Sudden shrimp death

[Wannabe29]

Hey, all. So, about a week ago I bought 5 peppermint shrimp from Tropical Island (I love the store and am in no way trying to bash it). I noticed that the shrimp had some spots on their gills but I figured that it was just some "stuff" that got caught on their gills and they would flush it out after they got settled in.

Ok, so I drip acclimated them for an hour or so and added them to the tank. I had one peppermint shrimp in there and one scarlet cleaner shrimp. One of the new shrimp had a weird bulge on the side of its carapace. It had the same coloration of the rest of the shrimp, it just looked like a bubble on its side. Unfortunately, I didn't see that until after I added it.

Well, as the days passed I started seeing fewer and fewer peppermints. I figured they were hiding. Then, the scarlet stopped coming out to attack the turkey baster at feeding time.

Today, a few days after the scarlet stopped coming out to feed, the scarlet is dead and I can see no peppermints. I can see black spots on the scarlet's gills and, oddly enough, it has eggs on its swimmerettes (I say "odd" because it's the only scarlet in the tank). I'm assuming the peppermints had some kind of disease related to the black spots on their gills. Has anyone had this happen to them before? Do I have to do anything to treat my tank before adding any new shrimp? Will time simply kill off whatever caused this and will my hermits be affected?

Thanks for any input. You might want to be wary of buying shrimp from Tropical Island since they might have something going on in their shrimp tank right now.

Oh, the tank is a 40br. All water params are within norms.
ammonia 0
nitrites 0
nitrates 0
phos reads 0
calcium ~410
mag 1450
alk 8ish

All corals are fine. All fish have always ignored the shrimp (I have 2 convict blennies, 1 bangai cardinal, 1 occelaris clown, 1 royal gramma, 1 possum wrasse, 1 yellow watchman goby, 1 helfrichi firefish)

Update: Just checked the tank a few minutes after posting this and I can see one of the smaller peppermints. No spots on its gills that I can see. It is, however, the only one I see. They used to all hang out in the same cave area together. Interestingly, the scarlet is mostly gone. The hermits have a few legs that they're working on. I'm assuming the serpent star got the rest. That, or the nassarius snails dragged it under the sediment.....creepy......

 

[Bananafish]

They *might* have one of the many things called "shell rot". This can be an infection, or it can be caused by water quality. It frequently goes away on its own after a molt or two. I've seen it called many by names -- I think it's more than one thing that all look similar. I had it years ago and was able to save about half the shrimp. You may have bought "infected" shrimp or they may have gotten contaminated before you put them in the tank by something on your hands. I'm not taking sides Also, if there's any truth that it can be caused by bruising, don't forget they were handled quite a bit to get them from the store to your house. Anything is possible there.

Best thing is to keep your water quality as good as you can and to keep the lights low. You should feed well to encourage molting but do NOT add traces, especially iodine. Yes, they do need it to molt, but it is very easy to overdose. A little too much is worse than not having any at all. The amount you get in regular wc is enough for most situations. You can try smaller more frequent water changes - instead of 10% every 2 weeks, do 5% every week or 3% twice a week. If you use carbon regularly, take it out. A constant supply of fine dust can only make it worse.

If your shrimp can hang on, they will probably recover after a molt or two. Keep the lights as low as you can (actinic only?) and maybe give them a piece of PVC pipe to use as a smooth burrow. That will give them a place to hide and make sure they don't scrape themselves on the substrate. This will help you cover all bases. I would not treat the tank. If it is a parasite, you are probably spinning your wheels unless you dose with something that will kill all your inverts.

Found this thread: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1916172 I hope it helps.

Good luck -- this one needs patience.

 

[Wannabe29]

I don't think it was shell rot. There were no other spots on any other area of any of the shrimp. The spots were isolated to the gills, under the carapace of the shrimp. So, it was definitely something internal.

The scarlet cleaner had molted a little under a week before it died. I'm only guessing at the time frame because there were still parts of its old skeleton in the tank. It usually takes a few days to a week for the skeleton to completely disappear. The cleaner looked absolutely perfect when it died. Awesome color, no damage to any limbs/antennae. The only blemishes were on the gills under the carapace.

This is really kind of aggravating because I'm religious about my maintenance schedule. I change out 5 gallons a week. I change the carbon/gfo on a monthly basis. Filter socks get changed out at least once a week. So, I don't get it.

 

[Bananafish]

Neither do I, unfortunately. If you know enough about it to rule out shell rot (and I'm no expert) then I'm as stumped as you are. Your chemistry looks good, but the two things that I would be most concerned about are iodine and copper -- can you test for these?

I would go back to the store and talk to Mike. He's a smart guy and knows a lot about reefing. He also knows what happened to the other shrimp in the batch that you bought and that might help. It would be great if you had a body to show him - he may know what it is. You might also try WetWebMedia - if you have a pic to send, you have a good chance that one of them knows what it is. Those guys are all professional biologists.

Sorry I couldn't be more help

 

[Wannabe29]

Stumped. Thanks for the help, though. I might stop by Mike's on my way home tomorrow. I wish I had a body or a pic. I don't know if you saw the time stamps on the original posts but, within about a half hour or so, the shrimp went from dead to gone. All this while I was looking up info on what could have killed it. As for the peppermints, I never saw a corpse.

The only reason I'm pretty sure it's not shell rot is that it didn't look anything like that guy's pics. There were no holes or anything on the body. The shrimp actually looked amazing, even as it was dying. Just the black spots on the gills...kind of like it had baby brine shrimp crammed under its carapace. I could see a little bit of "cloudiness" under the shell there with the black "eyes" looking out.

Guess I'll keep an eye out for the remaining peppermint. If its still alive after a week or so, I'll attempt to add some new ones. We'll see.

Oh...as for copper and iodine...no, I don't have a way of testing for those. However, I don't have anything in the tank that would leach copper. I don't dose iodine. And, all of the corals, hermits and the clam look great.

 

[Bananafish]

Zoinks! I'd be scared about those "eyes" looking out. Sound a bit too much like Alien. If you ever find out what it was, please let me know -- I'm curious now.

It's weird how they went "gone". I've lost quite a few shrimp over the years. Funny how only the peppermints seem to disappear without a trace. Maybe it's because they are small and more fish are willing to try to rip them apart? Dunno...

Sorry I let you down on that. I hope Mike can help.

 

[Wannabe29]

That's ok. It's crazy how quickly the cuc takes care of bodies. My skunk cleaner was as big as they get and they cleaned it up in about 30 or so minutes. The only thing that was left after the 30 min. was a leg that a small hermit was playing with.

I think something pooped out some peppermint remnants. I found a strange redish mass in the tank that looks like it could have been chewed up pep exoskeleton. Maybe it's something the serpent star expelled. It definitely didn't look like a chunk of meat. It looked like post-digested-something-or-other. Weird.