Saturday 24 November 2007

Shrimp mortality

I found two of my cherry red shrimp dead today. While I'm sadden by their deaths, I am more concerned by the fact that I don't know what killed them. Was it just chance? I doubt it - one death at random wouldn't surprise me, but two seems to be a bit much of a coincidence. My water parameters seem to be ok. The only real notable change is the weather - temperatures fell from about 27°C/80°F on Monday to about -3°C/27°F on Tuesday night. While I have a heater on the plant tank, it lacks a cover (and the cat pushed the shade away from the window, which probably exposed the tank to draughts).

So is it the weather, water quality, a pathogen, or just coincidence? I wish I knew.

2 comments:

Dan said...

Cherry Shrimp are very sensitive to temperature changes. I suspect there were quite a few variations in tank temperature that may be the cause. If you get the temp leveled out and still have deaths, could be something worse, but it does sound like a temperature thing!

Ian said...

Thanks Dan. And thanks for the link.