MIA livestock: How far to go to seek them out?

[latuttle]

Yesterday I added my frist animals to my 24 gallon nano: cleaner shrimp, fire shrimp, 4 hermits, and 5 snails. Unfortunately, the fire shrimp didn't survive - he was acting a little bit wiggy during drip acclimating and when I released him into the tank, he fell into the rocks and never came out.

Anyway, last night when the MH lights went off and the moonlights came on, the fire shrimp was no where to be seen. So I went and got a small flashlight and started looking around for him: finally I saw his little carcass wedged between two pieces of rock at the very bottom of the center of the live rock structure.

Getting his little corpse out of there involved essentially ripping the reef apart.

What I'm wondering is this: how far do you go to remove the deceased from your tank? I could do this deconstruction because my reef is small and there are no corals yet. In time, moving things around will become more problematic. I felt that getting him out was probably necessary - he was not a small shrimp. At some stage, if something is MIA and assumed dead... do I watch ammonia and rely on the cleanup crew to take care of it?

[lcstorc]

I go on a search and destroy mission. I don't want anything decaying in my tank if I can help it. Yes sometimes it involves moving lots of rock etc, but imho it is worth it to avoid the extra stress on the tank. Particularly if I know it didn't die due to agression etc. If it died almost immediately it possibly indicates that something is already wrong with the system and that is not the time to stress it further.
Just my 2c.
Sorry for your loss. I have 2 fire shrimp and they are really neat animals.

[latuttle]

Thanks for the help.

I'm trying to figure out what went wrong. It's a newly cycled tank, so there's always the possibility that there's something going on with the water that really disagreed with him. However, the cleaner shrimp seems just fine and all four hermits and five snails were alive and well last night.

The thing that worries me about doing all the deconstruction on the reef is that I might squish someone. I kept an eye on where the cleaner shrimp was to make sure I didn't unintentially do the minireef equivalent of dropping a safe on his head... but after moving all the rock last night to retrieve the corpse then rearranging it this morning because I didn't like how the reef looked after my spontaneous late-night aquascaping endeavor... I have no idea where one of my hermits is. He's now MIA and I just hope he's decided that he's going to hide until I quit screwing around with the architecture rather than being newly entombed in an accidental rock prison.

Perhaps I worry too much. Wouldn't be the first time.

[lcstorc]

Sounds like me. The hermit is probably fine as far as the re-arranging goes. There may be something else though that has caused him grief and/or death. How long has the tank been up? What size? What filtration? Lights? And most importantly what are the results of your water tests? Hopefully you have some test kits. The most relevant ones in a new tank are salinity, ph, amonia, nitrites, nitrates. Is your rock live rock? Is it new or has it already been cycled?
Sorry for all of the questions, but it will help greatly in trying to figure out what may be wrong. It is always possible that the shrimp was sick or the acclimation was not enough, but with a new tank I would look at everything. Oh one more what is your substrate? Live sand, bare bottom, crushed coral, and how deep is it?
Hope we can help. I'm still pretty new, but there are lots of people who will chime in if the info is there for them to respond intelligently.

[Woodstock]

Can you get a small vinyl hose close to the dead shrimp? Try siphoning it out then put the water back in. If that won't work, get a powerhead and try to blow it out from behind the rock...

[latuttle]

Originally Posted by Woodstock

Can you get a small vinyl hose close to the dead shrimp? Try siphoning it out then put the water back in. If that won't work, get a powerhead and try to blow it out from behind the rock...

That's a great idea - I didn't think of that. I do have an extra powerhead I use to aerate water for water changes, I could have used that to dislodge him. I'll try that next time.

Icstorc, it is a new tank. I bought my rock fully cured at the end of June, but had a little cycle. Over five days, my ammonia reached .2 ppm. After the rock had been in there ten days, I had zero ammonia, zero nitrite, and 1 ppm nitrate. Yesterday before I added stuff I had pH 8.1, Alkalinity 5.0, ammonia/nitrite 0, nitrate 1 ppm, and salinity of 1.023. I had done a pretty big water change the night before - my salinity was just over 1.021 so I added some water at 1.028 to bring the tank up to 1.023 before the cleanup crew arrived.

I did the drip acclimation they suggested. It took over 2 hours to fill that shrimp's shipping bag up, empty half the water and fill again. He was acting very stressed: he charged around the bag occasionally, did what I can only call the shrimp shake, and he was very unsteady on his many feet at the end. He didn't look too promising, which is sad because he was the most gorgeous fire shrimp.

