cleaner shrimp dying

bigbear75

New Member
the lfs told me to acclimate him for 15 min so i did it for 30 mins, i have a 10 gallon tank with 2 damsels ive had it over a month and all my levels were ok, i just bought him about 4 hours ago. what went wrong?
 

bigbear75

New Member
he is just sitting there twitching a little. he was on the rock up side down and when i looked at him again he was laying upside down on the sand. so i flipped him over and he looks almost dead
 

hot883

Active Member
IMO best way to acclimate them is to float the bag 10-15 min. to equal water temp. Then, open bag and pour small amount of water in bag from the tank. Repeat that until bag is amost full. Half empty the bag, (not in the tank) and add more tank water a little at a time. 1/2 cup every 15-20 min. or so until bag is almost full again. Net fish/shrimp etc. and place in tank. Never empty bag water into tank.
Also, what are your water parameters? That will be needed to fully understand problems.
 

bigbear75

New Member
i didnt add the water from the lfs i got him out with the net after letting him and the bag sit in the tank...i have been basing my levels on my water by taking my water to the fish store( i guess not a good idea) i have been looking for a test kit, but my salt level is 1.022 which is what it says on my hydrometter that it is good, should i try raising it? is it to late to save him
 
S

sinner's girl

Guest
first, you didn't acclimate him long enough. second, turn off your lights and leave him alone.
Some inverts will molt once they are in a new tank, some play dead. He may die since you didn't acclimate him right, but give him a chance. just leave him alone. bothering him or having the lights on will only stress him out.
And now you've learned to never trust your lfs. Welcome to the club!
Look on the left of the screen and click Acclimation. Read and follow that next time.
 

hot883

Active Member
1.022 is to low. The ocean for the most part is like 1.026. Inverts need 1.024-1.026 if I remember right. It's probably to late now. Really don't know what to tell ya, other than see what happens tonight. Do you have a QT set up?
 

bigbear75

New Member
i should have know ill, ask on here next time before i do anything, i turned off the light and ill leave him alone for a while. thank you for all the help. i guess i could take him back tommorrow i think i have a 24 hr refund, and i can try it again and ill acclimate him, for the right amout of time
 
S

sinner's girl

Guest
don't touch your sg right now. Have someone (lfs) test the sg with a refractormeter to find out what your sg really is. hydrometers can be off, imo they suck. Then slowly raise it if needed. Raise it by added salt to your top off water.
What are your nitrates? ph? ect?

hydrometers can be off, so we don't really know how low your sg is. I kept mine at 1.024 for years without a problem, with inverts.
.i have been basing my levels on my water by taking my water to the fish store
:notsure: you have the lfs test your water? No big deal, that's fine. Unless like now you need to know. Always test your water before adding a new creature. I don't have a test kit. We take the water to the lfs and ***** to test. It's free there.
 

hot883

Active Member
Originally Posted by bigbear75
i had them test all my levels (except my salinity) before i bought the cleaner shrimp
I do the same but I ensure that I ask for the results. You can learn real quick if they are just bsing you.
Sinner's girl, good points.
 

scottgotts

Member
He died from too low of salinity IMO, it was a shock for him to go from around 1.026 to 1.022- that is a big difference. So just raise your salt level and better luck next time.
 

chipmaker

Active Member
One LFS here does nothing but float the bags the shrimp come in for about 30 minutes and then releases them..if the water in the bags and the tank they are going in are close in sg.....He said he has almost a perfect 0 fatality rate........Another place acclimizes by temp and also drip and also claims the same thing..Both agree shrimp are among the hardest to acclimate and the key is do it slow......
I did mine, buy drawing off some of my tank water after checking SG of tank ......I pour out all but a small amount of original water that fish, shrimp etc is bagged in, and place fish etc in a clear plastic container.......I then add one third of that containers capacity with water from the tank, every 5 or 6 minutes, until I do it a total of three times where I now have doubled the containers contents. Then I pour off 1/2 of this content, and repeat process again, and also one more time, for a total of 9 steps of adding and replacing and pouring off some water over a 45 minute time frame. So far it works fine. I do not know if it makes much difference or not, but I try and do my acclimating during early evening so once fish etc are placed in the main tank they get a few minutes to take a look around and spot a place to hole up, then its lights out.....Next day they get their first feeding.
For corals and snails etc I remove from bag, and place on paper towel for about 1 or 2 minutes to allow them to fully deflate or drainout any original water they held, place in the tank and thats it. When they pump up again they have all my tanks water, and little to no lFS water was introduced.
 

bigbear75

New Member
i took the dead shrimp
back to the lfs, and he rechecked my water and he said my amonia and nitrates were a little high but the day before they were fine, i didnt ask him what the numbers were because the people there have bad attitudes, he then told me that cleaner shrimp only did good in reef tanks, is this true? so now i have 20 dollar credit, i want to eventually take out the damsels and put a clown fish or 2 in it. so should i try it again but raise my slat levels and acclimate him longer?
what is a qt? im fairly new at this, the shrimp was my first
thank you everyone, a lot more helpful then the fish store!
 

carshark

Active Member
as with all inverts, drip acclimation is the way to go, of course whenever adding new creatures, always leave the lights off till the next day. drip acclimation is truly the best way to acclimate a fish, proves a 0 fatality rate related to stress. also when floating a specimen, leave the lights of as well.. any invert I would drip acclimate, its better safer than sorry!
 

ppm411

Member
QT = Quarantine Tank It's another method of acclmiating your livestock. You basically have another small tank on the side with the same water in your main tank with a simple fitrations system and heater. This way, if the fish or invert is diseased or is stressed from the tranport and dies/decays it won't harm your existing system. However, this is a bit impractical for most people and the drip method seems to yield good results.
List of TLA's (Three Letter Aronymns) used on this site (well, not always 3 but work with me for the sake of the joke)
:
https://www.saltwaterfish.com/vb/showthread.php?t=42388
 
Top