2 Cleaner Shrimps dead...

I have a 120ltr tank that finished cycling about a week ago.

Stocked in it are: 2 Clownfish, 1 Fiji Blue Damsel, 2 Blue-Legged Hermits, 1 Red-Legged Hermit, 1 Orange-Legged Hermit.

I'm trying to get a cleaner shrimp in there, I have now had two of them die (seperate occasions, I have not added 2 at once). I put the bag into the tank for 15 mins to adjust the temp of the water, then did a drip aclimitation for an hour, then released them into the tank and they both died within an hour or so...

Water is all good - Ammonia is 0, Nitrates 0, Nitrites 0 and pH is at 8.2.

Salinity of the water is about 1.026. Thing is all the fish and hermits are perfectly happy in there.

Tank also has about 10kg of liverock, plus another 10 of normal rock. Plus a protein skimmer, 2 air heads and a small water fan for better circulation.

Any thoughts?

 

How are you acclimating them? Drip method or floating the bag? I was always told by my LFS that the cleaners needed a very slow acclimation, idk if that goes for all shrimps or inverts (i am assuming so) but for some reason when i bought mine they could not stress it any more.

Don't know if that helps you but i did the drip method on my cleaner and hes been happy for months.

 

Yeah I did the drip method for about an hour.

Maybe they need longer? Like 2-3 hours?

 

Hmm, dripped mine for less than an hour with zero issues.
Is it possible your damsel is 'picking' at them and stressing them out to death?
Might test for copper too, hermit are just a little more resilient to the copper. But still, something I would test. This was my issue at one point, and I had never even treated with copper... Leached out from old tank.

 

I tossed 1/2 cup of tank water in my bag after floating for 15 minutes. Left him for another 10 and in he went..... That's how I've done all my livestock thus far. Zero *knocks on wood* fatalities.

 

i think the problem is that your temp adjust wasn't enough. by the time your drip finished, the temp was off again.

chance the temp swing after the drip is what did it... i've noticed my shrimp to be sensitive to that.



also, check your params. only been done for cycling for a couple of weeks... it's not uncommon to have residual mini cycles for a while... might have had a nitrite spike or something...

just ideas.

 

No I tested the water again earlier, Nitrite is 0.

Ammonia is 0 too.

I dunno about the copper - surely there's no way copper could get in, i've not added any water treatments and have added no water from my fish shop (i.e. from the bags that had the shrimps in).

Don't think it's the Damsel either, for a Damsel mine is quite passive, never attacks anything.

Basically as soon as I put the shrimps in, they were barely moving. It's like they were dying before I even got them in the tank...

At the start of the aclimitation process, they were both moving around a lot in the bag, but towards the end were pretty still, and then didn't move around in the tank at all when I put them in...then they were dead within an hour or so.

Not sure about the temp either, my tank was quite hot today (it's fairly hot here atm), temp reads almost 28 degrees so surely the water couldn't have got too cold. Or maybe that's the issue - shock from the sudden temperature change becuase the bag water would have been a fair bit colder?

 

Are you 100% sure there dead and not molting?

~Will.

 

How long did your tank cycle?
How old are your test kits?
I believe that you are experiencing a problem with your parameters that are causing you to lose your Cleaner Shrimp!
I have not experienced a situation like yours with either Peppermint, Cleaner(Skunk) or Fire Shrimp in my established tank...so I am thinking that maybe your tank has not cycled fully or their is another parameter issue.

 

I was thinking along these lines as well.

And ITO acclimation, I don't do more than a ten to fifteen minute dip to bring temperature to par, then dump in. Zero fatalities so far. I would be more careful with Starfish though, using prime in the bag to thwart the change of NH4 to NH3 when oxygen is introduced into the system. This especially applies to internet purchases. If you drip acclimate without prime, you are going to poison the livestock somewhat with that dreaded conversion.