Planting new crypts causing shrimp death?

[illumbomb]

So the shrimp died before the crypts started melting?

Yup, not melted yet. For those people keeping nano tanks, just be really careful when you plant any new plants..... you better soak them in water for a few hours and wash them before planting

[spgan]

Before reading up this post:

Just yesterday I planted one bunch of crypts to my 2ft tank. Dumb enough, i try to remove most of the wool and plain shower it through and goes straight to my tank. Soon started noticing my tiger and bee shrimps with slower reactions. Cherry shrimps gathered at top corner of my moss. They have no appetite for the algae wafer. I tried changing 20% of my water and off to bed.

To my horror this morning when I woke up. Dead shrimps everywhere. Some of them are still struggling. Was devastated when i saw this. Imagine before going to work and had to quickly clear up the piles of dead shrimps. Did a 50% water change. Came home and continued more burial service.

Lesson learnt: Soak your plants before planting. But with other stem plants which i usually do not soak as well, however this time it proved deadly with 80% of shrimps wiped out. Neons and ottos are fine.

What should be my next course of action? Do more water change daily? I still got maybe less than 10 cherry shrimps in there. I do not have a ammonia test kit so when will be good to add in new shrimps?

Thanks for reading and sharing my sorrow...