[jbroholt]

Heres one for you guys.
I just bought 2 cleaner shrimp tonight. I acclimated them for about 3 hours, when I put them in the tank they went directly to the bottom of the tank and moved around for about a minute and then they were dead! Just like that!! I have no Idea what happened. My parameteres are excellent. Salinity is 1.022. PH 8.3 temprature 77.5. I'm a little ticked off as these shrimp were not cheap, they cost me 20.00 a peice. Does anyone have any hints or ideas as to why this might have happened? The only fish that I have in the tank are all community fish. Pair of square anthias, clown tang, naso tang, regal angel, and a bunch of chromis damsels. This is a 190 gal tank.
Thanks

[jimw369]

How did you acclimate them? Did you take a water sample back to the lfs and try for a refund? OR did you buy online?

[jbroholt]

I acclimated them using a drip line. I checked the salinity of the water in the container before I introduced the shrim into the tank. Everything checked out fine. Nitrates=0 ammonia=0. I think that my number one mistake was that I bought them from Petco. It was late in the day and the place I would normally go to was closed. I have a Regal Angel that has a little bit of ich on him so I thought that I would introduce a couple of cleaner shrimp just as an added extra precaution for the other fish. After I wrote the first thread I went to fish out the shrimp from the tank and my nassarius snails had already found them and pretty much devoured them. I was just wondering what I should do differently next time if I were to get a couple more of these guys.

[jimw369]

Sounds like you did everything right. Did you actually see the shrimp die? Interested to know what your stock list is and how big some of it is.

[jbroholt]

The tank is 180 acrylic with 120 lbs of tongan shelf and branch rock. stock wise I have small naso tang 3-4", Regal angelfish 4-5", a pair of square backed anthiases 3-4", bicolor psudochromis 2", 20 green chromis damsels 1", Clown Tang 3-4", to many SPS corals to count, mostly accros and a few moniporas. 2 maxima clams that are about 5" and a bunch of different types of snails. The nasarius snails are the ones that got rid of the evidence that there were even any shrimp in the tank. I did in fact see the shrimp die. With in two minutes they just stopped moving altoghether. It was pretty weird that they both died at almost the exact same time.

[charlesr1958]

If you have elevated magnesium levels, that could have done them in along with any pH and/or alkalinity shock.

Chuck