Can't keep cleaner shrimp, whats th deal?
 

Ok I have tried to add pairs of cleaner shrimp 3 times now and they keep dying. I don't under stand it my water quality is good, and I have other shrimp and crabs with no problems the last bunch lasted 3 days (longest yet). Before they die they all seem to sway side to side any ideas on what the problem is?

Barring poor water quality....
This is a guess here, but the swaying side to side is probably stress induced because of acclimatization? When I first introduced my shrimp to the tank they did they same thing.

I've had a few shrimp die in my tank as well. I'm thinking that they died because they didn't get enough food. If you keep a clean tank, have few fish and feed small amounts, the shrimps will have nothing to feed on. Introducing new shrimp into a tank that already have shrimp in it may cause bullying and the new shrimp will never get fed. I target feed my shrimp daily to make sure it gets some food.

how long are you acclimating the shrimp before adding to the tank. Shrimp are the only animals that I have lost because I was impatient and added to the tank to fast. Now I drip acclimate at least an hour and a half if not longer before adding

I think Marie is on the right track. I do a drip for both shrimp & mandarins as they seem to take a long time to acclimate. I believe they are sensitive to the salinity as well as temp.

yeah marine inverts are often lost to to a quick change in salinity. they are quite sensitive to it (more so than most fish)

I'm not convinced it's the change in salinity that affects them. I regularily move my shrimp ( no acclimating) from tank to tank with no ill effects and I discovered one day (I don't test salinity on the tanks very often :redface: ) that the salinity on one of the tanks was 1.023 and the other 2 tanks were at my target level of 1.025.

The last batch I acclimatized for over 3 hours and they are the only cleaner shrimp in my tank with plenty of fish, so I am sure they have plenty to eat.

I hand fed mine once a week to be sure. I lost it about 2-3 weeks ago though when it died molting. Had it for 6 months before that.