Cherry shrimp inactive and one died.

[Neonlight]

Hi guys, I bought 10 cherry shrimp for the lfs yesterday. They are currently very inactive except one which is exploring the tank. One of them even died over the night. My cycled tank has had fish for more than 3 months and they were all doing well. Now I currently have 20 neon tetras and the shrimps. Previously before the addition of cherry shrimp, I've had ghost shrimp for a about a month. I housed the ghost shrimps in my other tank because they were too big and digging up my carpetting plants. The thing is, I've not tested my water parameters before caused I assumed after 3 months, the bacteria build up should be sufficient . I have been adding co2 into the tank daily for my plants and does not have a air pump. Should I test the water?

[Urban Aquaria]

Did you do a drip acclimation before introducing the shrimps to the tank? Their previous tank conditions may be quite different from yours so they might need more time to adapt.

It'll be a good idea to test your water parameters, sometimes your cycle might still not be complete or not stable, so the only way to find out is to do some tests.

[Neonlight]

I did not do he drip acclimation, I add about 5ml every 5 minutes. It seems like the lfs where I bought them has a brown brackish water while mine is crystal clear. Could it be the quality of the cherry shrimp?

[Urban Aquaria]

I did not do he drip acclimation, I add about 5ml every 5 minutes. It seems like the lfs where I bought them has a brown brackish water while mine is crystal clear. Could it be the quality of the cherry shrimp?

That manual acclimation process for the shrimps can work too (though its abit tedious), so i guess that aspect is covered.

LFS tanks can have quite different water parameters to our home tanks, i remember once i measured the water taken from a tank from the LFS and the TDS was like 500+ (probably because its constantly housing large populations of shrimps for sale and very little water changes are done, only water top-ups, so the TDS was allowed to build up until very high).

The quality of the cherry shrimps affects their survival rate too, its usually best to pick those shrimps which are actively foraging and moving about in the LFS tank, the more difficult to catch them the better, usually means those are the healthier ones.

If you notice that the LFS tank had brownish water then it probably means they put in ketapang leaves or extracts which drops the pH and provides some beneficial natural chemicals for the livestock. But even though the conditions are different, if allowed to acclimate gradually, cherry shrimps are usually able to adapt well to changes in tank conditions. Their low activity level might just indicate that they are still acclimating, or that they have molted and hiding until their shells harden.