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I just got two cleaner shrimp for my tank 3 days ago and now they are both dead I am really confused...I think I might have an incompatibility.

I have this in my tank (29 gallon):

4 clowns (one will go to another tank in 2 weeks)
1 diamond watchman goby
Snails and hermits

If I had to take a stab at it I would say that the shrimp and hermits are NOT compatible. I guess I need to check the parameters again before I blame the hermits.

They are fine

Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate 5-10 ppm
SG: 1.025
Temp: 82 F



I think I am missing something obvious. Thanks for the help!

-Josh

Did you find their bodies? I think i have a reason why they died but i need to know what the answer to this question is.

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pnh

I have several blue legged hermits in with my cleaner shrimp as well as the smaller peppermint and camel shrimp. I would say they aren't the culprits unless you have different and much more agressive hermits than my blue legged.

My guess would be acclimation stress....your tank occupants shouldnt bother the shrimp at all.

How did you acclimate and for how long?

I used the drip method of acclimation for about 2.5 hours. The water probably increased by 4-5 times in that amount...I did "recover" their bodies...I just got home from a little 2 day vacation, now I'm missing a Clown...I'm really wondering what is going on now

-Josh

One observation...I got the goby at the same time as the shrimp. The goby has been "stir-ing" up the sand and the water has been cloudy. I am putting the filter with medium back to to hopefully eliminate this, could that have caused the deaths? I don't know what happend to the clown, it is no where to be seen.

I left yesterday at 3 and it was there and 22 hours later there is no trace of him He's not a jumper, I checked around the tank for him.

I have Caribsea Agnonite Sand so it is a little dusty. Could that cause problems with the fish's respiration?


-Josh

I wouldn't think a little sand cloud would kill them. Maybe if it's so thick you can't see into the tank but I've added freshwater fish to tanks with cloudy substrates all the time(just yesterday in fact) with no losses. I'm sure these critters see sand storms on the reef quite frequently especially shrimp which hang out at the bottom and on rocks. I'd wonder if you missed a hitchhiker that was killing things off but that's probably not it if you are recovering bodies. What are you using for source water and salt? What's the ph and alkalinity?

Yeah the sand really shouldn't have a problem.

If you're positive the animals were healthy and that they are both dead, and not just molted, I would say acclimation shock.

Sometimes what I find, is that even if I do a long drip, sometimes I take so long that the temperature of the water bucket becomes a lot cooler than the temperature of the tank. That increases the stress level of an already stressed animal, and can have bad impacts on survival. And then once an animal dies, ammonia is going to go up and a whole tank can be altered.

Your temp. is a little high IMO. I'd keep it in the mid to upper 70s.

-Formerly known as the Ferretfish

I never take more than 1 hour to acclimate no matter what. Floridapets.com even told me and put up on their main page not to take longer than 15minutes to acclimate their animals. Even if the temp in the bag has dropped down below 40 and the salinity I tested on their water is quite a bit higher than mine at 1.030. They've seen more losses from people acclimating for long periods of time than from adding the animals to water with very different parameters after just 10-15mins of acclimating.

If animals are mail ordered then yes I agree that acclimation should be shorter...this is because of the ammonia and PH drop because of added CO2 in the bagged water...if getting animals from a LFS longer acclimations are not as big of a deal.

BTW, inverts can take several weeks to die from acclimation shock...it might have been acclimation shock from when the LFS received them and the shock from you acclimating them was the last straw.

I did in fact order them online. I have had the live rock for quite awhile and that's what confuses me. I have had one clown in there for awhile and he is just fine. The clown that is missing is just a mystery. Could a group of 5-7 (I really didn't count when I added them) blue and red-legged hermits eat a 1-1.5 inch percula in 20 hours (time that I was gone)? My amonnia is still at zero and my nitrites are as well...I've tested them with multiple test kits.

