I had three ghost shrimp in my planted tank. They were the only residents of the tank, which I started a couple months ago. It has been running that entire time without any fish (can't decide what I want).

All three shrimp were doing fine for a couple weeks until my last water change. Since then, all three seemed to have died within a period of a couple days. I say seem because I can't find one of them (it's gravel substrate with lots of hiding places so the shrimp blend in really well).

These are my first invertebrates, is there anything that I might have done wrong?

- The color of the shrimp seemed to have changed recently -- less clear and more green-ish. I thought that was just algae they ate but I can be very wrong about that.
- I add Seachem Prime to new water before dumping into tank. I don't age it but I do make sure the temperature is the same.
- I just tested the water, ammonia is at 0.

Oh, one more thing I noticed: I used to have a TON of that green stringy algae on my plants. There doesn't seem to be very much new growth since that last water change either. I had been scraping off all the algae then changing the water every 5 days. I did not use any medication. I also add Seachem Flourish Excel for the plants.

Any input would be appreciated. Anything else I should test for?

(tank is a minibow 7, heated, temp is at 80*F).

This post has been edited by elbert: Jun 11 2008, 05:40 PM

How is your PH and Nitrite? I supplement my ghost and orange bee shrimp with a little fish food like bloodworms, flakes or algae chips every other day. Out of 6 shrimp in 6 months I have 3 left. They seem to die for unknown reasons sometimes. It really does not sound like you are doing anything wrong.

Here is some more info on ghost shrimp: http://www.shrimpfanatics.com/shrimp-ghost.html

This post has been edited by StormySkiez: Jun 11 2008, 07:52 PM

You don't have copper in your tapwater by any chance?

reason i say this is that it is highly toxic to the shrimp and also prevents the growth of algae, both of which you have experienced

Does you house have copper pipes? Do you fill with a mix of hot and cold water to get it at the right temp? Does Excel have copper in it?

How old were they? They could have just died of old age if they were all born around the same time, although it is odd for them to go at the same time.

Full water stats, please? Test the tap too.

pH is 8.0
nitrites < 0.3 mg/L
I don't have a nitrate test
results are the same as before I added the shrimp

I don't know how old the shrimp were. I had them for about a month.

I do have copper pipes in my apartment but the shrimp have been fine through several water changes.
I do add a bit of hot water, but the weather has been so warm the past few weeks the "cold" water really isn't that cold.



I was afraid of that they might be related. I double checked Seachem's website (the bottle doesn't list any ingredients) but it doesn't say anything about copper.
The website did report that Flourish Excel have in some cases controlled algae growth but they don't advertise as such.
I'm going to try calling them again tomorrow (they are now closed for the day) and find out for sure.

Oh, you tested positive for nitrite? Or is that just the lowest result the test can give?

If the former, it sounds like you had an ammonia spike, and that it killed them. If the latter, then it may be the copper. I would run some carbon anyway, just to be sure. It wouldn't be a bad idea to run some once a month or after after every change.

I would stop mixing cold and hot, it's not necessary unless you do very large changes as it won't change the temp much. Also, I don't know if it is true or not, but people have said the hot water picks up more copper.

Oh, sorry, that's the lowest reading the test can give.

I just called Seachem (they seem really nice) and supposedly there is no copper in Flourish Excel. I guess it's from the water pipes then. I have also heard that hot water picks up more copper.
Maybe I'll let the water run for a couple minutes before filling up to make sure.

Thanks everyone!