cleaner shrimps dying!!!

annanymous

Member
hi everyone,
i recieved my guaranteed cleaner shrimp from swf.com and the same thing hapened to it as to the first one. both were fine during acc;limation period which was a bit more than 2 hours, but both died 2 min within being put in the tank. water param. are all good. i have an anemone that it doing fine, but shrimp for some reason wouldn't. any idea why?
 

nas19320

Active Member
Do you have other inverts in the tank and if yes how long have they been in the tank? What are your water parameters?
 

annanymous

Member
i have a cleaner crew taht seem to be doing well. all the astrea snails are about 1.5 times the size they came as. they've been in the tank for about a month.
water par.:
ammonia 0
nitrate0-5 [cant tell from the color]
nitrites 0
Ph 8.0
temp. 80-82
calc. 375 [trying to get it up]
alk - still didnt get the test.
 

viper_930

Active Member
How much water was dripped during the acclimation? The overall tank water that was used should quadrouple (sp?) the water that is in the bag at least.
 

annanymous

Member
well it was acclimating along with 3 more corals so there was water from 4 bags and during acclimation the water doubled.
 

elfdoctors

Active Member
I would blame it on acclimation stress. Shrimp acclimate much more slowly than fish (or corals which only need a brief acclimation). They and starfish seem to be the hardest to acclimate. I try doing a 6 hour acclimation with shrimp. The water in the bag should at least quadruple.
 

blitt

Member
I'm not an expert here but it seems that a ph of 8.0 is a little low that could also be added stress on a new species.
 

jb rekit

Member
I think there might be something wrong with their cleaner shrimp right now b.c I just made my first order on here a week ago and everything was fine except the 2 cleaner shrimp I got were DOA. I got a bunch of crabs and a fire shrimp as well that all made it and are doing great right now.
 

bang guy

Moderator
I received another pair of Scarlet Cleaner Shrimp from SWF.COM a couple weeks ago and they are doing very well & producing lots of larvae. I don't think there's anything wrong with the Shrimp.
PH of 8.0 is just fine as long as the Shrimp are slowly acclimated using the drip method as outlined to the left.
I doubt it's Iodine because you didn't mention adding any.
I doubt it's Copper because everything else in the tank is fine. All I can think is that perhaps your drip rate was too slow in you only doubled the water volume in 2 hours. 6 - 8 drips per second is pretty quick.
FYI - I tested the PH in the Carribean over the reef and I came up with 7.8* in the morning and 8.6 evening. I could only get water from about 10 feet down though but these values should be close.
* - If I'm remembering correctly, it was a while ago.
I recommend keeping PH between 8.0 and 8.5 with 8.2 - 8.3 being ideal.
 
i have just set up a tank its around 1 1/2 months old i have taken my water to my local shop n they sed im all ready to start with cleaning crew since i only have live rock atm i brought a cleaner shrimp and some hermet crabs there doing fine but my shrimp lasted 30 mins i left the bags for 30 mins in the tank then added half a cup of my tank water every 10 mins to 2 hours then slowly drop him in the tank he went to the bottem moved around a bit but looked like he got a lil court in some hair algi i have but soon moved 30 mins later he moved fliped over n hasnt moved for over an hour now any ideas my water salt levals are 1.025 ???????
 
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