Food Killing Cherry Shrimp?

[PrairieSunflower]

I'm wondering if anyone else has a problem with shrimp specific food killing their shrimp?

For the most part, my cherry shrimp act as clean-up crew and eat leftovers and such, but every so often I give them a pinch of Hikari Tropical Shrimp Cuisine. I've come to a conclusion... the only time I have shrimp deaths is within a day or two of feeding them the shrimp food. I thought that was a bit odd so I've stopped feeding them anything other than what I feed my fish.

 

[Chad]

That is very odd. It could certainly be coincidence or it could be a bad batch of the food. I feed repashy's to my shrimp and have no deaths related to it. For the most part my little guys eat algae around the tank and the leftover fish food as well.

 

[PrairieSunflower]

I have to feed mine food as I had moved them to their own tank thinking something in my other tank was killing them... and it took me a long time to connect it to the food. They keep their tank completely spotless! Not any algae in sight! They do share their tank with a few tiny sized guppy fry.

 

[Crossfire]

I feed my cherries Hikari Shrimp Cuisine bidaily, with no ill effects.
Maybe its a water chemistry issue?

 

[PrairieSunflower]

Water chemistry how? I don't think there is anything unusual with my water... at least nothing that I test for.

 

[Crossfire]

It could be a spike in ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, there could be a toxin in the water, there could be copper in the water, you might've overdosed on liquid carbon, etc.

If you have activated carbon or purigen, run it. And do a big water change.

 

[PrairieSunflower]

It could be a spike in ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, there could be a toxin in the water, there could be copper in the water, you might've overdosed on liquid carbon, etc.

If you have activated carbon or purigen, run it. And do a big water change.

My shrimp tank is very very basic. Its only a small 12 litre tank with sand and gravel, hygrophila polysperma and a moss ball, no fertilizers. My filter is the very basic fluval mini so no carbon even.

My shrimp aren't dieing now, as I haven't feed them the shrimp food in about 2 weeks, which is when I finally clicked that they only die after feeding them shrimp food. I do a water change every 3 days of about 80% of the water.

 

[MBOU]

You'll probably find that being such a small basic tank... every time you put the food in, either the shrimp eat it and produce lots of waste or they dont eat it and it rots down... either way... you might find that each time you feed thepellets, you are having a mini cycle where your ammonia spikes and is broken down by the filter but not quickly enough for it to be safe for shrimp but quickly enough that by the time you test for it, it has cycled through.

So...

Food = Ammonia which starts breaking down into Nitrite and then into Nitrate (by which point you test water and d water change) and levels are fine... but the initial ammonia spike has already done damage.

And are you gravel cleaning? If the pellets sink and are getting missed... it rots in the gravel and that would make shrimp very unhappy at least...

 

[PrairieSunflower]

They get feed every day (mini baby flakes) since I feed the fry that are in there with them. When I did add the shrimp food it wasn't a huge lot... can't see how it would make that much of a difference.