Dead Shrimp. Could This Have Been The Problem?

TheShrimpGirl · Dec 22, 2011

This morning when I looked in the tank, half the ghost shrimp were dead along with 3 cherry shrimp. I immediately did a 50% water change just to be safe and removed all the dead shrimp. One of the guppies is acting normally, but has reddened gills and the other has a bit of a problem with it's eye, which looks like a heater burn or something like that. Everyone else in the tank is fine and acting completely normal, but I know that Ghost Shrimp are sort of the Canary in the Coal Mine sort of animals, so they are more sensitive to bad water.

I'm guessing it was an ammonia spike or possibly PH, but i ran out of test kit liquid last week and my LFS doesn't do water testing, so I have no idea about the levels in the tank.

After changing the water I checked the filter cartridge, I use a Tetra Wisper 20 with the Bio Bag cartridges. I was quite surprised to find that the inside of the filter had two very long dead Ghost shrimp and a lot of dead blood worms in it. The entire filter cartridge was brown with the sludge from the dead things. I changed out the cartridge and rinsed the filter out.

I know that when animals begin to decay they release ammonia, so I was wondering if having the dead things in the filter could have caused an ammonia spike and by removing the bad cartridge and replacing it, which adds new carbon and some bacteria in the Biobags, if I may have solved the problem for now.

It is a standard 10 gallon tank with, as of Yesterday:

Fish:

12 Ghost Shrimp
12 Red cherry Shrimp
2 Female Guppies

Plants/Ornaments;

4 small lillies
5 10" stems of Parrot Feather
1 largish rock with a 4"x4" clump of Christmas moss attached
1" of sandd in the bottom of the tank collected from the Dunes

Filter/Heater:

Tetra Wisper 20 filter with Bio Bags Cartridges
Tetra 10-20 gallon heater

Feeding/Water changes/etc.

Feed three times daily with small amounts of tropical fish flakes, freeze dried krill, and frog and tadpole tablets for the shrimp. Once weekly 30% water changes and a good siphoning of the sand. Up until last week, twice weekly water testing, which has always been normal ranges.

Primous · Dec 22, 2011

From what I understand your having issues with ammonia. The "heater burns" on your guppys gills are actually ammonia burns. Do you dechlorinate the water before or after you add it to that tank?

moochy13 · Dec 22, 2011

i hope you didnt remove the filter media and throw it away ? im not sure what the 'cartridge' is, but if its sponge/biomedia where your good bacteria live, and you've binned it, you now have an uncycled tank.

this is bad news.

creeker · Dec 22, 2011

Is this the filter that also has the black foam and plastic "media card" that goes between the filter pad and the outflow? Did you rinse that media card at all? I'm worried about your nitrifying bacteria. If you cleaned that thing out, another ammonia spike might be coming. One of my tanks has a filter like that. I can change the filter pad as long as I leave the media card alone. Occasionally I rinse the media card in tank water to clear any clogs, but never at the same time I switch out the filter pad.

TheShrimpGirl · Dec 23, 2011

The media card is separate, so it still has the original media. I very lightly rinsed it, but in tank water and only very lightly to get the gunk off of it.The bacteria should still be just fine.

The fish with the heater burns actually had them on it's eye on one side. It died yesterday after the spike.

I went and bought test strips last night and they didn't have any Ammonia test strips, just the 5 in 1 strips. They are out of the liquid test kits until Monday, but I may try the fish store 30 minutes drive from here, since they have them.

Everything was normal accept for the Nitrites which were as high as the strips could read, thought he strips didn't register a change in the Nitrites even after a 50% water change and an hour long wait, so I think the strips may be defective, at least that part of it.

I have done three 50% water changes since yesterday morning and have lost no more Shrimp or fish, so the Ammonia problem may be taken care of for now.

Do you think it could have been the dead animals in the filter that caused the spike?

creeker · Dec 23, 2011

TheShrimpGirl said:
The media card is separate, so it still has the original media. I very lightly rinsed it, but in tank water and only very lightly to get the gunk off of it.The bacteria should still be just fine.

The fish with the heater burns actually had them on it's eye on one side. It died yesterday after the spike.

I went and bought test strips last night and they didn't have any Ammonia test strips, just the 5 in 1 strips. They are out of the liquid test kits until Monday, but I may try the fish store 30 minutes drive from here, since they have them.

Everything was normal accept for the Nitrites which were as high as the strips could read, thought he strips didn't register a change in the Nitrites even after a 50% water change and an hour long wait, so I think the strips may be defective, at least that part of it.

I have done three 50% water changes since yesterday morning and have lost no more Shrimp or fish, so the Ammonia problem may be taken care of for now.

Do you think it could have been the dead animals in the filter that caused the spike?