Shrimps are suiciding by jumping the tank

Hey all I've recently been finding a lot of my shrimp have jumped the tank when previously they have been fine. I'm not too sure what the problem may be. This is also happening in my dwarf puffer tank around the same time.

20g long - 9 head n tail light tetras
8 diamond tetras
1 dwarf gourami
?? ghost shrimp (originally stocked with 30 or so, some berried)

5gal- 1 dwarf puffer
6-8ish ghost shrimp

I've seen the tetras nip at the gs so I think that might be contributing but what I don't understand is why this is suddenly happening in both tanks at the same time.?

The puffer normally doesn't bother the gs, mainly because they are much faster than him and he prefers to 'buzz' around slowly rather than chase them around.

Some of the shrimp look cooked? Would that mean my heater is turned on too high or what? Normal temp is just around 80 degrees

I will post the water parameters before I start my pwc later on today.

 

They are jumping out of the tank?

 

I would try lowering the temp a little bit. The GS may be getting stressed from the other fish nipping at them. Also, what are your water parameters looking like?

 

Yeah, I'm finding dried up shrimp around the tanks and some on the floor, so far I've found 5 carcasses
and my water parameters are:
20g
pH 7.6
Ammonia .50
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5.0ppm

5gal
pH 7.6
Ammonia .25
Nitrite 2.5
Nitrate 5.0ppm

I live in the tropics so its harder to control temp since the water tends to stay on the warmer side

 

It's probably the ammonia and nitrites. It's not uncommon for inverts to try and leave the water if the water isn't healthy and clean. You need to do a few big water changes on the 5 gal. Once you get ammonia and nitrites under 1 ppm you can dose with prime to neutralize the effects on the tank inhabitants. Were these tanks previously cycled? Or are they new?

 

I agree with Kwig . Have you used a start up bacteria? If so you should be cycled soon, if not this can become very rough very fast--- if you added fish and experienced this spike, did you add any bacteria when adding them?

- Shrimp deaths can also spike ammonia,

- Bacteria would be an API start up or TSS etc

 

the 5gal is new, the 20 is already cycled. I did use start up bacteria, the apI start up and whatever was left out of another bottle called bio booster.

I did do a 70% water change on the 5gal and did not find any dead shrimp hidden around while gravel vaccing. I think most of the shrimp jumped ship rather than die on board.

What about the 20gal? the shrimp is also jumping out of that tank also but it has better parameters

 

the 5gal is new, the 20 is already cycled. I did use start up bacteria, the apI start up and whatever was left out of another bottle called bio booster.

I did do a 70% water change on the 5gal and did not find any dead shrimp hidden around while gravel vaccing. I think most of the shrimp jumped ship rather than die on board.

What about the 20gal? the shrimp is also jumping out of that tank also but it has better parameters

The ammonia is still very problematic.

 

I use prime as my dechlor though so I assumed that it was okay.
I'll try to keep doing the water changes to stay on top of the water parameters though.
Hopefully I won't lose anymore shrimp since they're my cleanup crew and if I lose my clean up crew my water will become even more foul >.<

 

If the 20 is cycled, the ammonia should be 0. Did you have some recent deaths in the tank that may have been missed, ammonia in the water source, or recently replace your filter media or wash it in tap water without dechlorinater?

 

I recently hooked up a newly setup tank to the planted tank the shrimp are kept in, by overflows so the ammonia is probably from the new tank setup which was housing a couple mollies for a week or two. It will probably clear up within the week once the bacteria reproduce more to deal with the higher bio load.

I also had recently started dosing more ferts in an effort to help my plant growth so I think that might be an issue also.

Maybe a combination of the ferts + getting harassed is what's causing them to jump I think.
So far I'm doing the wc, and I'll lower my fert dosage for a week and see how it turns out.

 

If you recently increased the ferts, that could be the culprit.