Ammonia Spike/Cycle Crash

[Circus]

I woke up today to the filter on my 15 gallon shrimp and otocinclus tank not working, and about 20 of my red cherry shrimp dead or dying. I immediately removed all of the dead shrimp I could find and did two 80% water changes (dosing with prime) and added media from another filter to this one. I removed the shrimp that are alive but dying (only one of those left). It seems like the dying ones are partially paralyzed before they eventually die. The otos seem to be acting normally. I had just performed a water change yesterday.
My Ph is usually around 7.4 and my hardness swings between 6 and 7 dH.

My ammonia read in at 1 (before water change)
Nitrites at .25
Nitrate read over 20, but under 40. I assume around 30.

The only thing I did differently was feed a new food, an omega one veggie round instead of a sera spirulina tab, to see if they like the omega one better. I put it in last night before lights out, and it was almost completely untouched this morning. I also removed the piece of driftwood I had added about a week ago, just in case.

 

[Circus]

Is there anything I can do other than water changes? Should I move the shrimp and otos to a different tank?

 

[Wolfy1828]

So I had a similar experience and I just emeditly moved then to a different tank, but pull any fish out that look sick or float sideways and put them in a separate thing I used Tupperware containers and once they look better just put the back with the rest of the fish

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

@seangee said the other day that those omega one veggies rounds don't make a mess when we were discussing algae wafers for otos... sean, the test you did with the other wafer on an uncycled tank, did you do the same test with the omega one?

Silly question since you had to collect all those dead shrimp (and I'm so sorry about that, I'd be heartbroken, that must have been awful) but have you checked everywhere for another souce of ammonia?

 

[Circus]

@seangee said the other day that those omega one veggies rounds don't make a mess when we were discussing algae wafers for otos... sean, the test you did with the other wafer on an uncycled tank, did you do the same test with the omega one?

Silly question since you had to collect all those dead shrimp (and I'm so sorry about that, I'd be heartbroken, that must have been awful) but have you checked everywhere for another souce of ammonia?

I think I found the culprit in a couple of smaller shrimp stuck in the filter. They were under the basket and didn't get rinsed out with the media. Not until I had to break the whole filter down this morning. They probably got sucked into the filter when I did a water change last week. I forgot to turn off the filter before rinsing the prefilter sponge.

I lost almost half of my shrimp stock. Most of my mature females dropped their eggs if they did not die. I only see 1 female carrying eggs now. This sets me back quite a bit.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

I think I found the culprit in a couple of smaller shrimp stuck in the filter. They were under the basket and didn't get rinsed out with the media. Not until I had to break the whole filter down this morning. They probably got sucked into the filter when I did a water change last week. I forgot to turn off the filter before rinsing the prefilter sponge.

I lost almost half of my shrimp stock. Most of my mature females dropped their eggs if they did not die. I only see 1 female carrying eggs now. This sets me back quite a bit.

I'm so so sorry. I've been losing shrimp gradually over the last few weeks, mainly my adult females. Found another one dead this morning, so I know the pain. But finding them all at once like that must have been awful. Sending hugs and condolences.

 

[Circus]

I'm so so sorry. I've been losing shrimp gradually over the last few weeks, mainly my adult females. Found another one dead this morning, so I know the pain. But finding them all at once like that must have been awful. Sending hugs and condolences.

Sorry for your losses too. I am just horrified. I feel like a failure as a fish keeper. I have had several small losses before, but nothing like this.

 

[Retired Viking]

Sorry about your shrimp they are a sensitive lot. I gave up on shrimp for now and I am going to convert their tank to house something else.

 

[Circus]

Sorry about your shrimp they are a sensitive lot. I gave up on shrimp for now and I am going to convert their tank to house something less.

If I lost all of them, I would probably give up. I am going to keep trying though and hope it turns out okay. Twice daily WCs until the tank recycles. Yay.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Keep trying, learn from mistakes like this is the surest way of trying to not let something like this happen again.

Sorry for your losses and hope your shrimps will bounce back and the numbers increases again.

 

[Aussie_Bristle]

I had this a few months ago. Mine was poisoning and I lost majority of my shrimp. I gravelled cleaned and 80-90 percent water change for about a week and my cycle crashed abit from everything that happened. I stopped the gravel cleaning but continued the water changes daily around the same time to keep the prime working. I did use Seachem stability for about a week to help what BB rebuild quicker but it was the water changes and prime that kept my little survivors still going. I tested the water daily and also used primed water around the same temp as the tank water and gently added the water in. Ppl drip add it in over a few hour period but I just used a clean container and as I started the water in I would put the container on an angle so it would just blend in with the top of the water with out splashing or creating an underwater current.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Sorry for your losses too. I am just horrified. I feel like a failure as a fish keeper. I have had several small losses before, but nothing like this.

