Plants Killing My Amano Shrimps?

[noodles]

hi,

I bought a few new plants from my local fish shop at the weekend, and since doing this my shrimp have gone awol, first they looked like they were trying to escape from the tank, and now they (well one at least) seems to be hiding behind a bit of bogwood and not coming out. previously they were all walking around all over the tank happy as larry. ok so they are not dead, well at least one is not dead, but behaviour has definitely changed abd I cannot spot any more than one of them in my 30inch tank. nothing else has changed in the tank, the shrimp have been there for about a year and survived a tank move, whitespot chemicals and associated temp changes, and now it could be a plant that kills them! water params fine, although nitrate a bit high.

Now I posted this in the invert section, and someone thought that it could be the chemicals the shop used to clean the plants of snails and pests.

I have put in some carbon in my filter to try to remove this, and will be doing a water change, but thought that I might ask your advice. It had not occurred to me to wash the plants to remove chemicals, only to wash to remove any snails or bugs that might be on it.

If this is common practice, might be worth adding to a plant guide, unless its just me that didnt know this if it is true?

 

[MoreCoffee]

It sounds like the LFS may have used a copper based treatment to kill off the snails, assuming you've not added any medications to the tank recently.
Your shrimp are particularly sensitive to anything copper based.

The carbon and water changes are a good move. Make sure it's a decent volume of water you change, that should sort it out and hopefully your shrimp will recover. Keep an eye on things and be prepared to do another water change in a day or two.

Always a good idea to give plants a good wash before putting them into the tank.

 

[noodles]

It sounds like the LFS may have used a copper based treatment to kill off the snails, assuming you've not added any medications to the tank recently.
Your shrimp are particularly sensitive to anything copper based.

I had been treating for whitespot, which I presume is a copper based med, they were all fine for the 3 weeks I was treating and fine for the week afterwards. its only since the plants came in! but fingers crossed they will become happy again, if they are still alive!

 

[~T~]

Your lucky they didnt cark it, I lost my cherry shrimp and long nosed shrimp after adding plants.I even gave them a good rinse first but that didnt help.If you keep shrimp ALWAYS give new plants a good rinse.I have some hairgrass on order and I'm gonna keep them in a bucket with carbon for a few days before adding them.

 

[Liam]

Greenline the online plant shop have a warning on their site about the risk of new plants to inverts. I always wash, then soak new plants in ro water and change it a few times for a couple of days, don’t think its enough to just wash new plants for inverts.