What killed my critters

Rc_Logan725 · Aug 10, 2017

I have a 29gal hqi biocube that I have various soft corals in as well as 2 rechordias, what is supposed to be a green bubble tip but is brown, a black clownfish, a Picasso clown, yellow watchman goby, emerald crabs, hermits, and various snails. About 2 months ago I added a smaller cleaner shrimp to my tank. I acclimated him correctly. 95% of the time he would just sit in the top right corner of the tank. Only time I saw him moving around the tank was when I fed the fish and he would dance across the top of the water to get the food. He acted this way for roughly two weeks. Until I turned the lights on one morning and noticed that he was literally NO WHERE to be found. I looked behind and under everything and found no sign of him. He was just gone. I found another cleaner shrimp about a week later that was very small. I acclimated him to the tank. This one chose to perch itself on the underside of a rock in the very back top left of the tank. Where it remained 85% of the time. It would come out and dance on the top during feeding, but I only ever saw it come out and wander around "cleaning" the top side of the rocks after turning the lights out. This went on for about a week. Then one morning I turned the lights on to find my shrimp vanished again. This time I was able to find a sign of him but all I found was one antenna. I can't figure out what is happening to them. I've never had issues with cleaners before. And for them to be behaving so strangely and then just POOF gone over night?
Any ideas?

Brew12 · Aug 10, 2017

Rc_Logan725 said:
I have a 29gal hqi biocube that I have various soft corals in as well as 2 rechordias, what is supposed to be a green bubble tip but is brown, a black clownfish, a Picasso clown, yellow watchman goby, emerald crabs, hermits, and various snails. About 2 months ago I added a smaller cleaner shrimp to my tank. I acclimated him correctly. 95% of the time he would just sit in the top right corner of the tank. Only time I saw him moving around the tank was when I fed the fish and he would dance across the top of the water to get the food. He acted this way for roughly two weeks. Until I turned the lights on one morning and noticed that he was literally NO WHERE to be found. I looked behind and under everything and found no sign of him. He was just gone. I found another cleaner shrimp about a week later that was very small. I acclimated him to the tank. This one chose to perch itself on the underside of a rock in the very back top left of the tank. Where it remained 85% of the time. It would come out and dance on the top during feeding, but I only ever saw it come out and wander around "cleaning" the top side of the rocks after turning the lights out. This went on for about a week. Then one morning I turned the lights on to find my shrimp vanished again. This time I was able to find a sign of him but all I found was one antenna. I can't figure out what is happening to them. I've never had issues with cleaners before. And for them to be behaving so strangely and then just POOF gone over night?
Any ideas?

Sorry you are having problems. Are all your other inverts doing ok?

Can you post your water parameters, including magnesium?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Aug 10, 2017

Shrimp do normally spend much of the time sitting in one place. I'm not sure what happened, or if it might not even relate to your tank as opposed to conditions before you got it.

NickNiz · Aug 10, 2017

Had the shrimp molted close to the time of disappearance? I had a cleaner for 3 years in a 67 gallon, and when I did a water change a few hours after he molted, I found him clinging to a rock, completely motionless... It could have been a temp change or something, I'm not really sure.

As others above have stated, posting your parameters will help us to come up with a cause of death. As for it disappearing, it's probably your CUC consuming it after it died. Nothing in your tank sounds like it would target a live cleaner shrimp, unless the clown is particularly protective of the anemone, and even then it's still very unlikely.