New tank and adding shrimp

[kartrsu]

Hi everyone, I recently rescaped my tank from scratch after a move. Had a good system that had been running over a year before and two cleaner shrimps along with it. Everything old has been moved to a fishless coral quarantine tank. New tank has new sand, dry rock, etc. A couple weeks after I cycled it, I dropped in my fish and corals and they all are doing fine. About the same time before the ugly algae phase took off, I added my cleaners and snails and the cleaners quickly perished. Was kind of surprised, but I guess something in the water was not right and the tank wasn’t ready yet. Checked copper, it’s zero. Fast forward to now, my tanks been running for over 2 months. I’m past the diatoms, but getting Cyano on the sand bed. Corals and snails are still doing great. I’m wondering if it’s be okay to add a shrimp again. Thanks!!!

 

[andrewey]

I doubt it was something in the water- my guess is that the shrimp perished because of the move itself. They're pretty sensitive to changes in salinity, temperature, and to a lesser extent pH. While it's possible you had trace levels of ammonia in the new tank, (which corals and fish have a much higher tolerance for), my guess would be the shift of the aforementioned parameters.

 

[kartrsu]

Thanks for response. Shrimps were fine in the temporary tank before I moved them into the new display, but didn’t think about trace ammonia. I suspect maybe the bacterial bloom may have been affecting them. Their behavior before death was like stumbling, cringing of limbs, and erratic swimming. So given my tanks 2 months through a cycle, as long as I acclimate properly, am I good to go? Been running a holy amount of chemical filtration if there were any issues initially. Thanks!!!

 

[kartrsu]

Caved into my impulses and got a cleaner shrimp to help clean up stray food when I feed my tank. I acclimated the shrimp to a QT tank using the drip method. The LFS had kept their water at 1.024 or so, and I did a 90 minute slow drip to get it up to 1.026 meanwhile monitoring the temp during the process. Shrimp molted the next day, and hid for a bit before starting to eat voraciously.

The 3rd day after, I decided to bring the shrimp into my display. Same process, with drip acclimation while maintaining temperature throughout. I did it for 30 mins this time since the salinity was basically the same. In he goes, and he did well the first night, even taking food right away.

Today, he's acting a bit strange, having a wandering lost behavior. I figured he would prefer to settle in a cave given the new environment, but he's looking a bit clumsy, not taking food, and is roaming around the tank. No frantic behavior per se, a bit sensitive to movement around the tank, but just not looking "normal". None of the leg swaying stuff. Tankmates are peaceful (2 clowns, 1 flasher wrasse, 1 neon goby). Here are my water parameters:

Ammonia: 0
Nitrate: 0.5 ppm
Phosphate: 0.05 ppm
Salinity: 35 ppt
Alkalinity: 10 dkh
PH: 8.0-8.2
Copper: 0

I'm kind of worried because the shrimp isn't "settling" if you will, and the clumsy wandering usually is a sign that something is wrong. Maybe I wait it out a little and let him be, but just seeing if I act now and get him into his previous QT tank. I have a green cyano breakout and I'm wondering if there are toxins released that are bad for the shrimp. Sorry a lot of questions, but I'm a bit puzzled at the moment. Tired of having such a hard time keeping these shrimps especially in a newer reef tank.

Shrimp experts, please offer some advice! Thanks!