters you’re currently showing. Either that or someone might be spraying something close to the tank that is getting in, like a disinfectant or freshener.
Going to check the kh and gh on my break and will report back maybe that is my issue. They are juveniles and I was wondering if they had a problem with molting
I dabbled with high grade red cherrys for years. They never thrived. Good parameters including gh/kh, I don’t know I just could not get them to sustain. Same with ghost shrimp. Better results with RO/DI but still not a thriving colony like everyone else. I moved to our new place and switched to caridina shrimp and have been successful thus far. Some other caridina breeders admit they have never been successful with neos either despite them knowingly being easier/hardier. I guess my point is, keeping shrimp can be weird.
I once changed the outflow of my filter from a spray bar to a regular output. This massively reduced the surface agitation and made my CO2 fucking sky rocket.
When I noticed the drop checker was no-drinking-for-three-days-piss yellow and my shrimps where on their back and twitching. We quickly transferred as many as we could to a quaratine tank and the vast majority recovered, but if I had been an hour later they would probably have whiped.
I did test the ph of the water and it was like almost 1.5 points below where it was supposed to be.
Sorry for your loss, OP. I had came across an instance where a fellow hobbyist introduced new plants that were grown emersed and protected with pesticides, killing all his inverts in a couple of days. Other thing I could possibly think off would be accidental introduction of copper thru ferts. Both of these can’t be detected with the standard test kits. Hope you can figure out the exact cause soon.
From my own experience, and others, sometimes this happens.
I have seen no one mention this, but it’s true. Spend some time Googling (or even looking at /r/aquariums posts) and you will see others say the same thing.
Even ask your local fish store, as I bet they have stories of entire new batches not making it. In fact, when I went to buy some, my LFS just lost an entire batch.
Shrimp can be very sensitive. It took me 3 batches before I finally got a batch that survived. Now, they are breeding like crazy and thriving. It doesn’t mean your water isn’t good, doesn’t mean you didn’t acclimate, doesn’t mean something is leaching chemicals, it can just mean you got a shit batch.
My first and last batch were from the same fish store. The second batch was from a local private seller. Some people may blame the source, but in my experience it wasn’t the local fish store that was the issue, it was just the shrimp were fragile.
I am not saying it’s not something you’re doing, but I am also letting you know it might not be anything you’re doing. Something no one else has said yet.
Hey OP, I saw your GH/KH was pretty high and just wanted to say, I had this exact same problem with my first tank of red cherries
My parameters pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate were all like yours but I couldn’t for the life of me get the GH/KH to fall from the upper teens
I have incredibly hard tap water so I just stopped using that and began getting bottles of distilled or 5 gal jugs of aquarium water from my lfs.
I then bought the Salty Shrimp GH/KH powder and add half the recommended dose to the water. Did a 25% change and within two weeks I had shrimps molting beautifully, getting berried and giving birth.
Sorry you lost them 🙁 that pH is fine. I have mine around 7.8-8 and they breed like rabbits (literally hundreds).
Check if anything could have leached. Weird decor you just added, a medication, even a recent water change. There are tests for copper, kH, and gH which can be important parameters for shramps. Does your water look cloudy ? Overnight suggests something sudden and bacterial blooms can come out of nowhere in new tanks and strip available oxygen.
I’m dabbling in Sunkist Neocaridina rearing. She had over 30 babies and I still count that number, probably more. Thing is, if you’ve been successful with tropical fish, Shrimp is not always a “slam dunk”. There are ideas before setting up that you can foresee. Patience, observation, water testing, temp, and more. I just fed the tank! They ate it and most of all Shrimplets. Then they went up to the plants and in their quartz rock caves. It’s not difficult if, if your awareness is there and knowing what to do BEFORE a problem rears its ugly head, prevent it. Hides, caves, and dense plants all make them feel as close to home as I can recreate. It’s lots of fun observing them as they go through different phases of growth.
Could honestly just be a bad batch of shrimp. I had a similar issue setting up a tank a few months ago. Tank cycled for a few months before I got around to stocking it. Over 2 weeks I lost 9/10 guys with no apparent reason. I picked up new stock at a different LFS and I haven’t lost one yet. No changes made to the tank between LFSs and still no idea what happened with the first batch. I only have 1 left from the original 10 I got.
Sorry if someone already mentioned this, but have you checked all your tank additives to see if they have copper in it? Ik certain medicines have copper
Does your house water come through copper pipes? Did you use soap or other cleaners to wash the tank? Has there been any bug killer or other cleaning agents been used inside the house or near the tank? How old was the tank?
