cherry red massive die off :(:( HELP!

gagaliya

gagaliya

GNOME POWER!
Nov 20, 2005
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NJ
www.happyreward.com
I have about 40 cherry red in my 10 gallon q tank, they were all doing well!

The plan is to move them to my new 50 gallon fully planted after it's stable. So i waited about 3 weeks after setting up the 50 gallon just to be safe. Then moved my cherry reds in, and just a few hours later to my horror, the cherry reds are dying by the dozens. The floors were littered with shrimp corpses!!! what is wrong!! please help!!!

I checked the following before moving my shrimp:

1) temperature in both tanks are identical
2) new tank has no ammonia/nitrite(fully planted and all), and nitrate at 10ppm
3) there are no other livestock in the tank, otherthan some tiny snails that hitched a ride when i got my plants
4) ph is stable at 7.2
5) water is treated

I dose (per instructed amount) the tank was seachem plantcare products - Flourish(trace elements), Flourish nitrogen(nitrate), potassium, and Phosphorus. And my substrate is eco-complete. They should all be safe for livestock. A lot of people use them and keep cherry reds.

So what's going on? why are my shrimps all dead. Man this tank has been 1 disaster after another... i should just kept my biorb and saved a lot of headach and money. Big is NOT ALWAYS better....
 
you say this tank is one disaster after another. From experience, bigger tanks are easier to keep/maintain then smaller tanks.

I'm wondering what other "problems" you've had with this tank? could it be some kind of residual is in the tank (soap, windex, etc...)
 
DId you wash them off before adding to tank?

my plants always have those and no deaths. I'm still thinking something toxic to inverts/fish is in the water.
 
You could have to much copper in your tank. I know flourish trace has 0.00001% copper. Flourite has 17 mg/kg of copper in it so I'd assume Eco-complete has some copper in it also. You could also have some copper in your water. The copper level in your qt tank was not enough to harm them, but with the extra copper from the other sources it may have been to much.
 
Good point, don't really know about your dosing / substrate but your LFS should have a copper test kit.

I use a copper test kit for my reef tank and have never detected any amounts as of yet.
 
i am running to the lfs now to see if they have a copper test kit. I only dose half suggested amount of flourish trace. So really dont think the copper in it would kill the shrimp. but maybe from eco complete? dont know:( not that it matters i fished out about 30 dead shrimps (and realized 4 of those are preg too!! ARGGGG).

I know everyone kept saying big tank is easier, but to me they are so much harder to setup. Maybe after it's balanced, maintainence will becoming easier. But right now it's not the case at all.
 
this probably isn't the case, but i've read on some fish selling websites that when you get their fish in the mail, even if they look dead and don't move, you must acclimate them anyway, something about osmotic or ph shock? i'll try to find that out.

My point is just make sure their actually dead, and not shocked.
 
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