Reef Aquaruim Shrimp Dying

Question
QUESTION: Hi I have a 75g Reef aquarium. I live in St Vincent and the Grenadines and i have caught everything straight from the sea myself!
The Tank Has only been set up a few weeks now and already i have had 3 coral banded shrimp die and a pistol shrimp!
I have been doing a 20 gallon water change per week, i have no idea why the shrimp are dying?
There are hard and soft corals in the tank and about 7 fish. everything seems to be doing fine apart from the shrimp!
Any Ideas on what is killing my shrimp.

Regards

James


ANSWER: Hey James,
Are you using water straight from the ocean as well? It's quite possible, if you are, that some pollutant/toxin is concentrating when placed in a closed system. Small inverts are the most susceptible to toxins and water quality/environmental changes. Test your water quality. Try filtering the water first for a few days with carbon and aeration. I used to do that when I lived in Redondo Beach and had the "found it/brought it home" reef.
If you are using a sea water mix, that too is something thats a shock, all the little critters need to be acclimated to those mixes over a 2 to 3 hour acclimation. Hope this helps, let me know if you have more questions and how it's going.
(I miss the days when you went shopping in your back yard for your aquarium community!)

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi thanks for your reply! i am using water straight from the ocean yes and replenishing it with fresh once a week. both the coral banded and the pistol shrimp have been fine until one morning i notied the 2 coral banded shrip still breathing but not moving they wud turn them selfs on thier backs until they finally died! i had found a few peices of live rock that was in the sand that had a white slime on it when i removed the stones it had a real rotten smell to it, so not sure if that would have caused it? but now a 2 weeks has passed since then and everything has been fine until this morning the pistol shrimp was doing the same behaviour as the coral banded and its not often that shrimp will leave his annemome?
The tank has an external filter which is doing a lovely job and i have 2 power heads pushing plenty of current and an air stone! as i am putting in fresh sea water each week i should need much more than that?
I Will be goin shopping again this weekend lol! i hope by then i can get this problem ressolved!
Kind Regards

Answer
Hey James,
I would actually remove the airstone from the aquarium, and place that in your collection bucket for a few days with a simple hang on the back filter and some carbon, before adding the fresh ocean water to the system. With your description of the live rock, and the fresh ocean water, Im positive its a simple water quality issue. What you found on the live rock, was die off(not alive anymore). Placing it in your aquarium has started it to cycle again, so its releasing ammonia and any other toxins it picked up in the sand. It will be fine in  3 maybe 4 weeks, but until then it will continue to have detrimental effects on your water quality and the shrimp and small inverts. Like I said they feel the water quality first. Just give it a few weeks before you add any more shrimp and you should be fine.