Assuming this is a cycled tank with a WC done recently, parameters look fine and pH isn’t way off or anything. Did you drip acclimate these shrimp? Whats your tank GH/KH reading? Do you know what hardness the shrimp seller was keeping their stock at?
I have kept multiple types of fish for many years now and I can’t keep shrimp. I don’t know why they don’t last. apparently they’re very technical of the water hardness just something I don’t have the mental capacity to bother with anymore personally Sorry about your shrimp:(
Shrimp care a lot about water hardness which isn’t measured in the master kit. If the GH/KH isn’t right, they die when molting. You should pick up a KH/GH test kit.
I’m late to this party, but if you can’t find any other reason, try shaking the absolute shit out of the liquid testing chemicals and re-test. I’ve seen some of the reagents crystallize inside the container and render themselves inert. It’s nothing 30 seconds of vigorous shaking won’t fix, but you’ll get false negatives until you realize it’s happened.
My water is liquid rock here, and cherries did amazing in it. The only thing I can think of is 1) chloramine instead of chlorine in tap water 2) copper plumbing (copper is extremely toxic to shrimp – even in very low levels). The cherries you have that are thriving…are they kept at a different location/water source? If so, one of the two could be a possibility.
Altruistic-Still-653 
I doubt pH issue unless the tank they came from was much lower, but even then it’s more typical for them not to expire all at once. All at once seems more like a change or toxin or something else to me.
The other question is KH and GH values in healthy ranges but again that typically causes molting deaths not all at once problems.
Have a cat, or someone who might’ve sprayed cleaning products in the room or something like that?
Copper will kill shrimp.. dont know if that could be your issue.
Otherwise I’d be thinking sprayed chemicals 🤷♂️
Check copper and chlorine. (I doubt your tank is uncyled but it’s always worth saying) My bet is copper based on the parameters you’re currently showing. Either that or someone might be spraying something close to the tank that is getting in, like a disinfectant or freshener.
Going to check the kh and gh on my break and will report back maybe that is my issue. They are juveniles and I was wondering if they had a problem with molting
My ph is higher than yours and mine are fine..perhaps not acclimated well enough
I dabbled with high grade red cherrys for years. They never thrived. Good parameters including gh/kh, I don’t know I just could not get them to sustain. Same with ghost shrimp. Better results with RO/DI but still not a thriving colony like everyone else. I moved to our new place and switched to caridina shrimp and have been successful thus far. Some other caridina breeders admit they have never been successful with neos either despite them knowingly being easier/hardier. I guess my point is, keeping shrimp can be weird.
Did you move the gravel around too much by any chance? This video by flip aquatics has been most helpful so far: https://youtu.be/YE78lY0MlYQ
You got some CO2 running in there?
I once changed the outflow of my filter from a spray bar to a regular output. This massively reduced the surface agitation and made my CO2 fucking sky rocket.
When I noticed the drop checker was no-drinking-for-three-days-piss yellow and my shrimps where on their back and twitching. We quickly transferred as many as we could to a quaratine tank and the vast majority recovered, but if I had been an hour later they would probably have whiped.
I did test the ph of the water and it was like almost 1.5 points below where it was supposed to be.
Sorry for your loss, OP. I had came across an instance where a fellow hobbyist introduced new plants that were grown emersed and protected with pesticides, killing all his inverts in a couple of days. Other thing I could possibly think off would be accidental introduction of copper thru ferts. Both of these can’t be detected with the standard test kits. Hope you can figure out the exact cause soon.
From my own experience, and others, sometimes this happens.
I have seen no one mention this, but it’s true. Spend some time Googling (or even looking at /r/aquariums posts) and you will see others say the same thing.
Even ask your local fish store, as I bet they have stories of entire new batches not making it. In fact, when I went to buy some, my LFS just lost an entire batch.
Shrimp can be very sensitive. It took me 3 batches before I finally got a batch that survived. Now, they are breeding like crazy and thriving. It doesn’t mean your water isn’t good, doesn’t mean you didn’t acclimate, doesn’t mean something is leaching chemicals, it can just mean you got a shit batch.
My first and last batch were from the same fish store. The second batch was from a local private seller. Some people may blame the source, but in my experience it wasn’t the local fish store that was the issue, it was just the shrimp were fragile.
I am not saying it’s not something you’re doing, but I am also letting you know it might not be anything you’re doing. Something no one else has said yet.
