Who Gives A Fish Forums

I've lost count of how many cleaner shrimp I've had, but I've had 2 so far and both have kicked the bucket. Something's definitely going on. I've got a tank full of other healthy fish - 2 clowns, a baby chainlink mooray eel, a blenny, and a koran tang, all doing great. But these cleaner shrimp just can't seem to make it. Any ideas what's going on?

"From my experience, cleaner shrimp tend to kick the bucket due to poor water quality. If they're dying off within a day of being introduced to the tank, it's likely the water's not up to par or they're not being acclimated properly. I've seen people use a bucket with an airstone to help the shrimp adjust - they'll have an airline slowly dripping water from the main tank into the bucket, letting it fill up over a couple of hours or even a whole day, before finally adding the shrimp to the tank."

I had a similar issue with my cleaner shrimp, they both kicked the bucket within 24 hours of each other after 6 months in the tank. Got some advice and it seemed like low iodine levels were the culprit, they couldn't shed and that's what did 'em in. Maybe you're dealing with the same thing?

My cleaner shrimp both kicked the bucket when my RO unit went haywire and stopped filtering the water right.

Copper-based meds can be a big problem for cleaner shrimp. They're super sensitive to copper, like most inverts.

no i havnt added any copper based meds, i honestly think its poor water quality. gonna check everything tonight, make sure its all proper, and ill post my results, see if anyone can spot a problem.

ok, so i went over everything i could think of, still think i might be missin a couple tests tho... my ammonia's at 0.40, calcium's 280, salinity's 1.031 or 41, and alkalinity is 0. if anyone can spot what else i'm missin, pls let me know

I think it's pretty clear you've got some issues here. That salinity is way too high, you're looking at 1.031, it needs to be 1.026, that's 35 ppm, that's the target. Ammonia's gotta be zero, that's non-negotiable. Calcium's a bit low, but I don't think that's what killed your shrimp.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's the salinity that's killing them. I was topping off the tank with a mix of fresh and salt water, but I found out from other forums that you're only supposed to use fresh water when topping off. That's definitely what caused my salinity to spike so high.

Definitely the salinity and the ammonia, these two are killing your shrimp. I mean, shrimp just can't handle high salt levels, especially if they're suddenly put into a tank with a completely different salinity to where they came from. It's like a shock to their system.

Any ammonia in seawater is basically lethal, it's due to the high pH of the water. You see, when the pH is below 7.0, ammonia isn't a huge issue, but as the pH goes up, it becomes more and more toxic. And seawater has a pH around 8.4, so even a tiny amount of ammonia in this water is extremely toxic. Invertebrates like crabs, shrimp, and other sensitive creatures are going to have major problems if there's any ammonia in the water.