Cherry Shrimp...what Did I Do Wrong?

[benzenering]

A couple of months ago I set up a 10 gallon tank that I stored in a cabinet as a hospital tank but I've never used in in 14 years. I figured it was about time I put it to good use. I did lots of research and decided to make it a cherry shrimp tank, and add a few small fish and plants to make it more interesting.

After my research, I concluded to buy 5 harlequin rasboras as the fish, bought several plants and a small moss ball, and eight cherry shrimp.

Like I said, this was a couple of months ago.

Over that time, my cherry shrimp gradually died off, one by one. I never saw bodies, I just could locate fewer and fewer of them.

My five harlequin rasboras are fine.

I'm ready to try the shrimp again...but, I don't want to repeat past mistakes. I can't figure out why my shrimp died! I change 50% of the water every two weeks, and match the temperatures. Water parameters are right on, 0 ppm ammonia, 0 ppm nitrite, and anywhere between 10-20 ppm nitrate. I'm an experienced fishkeeper and know that occasionally a creature may die for no reason, but all of them? And they were very small when they arrived next day air, so they were young.

Any ideas? Thanks for the help!
Oh, edited to add...this was a cycled tank and the filter I used was kept in my african cichlid 55 gallon tank for 6-8 weeks to make sure i had beneficial bacteria.

 

[Mamashack]

I've got 5 newish sakura fire shrimp that I hardly ever see so I think they are just very good at hiding. I have found shed exoskeletons tho so I know they are in there still. Have you seen any exoskeletons in your tank? They don't hang round for long as I believe they eat them for the calcium for their new exoskeletons.

 

[JoebW]

Do you think the Harlies could have killed them?

 

[mike455555]

shrimp dont like copper, you said it was a hospital tank, the medication you used might of contained copper. or your plants might of had pesticides on them? 

 

[benzenering]

Thanks y'all for the feedback.

I saw the shrimp for the first few days they were in the tank. They stand out, since they are red. They aren't hiding, they are gone. I researched the fish to add to the tank with the shrimp, and I came up with tetras and rasboras. In any case, the rasboras are very small, as small as the shrimp. They could maybe nip at them, but there couldn't be any way that i can see that they could kill them. I called the company I ordered all of these from and they say they do not treat the plants with copper. I've never used the tank, so there isn't any contamination. It has sat in a cabinet for 15 years, so it was a little dusty, but the only thing I kept in that cabinet was cat food.

These were some good ideas!

Maybe I just got a bad batch. I guess I'll try again from a different online vendor. I wish I could buy them locally, but no one around here seems to carry them.

 

[Zikofski]

what is your filter like? shrimp seem to be sucked up into filter's a lot i know mine did i had to put an extra protection over it? depending on what filter you have check there maybe?

 

[This Old Spouse]

In my 20g where most of my RCS live, there are lots and lots and they keep multiplying. They also get sucked up into the filter intake when they're small and tend to grow up in the filter canister. I pulled out about a dozen last time I cleaned it and they were grey, likely from not seeing any light for a couple months.
 
The RCS I have in my 5g fry tank are fine because I have a sponge over the filter intake to protect the cory fry I had in there. 
 
All in all I'll bet I've rescued more than 50 shrimp from the filters.