My salinity is running at 1.025, which is a little higher then I try to keep it but I haven't topped it off the past couple to days...ussually it's around 1.023-1.024. My alk is high however! Very high for some reason. It is currently at 160ppm!!! How do I reduce that?!?! I haven't had this problem before, I am not dosing with anything.

-Josh

Well I have found the missing clown...He got stuck in a crevice and died I guess he couldn't manuveur his way out once he got in. But I've closed that hole up for that doesn't happen again So would my alk be the culprit?

-Josh

160 ppm is only around 9 dkh....right about where it should be and not bad at all.

1dKh = 17.9ppm

OH ok...my kit (nutrafin) says that anything above 125 ppm is "unussually high"

-Josh

Well now another clown has died. He was eating then he seemed to just loose all sense of direction and died. I am just confused...Something is obviously causing all of these deaths but it's beyond me.

-Josh

Any visible signs on the fish? Injuries, disease, etc?

From the way you described the first clown stuck in the rock Im lead to believe that something in the tank is scaring/attacking them...most fish will dart into a rock if being "attacked" and extend their fins to lock themselves into the rock so the predator cant get them out.

On the two that died there was no sign of disease. There is one that is still alive that has a sore on his lip He seems to be ok now. I lowered the temp to about 77 over the past several days.

Do you think that perhaps the temperature of 82 was overcoming them? I guess I didn't realize that was too hot for them

From the way you described the first clown stuck in the rock Im lead to believe that something in the tank is scaring/attacking them...most fish will dart into a rock if being "attacked" and extend their fins to lock themselves into the rock so the predator cant get them out.

From watching the last one I think the first clown that died got disoriented and found himself in that spot. The goby has little "tunnels" under each of the live rock and the last one found himself in one as well. But I got him out before he got stuck.

The only symptoms I really have been able to make out is that they started to breath heavily, lose their equilibrium, and within a few hours them pass

-Josh

Do you think that perhaps the temperature of 82 was overcoming them?

Personally I dont think 82 is too warm...I normally keep my tanks between 80-82 and have never had any problems. Even last summer before I had my chiller, the tank would get up to 85 and I still didnt have any problems. A temp of 82 shouldnt cause problems as long as you have enough surface aggitation to allow O2 exchange.

I think my problem was a large case of stupidity. Right now my two remaining clowns and one goby seem to be doing pretty well. The one clown has a sore on his lip but otherwise seems to be ok. I say this is a large case of stupidity because I think it was a case of chlorine poisoning. After I "drip acclimated" my new fish I didn't have much time before work so I added some water to my main tank from my ten gallon (which I use to mix my salt water). Well the water in the ten gallon had not been in there more than a few hours so I believe the chlorine had not depleted. I don't normally use a declorinator because I ussually aerate for a few days. This slipped my mind because I was in a little bit of a rush.



Now you can all tell me how stupid I am, I deserve it

Does this seem consistant with chlorine poisoning? I can't remember where someone posted that Thanks everyone

-Josh

First if you have chlorine it means your using tapwater which is not such a good idea on a saltwater tank but in particularly in one you want to keep inverts. The levels of heavy metals(copper especially) can be enough to kill them off. I've also heard plenty of disasters with either changes in tapwater quality or someone not testing their tapwater thoroughly enough in the first place that I won't use it even on freshwater tanks. There are things you can't easily test for that could show up in tapwater and kill off at least your inverts.

Second problem is chlorine is not all that's in tapwater. Chloramine is used in most places now and chloramine will not dissipate if the water is left for even days at a time. If your going to use tapwater you need to be using a water conditioner that eliminates chloramine. If you do use one then it eliminates the chlorine/chloromine immediately and your fish did not die of chlorine/chloramine poisoning.

Also this is probably not the problem but I've been told to always leave saltwater to mix at least overnight. The reasons I've been given is that freshly mixed saltwater is unstable(mostly ph) and supposedly caustic. However I did do 3 emergency water changes in a row of 25% each with water that had only finished dissolving the salt 2hours prior and had no issues so how important it is to wait I'm not sure.