With the information provided they could’ve died from poisoning. Either over feeding or household aerosols
Is there any Cooper in the tank?
what substrate do you use op
Awww, I’m so sorry. I’m just starting with a few shrimp, so all I can offer right now is a virtual hug, sorry about that- they’re expensive as well!
Hey OP, I saw your GH/KH was pretty high and just wanted to say, I had this exact same problem with my first tank of red cherries
My parameters pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate were all like yours but I couldn’t for the life of me get the GH/KH to fall from the upper teens
I have incredibly hard tap water so I just stopped using that and began getting bottles of distilled or 5 gal jugs of aquarium water from my lfs.
I then bought the Salty Shrimp GH/KH powder and add half the recommended dose to the water. Did a 25% change and within two weeks I had shrimps molting beautifully, getting berried and giving birth.
I hope you have success in the future!
Did anyone ask how you acclimated and how long.
Sorry you lost them 🙁 that pH is fine. I have mine around 7.8-8 and they breed like rabbits (literally hundreds).
Check if anything could have leached. Weird decor you just added, a medication, even a recent water change. There are tests for copper, kH, and gH which can be important parameters for shramps. Does your water look cloudy ? Overnight suggests something sudden and bacterial blooms can come out of nowhere in new tanks and strip available oxygen.
I’m dabbling in Sunkist Neocaridina rearing. She had over 30 babies and I still count that number, probably more. Thing is, if you’ve been successful with tropical fish, Shrimp is not always a “slam dunk”. There are ideas before setting up that you can foresee. Patience, observation, water testing, temp, and more. I just fed the tank! They ate it and most of all Shrimplets. Then they went up to the plants and in their quartz rock caves. It’s not difficult if, if your awareness is there and knowing what to do BEFORE a problem rears its ugly head, prevent it. Hides, caves, and dense plants all make them feel as close to home as I can recreate. It’s lots of fun observing them as they go through different phases of growth.
Could honestly just be a bad batch of shrimp. I had a similar issue setting up a tank a few months ago. Tank cycled for a few months before I got around to stocking it. Over 2 weeks I lost 9/10 guys with no apparent reason. I picked up new stock at a different LFS and I haven’t lost one yet. No changes made to the tank between LFSs and still no idea what happened with the first batch. I only have 1 left from the original 10 I got.
We all lose shrimp from time to time
do you have any decorations in tbere that dont belong in an aquarium?
Sorry if someone already mentioned this, but have you checked all your tank additives to see if they have copper in it? Ik certain medicines have copper
Does your house water come through copper pipes? Did you use soap or other cleaners to wash the tank? Has there been any bug killer or other cleaning agents been used inside the house or near the tank? How old was the tank?
did you do any acclimation steps or just add them directly to the tank?
Assuming this is a cycled tank with a WC done recently, parameters look fine and pH isn’t way off or anything. Did you drip acclimate these shrimp? Whats your tank GH/KH reading? Do you know what hardness the shrimp seller was keeping their stock at?
Is your tank planted? Do you use fertilizer? If so, there may be copper involved in your mass murder mystery. Some fertilizers contain copper
I have kept multiple types of fish for many years now and I can’t keep shrimp. I don’t know why they don’t last. apparently they’re very technical of the water hardness just something I don’t have the mental capacity to bother with anymore personally Sorry about your shrimp:(
Shrimp care a lot about water hardness which isn’t measured in the master kit. If the GH/KH isn’t right, they die when molting. You should pick up a KH/GH test kit.
did you check salinity? my ATO malfunctioned and dropped my salinity 4 points over night killing a torch, and my cleaner shrimp
Water temp? Did you slowly acclimate them?
what was the temp?
Copper from fertilizer maybe?
Did you check your phosphates?
I’m late to this party, but if you can’t find any other reason, try shaking the absolute shit out of the liquid testing chemicals and re-test. I’ve seen some of the reagents crystallize inside the container and render themselves inert. It’s nothing 30 seconds of vigorous shaking won’t fix, but you’ll get false negatives until you realize it’s happened.
My water is liquid rock here, and cherries did amazing in it. The only thing I can think of is 1) chloramine instead of chlorine in tap water 2) copper plumbing (copper is extremely toxic to shrimp – even in very low levels). The cherries you have that are thriving…are they kept at a different location/water source? If so, one of the two could be a possibility.
Did you de-chlorinate your water? Shrimp will drop dead if not.
Also could be since your aquarium isn’t cycled you probably didn’t drip acclimate them.