You're not a failure as a fish keeper. As horrible as it is, these tragic things happen despite our best efforts. We've all had disasters, no matter how much you try to prevent them.

I've been losing shrimp because I didn't know that plants being imported into the EU and UK must be sprayed with a pesticide to prevent invasive species coming in. The nasty side effect from that is that the pesticide isn't easy to remove, and many of those plants have enough traces left that they kill shrimp and snails. Not all of them overnight, it affects their chitin production so they can't moult properly and die. I bought plants from LFS without checking the source, not knowing about the pesticide yet, then essjay told me about the pesticide regulation. By then, I'd had those plants in the tank for 3 weeks and my previously thriving shrimp population had started to die. Not enough at once for me to know what was wrong, just one here, two a few days later, that kind of thing.

Removing the plants didn't fix it either, it must have contaminated my whole tank and it was mostly my adult females dying -still is. I've moved them to a clean tank with in-vitro plants but still getting the odd loss. I assume the shrimp are still poisoned. I'm just hoping now that some of the youngsters weren't too exposed to it, or were born after I'd removed the plants and they will survive, mature and keep the colony going, but we'll see.

Another time I bought an intake sponge to cover my canister filter intake since I had a ton of newborn guppy fry. The hole was a bit too small so the sponge split down the side and I did a bodged job, holding it on with a rubber band and placing the split part against the tank wall, thinking that would do until I could get another intake sponge. And it did work! For a month or so. I kept thinking I should measure it and order a new one, but never got round to it. Then one day the flow was slow, opened the canister and was horrified to find fry in there! 13 of them. The sponge had slipped enough that the split was accessable, and fry went in there. Most of them actually survived, I don't know how, but I also found some dead and injured ones, and felt horrible I killed some of my precious newborn fry because I kept putting off a simple thing. That made me feel like a terrible fish keeper.

Mistakes, accidents, and unexpected failures happen. Heater breaks, filters break, tanks fail, disease breaks out. It's horrible and sad, but it's not your fault, even if you did make a mistake, it wasn't though lack of care or because you're bad at this - it's because tragedies happen and because you're human. If you wouldn't call me a failure as a fish keeper, then you're not allowed to call yourself one either.

Sending hugs if wanted

 

[Circus]

You're not a failure as a fish keeper. As horrible as it is, these tragic things happen despite our best efforts. We've all had disasters, no matter how much you try to prevent them.

I've been losing shrimp because I didn't know that plants being imported into the EU and UK must be sprayed with a pesticide to prevent invasive species coming in. The nasty side effect from that is that the pesticide isn't easy to remove, and many of those plants have enough traces left that they kill shrimp and snails. Not all of them overnight, it affects their chitin production so they can't moult properly and die. I bought plants from LFS without checking the source, not knowing about the pesticide yet, then essjay told me about the pesticide regulation. By then, I'd had those plants in the tank for 3 weeks and my previously thriving shrimp population had started to die. Not enough at once for me to know what was wrong, just one here, two a few days later, that kind of thing.

Removing the plants didn't fix it either, it must have contaminated my whole tank and it was mostly my adult females dying -still is. I've moved them to a clean tank with in-vitro plants but still getting the odd loss. I assume the shrimp are still poisoned. I'm just hoping now that some of the youngsters weren't too exposed to it, or were born after I'd removed the plants and they will survive, mature and keep the colony going, but we'll see.

Another time I bought an intake sponge to cover my canister filter intake since I had a ton of newborn guppy fry. The hole was a bit too small so the sponge split down the side and I did a bodged job, holding it on with a rubber band and placing the split part against the tank wall, thinking that would do until I could get another intake sponge. And it did work! For a month or so. I kept thinking I should measure it and order a new one, but never got round to it. Then one day the flow was slow, opened the canister and was horrified to find fry in there! 13 of them. The sponge had slipped enough that the split was accessable, and fry went in there. Most of them actually survived, I don't know how, but I also found some dead and injured ones, and felt horrible I killed some of my precious newborn fry because I kept putting off a simple thing. That made me feel like a terrible fish keeper.

Mistakes, accidents, and unexpected failures happen. Heater breaks, filters break, tanks fail, disease breaks out. It's horrible and sad, but it's not your fault, even if you did make a mistake, it wasn't though lack of care or because you're bad at this - it's because tragedies happen and because you're human. If you wouldn't call me a failure as a fish keeper, then you're not allowed to call yourself one either.

Sending hugs if wanted

Hugs are always welcome. Your words made me feel quite a bit better. We'll all just have to keep trying.