Mysterious Shrimp Die-Off

Gemtrox42

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Around 6 months ago I had an ich infection in my tank, which cost me some fish, however none of my shrimp seemed to be affected. Shortly afterwards, I noticed my 6 cherry shrimp were becoming more reclusive, spending less time foraging around the tank and mostly staying inside the hollows of my driftwood. Then over the course of a month, I began to see fewer and fewer shrimp at all. I suspected they might be dying but I could not tell for sure as they were spending so much time in hiding. Finally in January I found one of my shrimp dead in the tank, at which point I only had 1 cherry shrimp left. Since then, I have watched the final shrimp to make sure they were okay, and can find no sign of disease or any other problem. It's been about 2 months now and I want to get him some new friends, but I wanted to see if I could figure out what happened to the others first.

Background - I have a 30 gal tank with Current Satellite LEDs, lightly planted with gravel bottom, mostly hornwart, duckweed, swords and java ferns, lots of driftwood. My fish are 14 cardinals, 5 pygmy corys and 1 cherry shrimp, two adult mollies and around 2 dozen fry. Water is 80 degrees, hang on back filter so should be well oxygenated. Water parameters are 7.3 pH, ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 5, GH 50~75, KH 140. I am using softened wellwater. I treat the water with aquavitro seed, a dechlorinator, and seachem flourish, excel, and iron for my plants. Important note - I did not start dosing my water with plant growth supplements until after my shrimp died off.
 
What is Aquavitro seed?

Pictures of the shrimp?
Did the shrimp have any unusual colours in their body (perhaps cream or white)?
 
What is Aquavitro seed?

Pictures of the shrimp?
Did the shrimp have any unusual colours in their body (perhaps cream or white)?
Unfortunately I never found the bodies of 4 out of 5 of the dead shrimp, so I cannot confirm what they looked like. The one I did find was not discolored, and I had seen it alive within the past 12 hours, so it had died fairly recently. Seed is an aquarium biofilter starter.
 

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