Why are my shrimps dying? A common question asked by many newbies to the shrimp keeping hobby, many veteran shrimp keepers also deal with this problem from time to time. Shrimps are a very resilient creature that could take a lot of changes to the water parameters, especially if you are changing the water or transferring them to a new tank, but like every living creature, it reaches a point where it just can’t take the sudden changes and dies.

Photo from bcaquaria.com

Now to figure out what’s causing your shrimp to die, you’re going to need to do a little bit of investigating. Check the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, kh levels, ph levels, etc. . . . It could be one of these that is causing your shrimp to bite the dust. A sudden rise of even just one mentioned parameter would make your shrimp very uncomfortable, a huge chance it would kill your shrimp in a few days or weeks if left unchecked. There are a lot of charts and tests that would see if one or more of the parameters of your tank is causing the sudden deaths of your shrimp.

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One example is that if Nitrate rises to a high amount inside the tank, it would slowly kill your shrimp. At first you would notice one death in 2 weeks, then another death which becomes another death every 2 days, until all your shrimps die off. A good solution to this problem would be to add live plants as they soak up the nitrates inside the tank.

If you see shrimp surrounding and eating another shrimp don’t panic, shrimps are scavengers meaning they are eating an already dead shrimp, they eat the shell because it contains rich minerals that is beneficial for the other shrimps. But it is suggested to take the dead shrimp out of the tank as soon as possible, dead shrimp or other organisms are one of the causes in the rise of ammonia which could lead to a lot of problems.

A good way to prevent rise in ammonia or nitrite in a new aquarium is not to add a lot of shrimp right away or overfeeding your pets, this sometimes causes what is called “New Tank Syndrome” which may cause your shrimps to die.

One reason could be that you are too much of a clean freak! Stop changing your water regularly as that is a reason for big changes in water parameters. Tap waters though normally has a low content of nitrate, but it could naturally build up it is nitrate content if left unchecked, even if the effects are not noticeable for humans it would affect your shrimp a lot!

Like I mentioned earlier, if you see dead shrimp remove it as soon as possible. But this rule doesn’t apply to all shrimp, like the wooden shrimp! If you see them lying at the bottom of the tank it could be that they are playing dead and they can do so for days! So don’t remove them.

There can be a lot more factors why your shrimp are dying! The best way to figure out what the cause is by doing a lot of testing and research! Shrimp are dying and we are it is only chance to survive.