Actually I had a two hour drive in there, but the temp only got down to 74.3 degrees.
Again, temp isn't the only thing. Oxygen levels and pH levels drop as time goes on also. In addition, you have waste buildup happening from the normal life process of the shrimp/fish/coral.
How many drips per secong do you want in a 30 minute acclimation. I no there is articles but can someone explain start to finish how to acclimate a shrimp
Drips per second is often quoted, but it really depends on how much water you're starting with. In my opinion, you want to double your water volume in your acclimation container every 30 minutes. Once you double the water volume, take out half the water and go another 30 minutes. If you're starting with a quart of water, your drips/second are going to be way less than if you started with a gallon of water. (Granted... no one acclimates with a gallon of water, but I was just trying to make a point!)
I'm just going from memory here, but I think I normally use about a quart of water from the bag, and drip around 4-5 drips per second.
Another thing I do is before opening the bag, I float the UNOPENED bag in my tank to bring the bag water back up to temp with my tank water, for maybe 10 minutes or so. Make sure your lights are off, or you'll heat the water up from just the lights.
Also... the ammonia you're detecting is definitely not good for anything, but I doubt those levels would've caused the shrimp to die that quickly. Just make sure your ammonia/nitrite levels are down to zero before adding anything. The ammonia could just be from not having enough biological filtration in the tank and it can't keep up with the bioload from the damsels.