Dead CBS #2

[JBReef]

Ok, the tanks running great, I'v got a damsel, blue manderin, 5 blue leged hermits, 5 snails, a cuc, but everytime I buy a coral banded shrimp it ends up dead.

The first one was from petco so I wrote that off as a bad buy, but this one is from a nice LFS (or atleast it's local to someone....) and it was doing fine all night untill I woke up thismorning and it is dead.

Unless they sleep on their side and don't respond when you touch it.

Any ideas? they were both about an inch in size and the damsel is about the same size. I know people call the damsels NINJAS but I figured the the CBS could take care of himself.

Plus the damsel is friendly to all the other tank mates.

Thanks for any help.

[Doc]

no clue. Was he eaten to death or just dead? Not to sound like you are retarded, but you are sure it was the actual animal and not a shed? Sheds look just like the real animal, including antannae. I know I freaked out the first time my shrimp shed and I saw it floating around the tank, looking like it has all its guts sucked out. Just an idea.

-Doc

[yote]

And if your sure its dead.How did you acclimate it.Even though coral banded shrimps are fairly hardy,their still sensitive to changes in water parameters.

[Doc]

yeah. shrimp need to be acclimated for a minimum of an hour. they are sensitive little buggers

-Doc

[RyanG]

Ditto to the above and what are your water parameters?

[JBReef]

Ya it was dead. When I took it out I looked it over and it didn't look like it had been attacked at all, no signes of a fight or anything. Besides the loss it was prity cool to be able to look at it upclose and check out its whole body.

I floated it for about 15/20 mins. put it in a container with IT'S water and slowly added my water. did that for about half hour then I put him in the tank.

I havn't checked my paramiters recently. I'm one of thoes that dissagree with "YOU HAVE TO CHECK IT EVERYDAY!!!"
Last time I tested.....about a week and a half maby 2
about....
ph-8.4
alk-between 120-180
trAte-20
trIte-0
Ammonia-0
Salinity-1.024

[Doc]

DkH is really low. It should be closer to 1,000. It is an important of our fish, corals and other inverts to grow. Shrimp cannot grow new shells without cal and alk. You might want to look into adding Carbonite Alkilinity from Seachem to get it up.

-Doc

[Bifferwine]

Your nitrates are at the high end of what shrimp can handle, too. Anything about 20 can easily be fatal to shrimp, which are extra sensitive to nitrates. Also, next time you may want to take several hours to acclimate shrimp, as they require longer acclimation times.

[kevinsimons]

OK, so help me out here - what's the difference between DkH and Alkalinity? I have a Red Sea Master Test kit, and it has an Alk test with the following ranges on the card: Low: 0-1.6, Normal 1.7 - 2.8, and High 2.9 - 3.6. Where/how does this translate to Doc's comment about it being closer to 1000?

[ccCapt]

Alkalinity is measured in Degrees of Karbonate Hardness (dKH), milliequivalents per litre (meq/l) or parts per million (ppm).
NSW is about 8dKH, 2.9 meq/l or 143 ppm.
Here's a nice converter.