Hi all, I’m fairly new to fish-keeping, and brand new to shrimp keeping, and I’m experiencing some problems with my brand new cherry shrimp in a 2.5g planted bowl. Please read my post, and reply, as any advice would be helpful and I’m fairly lost for clues.
Just over a month ago, I acquired a new bowl, which I planted quite nicely with some dwarf hairgrass, Monte Carlo, and a Java fern. I let the tank cycle for around a month and then decided to get some shrimp.
A week ago today 15 lovely red cherry shrimp arrived to my door, all alive. I knew that they had had a rough journey, as shipping had been delayed, so they had been in transit for around 2 and a half days. As soon as they arrived, I floated the bag in my tank to get the temperature right, and slowly began to acclimate them with makeshift drip acclimation- I put a few drops of tank water in every minute or so with a pipette. Eventually I released them and they all seemed happy, feeding on the algae in the tank and grazing on the Java fern. I was delighted.
The shrimp all seemed happy and were grazing, but not too interested in the food I bought them, although they would take my other fish food out of my tweezers and eat it.
I did not see any dead shrimp in my tank for the first 6 days, but I could usually only count around 9 shrimp- I assumed this was because they were hiding. On the 6th night someone accidentally turned off the heater for around 2 hours, and the tank fell in temperature by around 1.5C, before I turned the heater back on. I did not see any dead shrimp, so went to bed soundly. Today I woke up in the morning to see a dead shrimp in my tank, to my horror. I tested the water and all parameters were ok- apart from
Kh and
Gh- both way too high(
kh around 15 and
Gh around 8) ! In the evening I found another dead shrimp nestled in the dwarf hairgrass. I was devastated.
I have not been adding anything to the tank so have 3 main theories about what might have happened:
1. The stress from the temp change the night before killed them
2. The initial stress killed them and I did not find them until later
3. The high hardness has caused some issue and killed them
I also worry that the water may lack oxygen, or that there are some toxins such as copper in the water, but I don’t see how this could happen?
I’m aware the tank is a little overstocked but that was the only amount I could find from this seller- and it was meant to only be 12 anyway…
It would be ok if the dying stopped there, but I’m worried that more could perish…
Any help would be amazing.
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