# Shrimp dying! Help!



## lawngnome (Aug 27, 2006)

I have had a 20g cube set up about 2 weeks now. It has a bout 40 lbs of eco complete and 24 watt lighting 6-9 hrs a day. 2 days a go, i put in two cherry shrimp and they seemed to be doing fine, but when i woke up this mornin they were both dead and there was this clear slime on the walls. Does any boy know what this is?


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## oceans0516 (Jul 23, 2006)

hm. is ur tank cycled? since u said its only been up for 2 weeks. Cherry shrimps are very sensitive to ammonia, nitrite and nitrate so if ur tank is cycling there is no way they could survive. Best way i think is to test ur water and if ur ammonia and nitrite is not at 0, thats probably why they died. 
Im not sure wut the deal is with the slime wall. Maybe someone else would.


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## lawngnome (Aug 27, 2006)

Hmm.. but the shrimps looked pretty healthy, they were swimming around and scavenging, maybe i should do a water change. I still have no idea what the slime is though, i dont think its algae because its not green when i wipe it.


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## YuccaPatrol (Mar 26, 2006)

It sounds like you've had a bacterial bloom. This can kill shrimp by either consuming all of the available oxygen or the bacterial bloom is a result of an excess of toxic nitrogenous compounds (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) which are toxic to your shrimp.

Be patient, monitor your water with a test kit, and soon your tank will be fully cycled and ready to house some critters.


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## YuccaPatrol (Mar 26, 2006)

It sounds like you've had a bacterial bloom. This can kill shrimp by either consuming all of the available oxygen or the bacterial bloom is a result of an excess of toxic nitrogenous compounds (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) which are toxic to your shrimp.

Be patient, monitor your water with a test kit, and soon your tank will be fully cycled and ready to house some critters.


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## milalic (Aug 26, 2005)

YuccaPatrol said:


> It sounds like you've had a bacterial bloom. This can kill shrimp by either consuming all of the available oxygen or the bacterial bloom is a result of an excess of toxic nitrogenous compounds (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) which are toxic to your shrimp.
> 
> Be patient, monitor your water with a test kit, and soon your tank will be fully cycled and ready to house some critters.


I have to agree with Yucca on this.

-Pedro


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## lawngnome (Aug 27, 2006)

Thx
So thats what the slime is.Sorta cool but sort of annoying at the same time.


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## YuccaPatrol (Mar 26, 2006)

lawngnome said:


> Thx
> So thats what the slime is.Sorta cool but sort of annoying at the same time.


It is all just a part of the process. Although a tank can be cycled in a couple of weeks and be safe for critters, it truly takes a much longer time to reach a stable balanced system. You can expect weird outbreaks of this or that but eventually you'll reach a point where everything is very stable with just regular basic maintenance.

In general, most things like algae outbreaks, sudden appearance of planaria, etc, etc etc, will all take care of themselves with time.


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## lawngnome (Aug 27, 2006)

Are you sure thers nothing i need to do? I did a 25% water change today and the walls looked like they were coverd in petroleum jelly. The water also has a "swampy" smell.


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## Shrimp&Snails (Mar 27, 2006)

You can manually remove the slime and do regular water changes until your tank read zero ammonia with zero nitrIte and a small reading for nitrAte. If the tank reads zero for all three the tank still isn't cycled.
If you have nothing living in the tank at present keep adding a few flakes of fish food everyday until the tank is cycled.


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