I killed my shrimp and don't know how

[Murf.]

I have a 10 gallon. It has ich. I'm treating with Ich-X which isn't supposed to hurt shrimp. However, I thought I would isolate my 3 red cherry shrimp to be safe. I cut a 2 liter bottle and floated in tank. I put roughly 25 pieces of aquarium gravel in the bottom, pea gravel size. I put the shrimp in there last night. This morning I put in a drop of Tetra safestart to add beneficial bacteria. Tonight I drained about half the water I had in the 2 liter and refilled with water I had setting for 24 hours. I added a couple more drops of Tetra safestart. In the process of the vacuuming the tank for water change, the bottle tilted and the gravel spilled over to one side. I tipped it back up and shook it get the gravel off the shrimp. Did some more tank maintenance. I looked in the bottle and 2 shrimp are laying there belly up. The smallest shrimp looks fine. At this point, not knowing what killed them so fast, I dumped the one remaining shrimp into the tank. I figured he had better odds in the treated tank than in the bottle not knowing what killed them.
Was it the Safestart? The room temp water? Or are the shrimp so fragile that a couple pieces of aquarium gravel on them would crush them to death?

 

[Abaddon]

Maybe there was residual copper in the water you used. It is lethal to shrimp. Safestart only contains bacteria & tbh I'm not sure adding them was entirely necessary; a water conditioner/ammonia detoxifier like Prime (+daily water changes) would've made more sense imho, especially if the setup was only temporary. Did you dose the Safestart according to instructions? In my experience fish and shrimp react very badly to being put in confined spaces for prolonged periods of time, probably because the ammonia builds up ridiculously fast and unless you are absolutely strict about water changes it will almost definitely lead to problems. I've killed a few shrimp that way too (and, regrettably, a fish, back when I was more of a newbie).

 

[Colin_T]

Ich-X contains formaldehyde, malachite green and methanol. These are all poisonous to fish and shrimp.

The safest treatment for white spot is heat. Raise the water temperature to 30C (86F) and keep it there for 2 weeks, or at least 1 week after all the spots have disappeared.

Before using heat, do a 80-90% water change and gravel clean the substrate, then clean the filter. Then raise the water temperature.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

 

[Murf.]

Thanks, but the shrimp were not in the treated water at the time of their instant death. So that was not the cause.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Thanks, but the shrimp were not in the treated water at the time of their instant death. So that was not the cause.

They probably died from shock - either temperature or parameter wise.

 

[Murf.]

Maybe there was residual copper in the water you used. It is lethal to shrimp. Safestart only contains bacteria & tbh I'm not sure adding them was entirely necessary; a water conditioner/ammonia detoxifier like Prime (+daily water changes) would've made more sense imho, especially if the setup was only temporary. Did you dose the Safestart according to instructions? In my experience fish and shrimp react very badly to being put in confined spaces for prolonged periods of time, probably because the ammonia builds up ridiculously fast and unless you are absolutely strict about water changes it will almost definitely lead to problems. I've killed a few shrimp that way too (and, regrettably, a fish, back when I was more of a newbie).

The Safe start is for cycling a tank. So I only added one drop to the 2 liter isolation temp tank. I thought maybe the rocks would get the beneficial bacteria growing in it. I was going to daily partial water change the bottle. I'm thinking I must have crushed them when the gravel slid. Otherwise, the smallest shrimp of all that survived would be dead I think. Thanks

 

[Murf.]

They probably died from shock - either temperature or parameter wise.

Maybe. I just don't understand why the smallest one survived and is fine in the treated tank this morning.

 

[Fishiemang]

Shrimp are very sensitive to stress like that. When I get shrimp, I am very careful to make sure they are as comfortable as possible during transport, and once they are home, they stay home. You can kill them off doing a water change wrong. You can kill them off with water with too high TDS. Snails too.

I imagine the trauma to them, from their perspective, was more than they could bear. Being.moved into a.confined space, then the topple...took them out.

Younger shrimp are sometimes more resilient, but will founder under the right conditions. The younger one more than likely had a stronger constitution.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Maybe. I just don't understand why the smallest one survived and is fine in the treated tank this morning.

I concur with @Fishieman. Younger fish, just like younger humans, are more “hardy” if you will...

 

[Murf.]

Ok, thanks for the info. I was wanting to breed (for enjoyment) the RCS. Maybe not worth trying. Are you if I had a whole 10 gallon full of RCS it would be very easy to accidentally wipe all of them out?

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Ok, thanks for the info. I was wanting to breed (for enjoyment) the RCS. Maybe not worth trying. Are you if I had a whole 10 gallon full of RCS it would be very easy to accidentally wipe all of them out?

Naturally the smaller the volume of water, the easier mistakes are made... I have successfully kept and bred RCS in my 10g tank; no issues there.

Just be careful with chemicals.