2 Cleaner Shrimps dead...

+1 i would agree copper may be the problem.

My first shrimp i acclimated was botched... i floated the bag and was adding cups of water every blah blah then it fell into the tank and the shrimp got free (the lfs was about 1.023 and mine was 1.025 though).... that was about 30 mins into acclimation. Six months later the guy is 4x bigger and seems to be doing great. I think that drip acclimation is a must for fish though... lost some chromis to the cup method.

 

I will repeat from earlier... the problem is that you are drip acclimating these for soooo long... the water temp has dropped considerably by the time the drip is done... since you're not refloating them, it's as if you did no temp acclimation whatsoever. shrimp are delicate to temp fluctuations.

I feel that is your problem.

Though it wouldn't surprise me if it were something from your tap... no telling what's in there.

 

From my tap? I use RO water from my fish store.

I dunno about the acclimiating, becuase for the 2nd shrimp I put him in a see-through container thing (it has a one way valve in it that slowly lets water into the container as it sits in the water and sinks deeper as it fills), so the temp couldn't have dropped that much (or at all)

I'l get a testkit for copper since I don't have one and test that.

 

this is not the drip method... this is something different that I have not seen. can you expand on or provide pics of this process you use? how fast does the water fill it, etc. How many times do you do this with this container per specimen? that sort of stuff...

 

I did the trip method for the first shrimp. Put him in a container, ran a line down with a valve, dripped at around 1 drip per sec.

The 2nd shrimp I did with this container. It's big enough for a fish up to 5cm long. It takes roughly 30-40 mins for the thing to fill with tank water from the one way valve, basically the same as the drip method just a bit less hassle.

Anyway, I think I have found the problem - high Nitrate.

I bought a new testkit which is showing a reading of 12.5 mg/l. Old one wasn't giving accurate readings for some reason...maybe it was too old.

I guess that's what killed them, although my Clownfish and Fiji Blue Damsel are perfectly fine, swim around happily and eat well.

How can I get the Nitrates down?

 

you can add some macro algae, do water changes, and lighten the feedings. What is 12.5 mg/l? I am used to seeing nitrate measured in ppm....According to google the measurements are the same. So thats 12.5ppm nitrate. Well that isnt high at all! I've had mine get up to 20ppm with no negative affects.