I'm wondering if it was temperature shock? The tank was 75 degrees but the room was 70. I floated his bag first, then did the drip thing... I have no idea what the temp was in his bag before I took him out and put him in the tank two hours later. I wonder if floating him a second time would have helped.

Anyway, I just added a lot to a newly cycled tank so I think I'm going to leave everything alone for a couple of weeks.

Oh, and the missing crab did show up - he's currently scaling the back side of the tank where there are little slits that let water flow into the filter compartment (this is an Aquapod). I have no idea how he has gotten where he is but I'm impressed at his athletic exertions!

If any has any thoughts about what might have killed him, I'd love to hear them. Thanks for all the help.

[blue_eyes53813]

Are you using RO water? How is the tank for air / oxygen exchange? Do you have alot of water movement towards the surface ? Was the new water from the water change mixed well? and how long did you let it mix? Tons of questions I know... Also 75 is kinda low... try to raise the temp to about 78-80.

Since you was acclimating and the shrimp was going crazy during..something is wrong with water quality.. How did it look at the store? Make sure you have enough water movement in the tank for air exchange...Good luck

[Gina]

I would think that if it were impossible to get it out manually that the hermits and depending on what type of snails you got would start the clean up process and eat it.

[latuttle]

Well, my water is a story all its own. I bought an RO unit and used it to fill the tank. The fish were purchased online, so I didn't see them in a tank (my LFS is switching salt water systems and has no stock atm). The shrimp did look fabulous - he was a big fire shrimp and looked quite healthy.

Anyway, filled tank, let it cycle a while, ordered the fish... and the day before they were to arrive on a lark I tested the chlorine in my RO top-off water. I had .8 PPM chlorine (way too high). So I hooked up the RO unit and tested - it's doing a crappy job of removing chlorine. I tested the tank (that had been bubbling for 2 weeks) and chlorine there was undetectable; I dumped all my water from my top off supplies etc and bought DI water from the LFS until the new carbon filter for my own RO filter arrives. So, I have mixed RO/DI water, but the water is either RO or DI not both. Moral of this story: test your RO unit!

As far as water movement... the return pump from the filter area has an outlet about one inch below the surface, it aggitates the surface pretty good. I also have a pretty big skimmer for this tank (bakpak 2r on a 24 gallon tank) so that is more oxygenation... plus, I do not use a lid, I have eggcrate plastic over the top of the tank to help avoid heat problems.

The water for the water change the day before was mixed for about 18 hours.

If there is a problem with the water quality bad enough to freak out the fire shrimp, shouldn't the cleaner shrimp or the hermits be showing some problems too? Or are fire shrimp the most delicate thing I have at the moment?

Thanks so much for all the help...

[blue_eyes53813]

oh maybe something happened to the shrimp in the shipment... I didnt know you ordered online. Was there a guarantee on the shipment?

[latuttle]

Yes, I'm sure they'll give me credit... but mostly I'm just concerned. Is there something going on that is going to kill my livestock? Did I make an acclimation mistake? I know shrimp is seafood and I probably can't kill enough in my reef tank to even approach the number of shrimp deaths I have caused through shrimp cocktail and egg rolls. I just feel bad that I was responsible for him and now he's pushing up daisies

[blue_eyes53813]

All you can do is , retest your ammonia, nitrites and nitrates, test salinity, temp ,,, and make sure you didnt make any mistakes testing before(it happens). Give your new additions a week or so to settle and see how they do,... and go from there... good luck

[Woodstock]

I would be concerned if all the shrimps died. You lost only one and it was bagged seperate. It could have been injured prior to or during shipment. You're not at fault.

[latuttle]

Thanks for all the support and answers, you guys are the best. I'll do just that - retest, see how the rest does, and if all is good next weekend I'll start thinking about adding a fish.

[lcstorc]

It certainly could have been shipping stress particularly with ordering on-line. I would wait a while before adding anything. See how the rest do and test, test, and re-test. With this new of a tank I would wait longer than a week before adding anything else. Probably 2 or 3 weeks would be my suggestion. Patience is the most important thing in this hobby particularly with a new system. It takes about a year until the tank is considered "mature". That does not mean you need to wait that long, but different bacteria grow and thrive at different points in the cycle.
I am glad to hear your nitrates are that low. Something must be going right for that to happen with 0 amonia and 0 nitrites.
Give it some time and see how things progress. Meanwhile start planning what fish you are going to add so you can be sure they are compatable and determine the order you want to add them. For example: clowns are agressive so if you want one it should not be the first fish.
Meanwhile ask away and we will be glad to offer opinions.