I killed my cleaner shrimp

[RichConley]

Well, last night around 8 I was talking to Abbey over IM, and said "Animals dont die on my watch"

so not 4 hours later, I have a dead cleaner shrimp.

I emptied my skimmer cup at about midnight. I went down to mcdonalds and got a burger and came back about 12:30....my skimmer cup is full again...but its all clear water..look in the skimmer...the sponge thats supposed to reduce microbubbles in the tank has clogged the outflow, so hte skimmer is up about an inch, and it has pumped water into the cup.

So I just assume..half hour, I'm lazy, can't be too much junk in there, and pour the cup back into the skimmer, and remove the sponge. Little do I know, my shrimp is hanging out right under the outflow from the skimmer...

When I poured out the cup, it stirred up all the crap in the skimmer, and a lot of stuff flowed into the tank...I think the shrimp got hit with a wave of some pretty concentrated ammonia, he was dead in about 45 seconds. Nothing else seems to be affected....


Let that be a lesson to everyone else...dont be lazy, and dont ever say "i've never killed any of my reef critters"

 

[Moe_K]

Hmm, you're sure the shrimp is dead?
That's a weird one.

 

[Ifferfish]

It never fails does it?!

 

[dpnshnks]

Are you sure it's dead and not just molted? It seems like you've been around a while and probably would recognize the difference. I must say, every time I see a shell floating around the tank, I do a quick head check on all the critters!

Eric

 

[RichConley]

he molted about 3 nights ago, so its not that. He just kinda fell over and flipped upside down. he was still like that this morning. When I got home from work, there was no sign of him anywhere...I'm assuming the clean up crew "cleaned up"

 

[AbbeyRoad]

Oh no! Iffer is right...it never fails.
Sorry about Mr. Shrimp, I know you really liked him.

 

[Moe_K]

Dang, Rich. That sucks.