Ghost Shrimp Death

[DAlmond123]

I went to my local fish store yesterday and they had a sale on Ghost Shrimp 10 for $1 so I bought 10 of them. They were doing really good but when I woke up this morning 3 were dead. When I got home, I read up on them and found that they don't like copper. My plant fertilizer that I use for my aquarium plants have 0.0001% of copper in them. Could that be the cause? I didn't know even trace amounts of copper would kill them.

 

[Shred]

That almost certainly wasn't the cause of the deaths. I assume your water stats are alright? Have you bought any new plants recently which might have pesticide on them?

 

[DAlmond123]

The plants in the tank have been in there for a year now.
Water Stats:
[font="verdana]Ammonia = 0[/font][/color]
[color="#222222"][font="verdana][/font][/color][color="#222222"][font="verdana]Nitrite = 0
Nitrate = 10[/font]
But I thought copper was poisonous to the shrimp?

 

[Shred]

Shrimp actually need copper in their diet, it's used in their blood, kinda like how we use iron in our blood. But yes it is poisonous if it's just in the water, however I don't think 0.0001% of copper would be enough to kill 3 shrimp. Are there fish in the tank with them? Maybe they are the culprits? Or even just stress from moving?

 

[DAlmond123]

I just have Neon Tetras & Platies. What do you mean stress by moving?

 

[Shred]

Well like all fish and shrimp, buying them can be very stressfull, they are netted up and put into bags, lugged about, and dropped into a completely new environment. I'm really just taking shots in the dark here though.

 

[DAlmond123]

But when something is sold so cheap, you expect the worst right? They also had some kind of red shrimp (I think cherry) for like 1.50 each.
I acclimated them like all the rest of my fish. I put them in the tank wait 10 mins put some of my tank water and repeat atleast 2 times then net them out and discard the store water. I live about 30 mins from the store if that makes any difference but I drove straight home.

 

[DAlmond123]

bump!

 

[Shred]

Have any more died?

 

[milkton]

when you bought the shrimp, have you noticed some kind of white string inside of it? Usually ghost shrimp that are sold that cheap have some kind of parasites on them, a common one is the horsehair worm.

Was there anything unusual about the shrimp?