Help help help!!! Cherry Shrimps dying!!!!!

[LittleAngel104]

Hey guys!

I'm totally clueless on what's going on....   I have a colony of cherry shrimps in a 8 gallon tank.  Last night,  I noticed that 2 of them were dead and their bodies resting at the bottom of the tank.  I remouved them and didn't think much of it. This morning,  I fished 6 more dead bodied!!!!  Tonight,  there are still at least 8 more that are dead!   I checked my water (Ph= 7.2, Amonia= 0,  Nitrite= 0, Nitrate= 10, Temp=78 degrees) and everything seems fine.I leave the light on for about 10 hours a day.  I rotate feeding them shrimp pellets, fish flakes and algea waffers.  Should I feed them something else?  I doubt they are dying of old age all at the same time.  Please help me find the problem!  I have about 100 shrimps in there and I'm afraid I won't have much left soon....  Thanks.

[Laura]

Nothing jumps out at me.  Is there a possibility that hand cream or aerosol spray got in the tank?  Given the lack of anything obvious, I would probably do a partial water change and monitor it.
My shrimp like blanched zucchini and other veggies like kale and bok choy, but zucchini is always a big hit.
Good luck.

[Aquaviewer]

I agree.  A partial water change can't hurt and could start addressing any contamination issue, if there is one.  I have read on other forums that some shrimp breeders add iodine to their tank water.  I would occasionally add a few drops to my shrimp tank after water changes, but not on any sort of schedule.  Can't really tell you if it was beneficial or not, however I never had any problems with my colony.

I used the same feeding strategy as yours and supplemented with blanched zucchini.

[dan2x38]

Before they started to die did you do a water change? Are you on City Water?

[LittleAngel104]

I'm on city water but I treat the water before my water changes.  When I first noticed they were dying,  it had been 4 days since my last 25% water change.

[MikeM]

I've been reading a lot about shrimp and water quality since I'm trying (not successfully so far) to breed my Amanos.  Shrimp are very sensitive to heavy metals, like copper, and even Nitrates of 10ppm may be too high, depending on who you listen to.  There's lots of good information on petshrimp.com that might be of help to you.  If there's metals in your water, perhaps from old pipes in your area, it would affect the shrimp first.  I gather Prime will neutralize heavy metals to a certain extent.  I usually near-double-dose Prime during my water changes because I'm paranoid of the city water.

[Laura]

How are they doing?
Here's a link I thought may be helpful. http://www.petshrimp.com/articles/whyshrimpdead.html

[Fishnut]

That's really odd.  Is there any chance that the temperature might have spiked?  Cherry shrimp like cool water.  Ideally they should be kept at room temperature, but 78 isn't so bad.  I would suspect that some kind of heavy metal got into the water. 

I had a trio of tiger shrimp and about 7 babies that crashed.  They were upstairs when we had those super hot days in the summer and because we were cheep, the AC wasn't on.  I put them in the basement and they all died anyways.  When I emptied their tank, I found a few dead snails in the bottom under the undergravel filter plates.  It could have been dead snails and the toxins that come from them that caused the crash. 

[Toss]

I have the same size of tank and about 200 in it, and if I am not mistaken, you got the shrimp from me.
I have never change the water of my shrimp tank. The last time I took water out was spring and it was just siphoning the bottom, less than 10%. I only top up the water. If you overfeed the shrimp, yes, you need to do wc. They are very sensitive to wc.

[Aquaviewer]

They are very sensitive to wc.

I did 10% weekly water change on my shrimp tank and have never had a problem (500+ shrimp).

[LittleAngel104]

Thanks to everyone that replyed,  shrimp tank seems to have stabilized...  I only found 3 dead shrimps in the last 4 days.  I'll do more reaserach and hopefully,  everything will be fine.  Maybe I'll even have some shrimps for sale soon!