Sudden Deaths

[dkk08]

Sighz sadly I reach home to really bad news from my wife last nite, a lot of my shrimps are dead or dying (I have CRS, Green, Snowballs, cherry, Tiger, Sakuras). When I reached home, I saw the shrimps were all swimming around which they don't normally do, after counted the deaths, estimated casualty was about 20+, and the first to die were the Cherries, Tiger, Green, Snowballs, even the snails (garden, nerite and sulawesi) were all climbing to the top of the tank...

I immediately did a 20% change of water (my tank is a 2.5ft cube) and observe for the next 4 hours... the condition seems to have settled down some what...

But sadly this morning about 2hrs ago before I went to work, I on the tank lights and found new casualties... about 30+ of them... I've been feeding them Mosura Specialty CRS Food, Mosura Excel, dosing Shrimps Tonic (2 spoonful everyday), dosing Mineral plus twice weekly, adding Mosura Old sea Mud Powder twice weekly

I'm using external filter, and T5 lights on for 10 hours everyday

I'm really at my wits end... the following are some water perimeters before and after the deaths...

On the 16th November 2008
PH = 6.4
KH = 20
GH = 14
NO2 = 5
NO3 = 0
Temperature = 27 deg

On 20th November 2008(Day before the sudden deaths)
PH = 6.4
KH = 6
GH = 7
NO2 = 0
NO3 = 50
Temperature = 26.7 deg

On 21st November 2008(Sudden Death Day after water change)
PH = 6.4
KH = 3
GH = 14
NO2 = 0
NO3 = 25
Temperature = 26.7 deg

[benny]

Do you use any water conditioner to neutralize the heavy metals in the water? Zinc and copper and major culprits in invertebrate deaths.

Cheers,

[Laconic]

Snails climbing up to the tank seems to be a sign of oxygen shortage...

[dkk08]

Do you use any water conditioner to neutralize the heavy metals in the water? Zinc and copper and major culprits in invertebrate deaths.

Cheers,

Hi Benny, yes I do use water conditioner to get rid of the metals in the water, can't rem the brand name now as I'm in the office, but the bottle is green in color.

[dkk08]

Snails climbing up to the tank seems to be a sign of oxygen shortage...

I thought of that reason too but should I add a aeration stone in it? But that's just not getting to the root of the problem right? I mean, its a planted tank, with lots of plants and given the size of the tank (2.5ft cube) it should have enough oxygen to go around right?

[nasty12]

Did you add any plants from LFS recently?? My friend just encountered sudden deaths of his shrimps as well after adding plant, even he has soaked them in a pail for 2 days.

[dkk08]

Did you add any plants from LFS recently?? My friend just encountered sudden deaths of his shrimps as well after adding plant, even he has soaked them in a pail for 2 days.

Unfortunately I did... added some floating plants (water lettuce and another plant not sure of the name) on the 20th November, have soaked them for a day thou...

[nasty12]

Should be the toxic that comes with plant for sure. Unless you have spray insecticide, or else there is no good cause in your setup and feeding can cause such a massive death including snails.

[benny]

Should be the toxic that comes with plant for sure. Unless you have spray insecticide, or else there is no good cause in your setup and feeding can cause such a massive death including snails.

That's a good point. Usually plants are sprayed with pesticide and that is a major problem for livestock.

Cheers,

[dkk08]

Good news is everything seems to be back to normal after I added activated carbon into the cannister filter and change 10% of water for the past 3 days and pumped in lots of Shrimp Tonic and Old Sea Mud Powder as well as used Micro Bacter (Hayashi)

Managed to save about 30 of the shrimps , casualties at estimate of 60+

Lesson learnt, time to build up again