Sudden Shrimp Paralyzation/death!

[annegrrrl]

I am really stumped - and two hours passed the freaking out stage - I would really love if anyone had any information at all about this.

I have a 30 gallon planted tank with just five neon tetras, one giant ramshorn snail and 14 shrimp (2 are amano and the rest are neocaridina heteropoda). As I passed by the tank just a few hours ago, I saw one of the smallest shrimp (male, one of the neos) seemingly dead on the gravel. Freak out. Looking more closely, there were two. Even more closely, three. This is not a coincidence, something is wrong in the tank (I thought) - I must remove them. Which I did, and several others that were looking just as bad as they were, and placed them into a 50% water change tank. I didn't know what else to do.

I tested the water, which tested the same as it always does, nothing abnormal there. No temperature spike, the fish are behaving normally, the filter is running. The affected shrimp have food in their stomachs, I can see it. I haven't done a water change for a week and I haven't added any new creatures to the tank, nor changed the food. This is very sudden and I am completely clueless.

Now that the sick/dead shrimp are in a nursery tank, only two have their tails curled up under them (they are definitely dead). The others are having random twitches of antennae and legs, one even flew from one side of the tank to the other then just laid on his back again like before. It seems like they are paralyzed? or... I have NO idea!!!

One thing that caught my eye - in the nursery tank I noticed that there was a small "thing" buzzing around in the water, about as big as two grains of salt. It doesn't seem to be a baby shrimp (though my females were recently carrying eggs). Could it be a parasite that is affecting my shrimp? it seems pretty large to be, but I'm so clueless that I'm thinking of everything.

If anyone has any ideas, thoughts, suggestions... please respond. I'm desperate and don't know what to do.

NO3 25
NO2 0
GH >7d
KH 10d
pH 7,2

 

[jetajockey]

Have you ever treated the tank with any meds? Shrimp are very copper sensitive. What temp do you keep the tank at? Any aerosols being used in the area? Sounds like something bad got in there.

 

[annegrrrl]

Thanks for the response. The tank's temperature is generally around 24-25C. It has a closed top so anything in the air would be difficult to enter into the tank, and we don't use aerosols of any kind. I've never treated the tank with any meds and haven't done anything differently than I have in the last, say, 4 months...

Sigh. :-(

 

[mfdrookie516]

have you dosed flourish iron recently?

 

[annegrrrl]

Well, I don't know what that is but I'm sure I didn't use it.

I've been thinking and thinking about what it could be. The only thing I can think of is that I put lettuce in the tank about every other day for my ravenous apple snail. I've been doing this forever but I wonder if somehow the latest batch that I got had some kind of chemical on it?

I've done a 30% water change in the tank. The shrimp are still in the smaller tank seemingly paralyzed, save five that seem to be fine - I don't want to move them as it's stressful. I removed the lettuce.

Who knows. Ugh.

 

[Aspencer]

have you dosed flourish iron recently?

I have shrimp, RCS and I do use the Flourish Iron...trouble...I know copper is trouble..

 

[annegrrrl]

Well, this is a surprise!

I left the shrimp in their terrible state in the nursery tank overnight. I figured that this morning I would find all of them dead... and in fact, every single one of them (even the two I was convinced were dead) are ALIVE and flying around the tank.

I have no idea what happened, and it might have been some chemical residual on the lettuce I gave the snail, but it seems that I found them last night just in time. What a scare they gave me!!!!!

For anyone who thinks their shrimp is dead... give it time. I was really surprised to see these guys spring back to life. (And relieved, obviously!!)