Huddeled in corner

[Candy]

So, I've set up my first ever shrimp tank. It has been cycled and all parameters were good...until I put in some cholla wood. I had boiled it and everything but over the course of a few days it grew this disgusting thick slime on it and the water got super cloudy. Checked the parameters and the ammonia was at .50 and my cherry shrimp were huddled in one bottom corner. I took that stupid wood out and did a 30% water change and cut the ammonia down, but the shrimp didn't snap out of it. Waited a day and did another change and the test kit isn't reading any ammonia. Every water change I've made sure the parameters were as close as possible and refilled the tank through drip over a few hours just in case. I managed to keep the temp from dropping even with the heater off. They shouldn't have been shocked by anything other than the water removal, but I used an air tube to do it slowly so...yeah. They're still in that corner. They're alive and two of them, always the same ones, go foraging sometimes. I'm not sure what else to do. I've put some food in and they don't respond, I've kept the light off more, I've treated the water with Prime...I'm at a loss.

 

Anyone have any other ideas? This is their 4th day in that corner.

 

Edit: The parameters are 0 ammonia/nitrate/nitrite, 7.2 ph, 140 gh, 80 kh, temp 74 degrees. I have live plants with plenty of hiding places and the filter flow isn't very strong and I have an airstone in the corner opposite the filter.

Edited June 24, 2020 by Candy

[Crabby]

Okay, can I just say: Cholla wood is wood. That's all there is to it. It has nothing dangerous inside it. If you boiled it and didn't touch it to anything between that and going in the tank, it isn't the source of your ammonia problem. What else is in the tank? How much have you been feeding? Have you been dosing fertilisers, or a GH/KH + type mix? How many shrimp are in the tank, and how large is the tank?

Also, ammonia readings of 0.5 are absolutely nothing. An ammonia testkit will measure ammonium as well, which is about a hundred times less dangerous. So the actual ammonia reading is likely 0.02 or something like that (just a guess). 

What other parameters have you checked? What were the values? That might help to figure out the real problem.

[sdlTBfanUK]

The cholla wood won't bethe problem as Crabby states. It is fairly common for newly set up tanks to grow a slime/fungus on woods etc, it is harmless to the shrimps but I usually remove it as it looks unsightly! It may be that your tank wasn't/isn't properly cycled (or finished cycling) and that is why you got an ammonia reading? If you had a milky white cloudiness then that would be bacteria bloom and again that happens to me with newly set up tanks which haven't really fully settled down! 

There probably isn't much you can do at this stage but when you feed tryand make sure it goes to where the shrimp are. Something could have caused the cycle to be disrupted if it was properly cycled as you say it was but it usually settles down much quicker than when you started.

It can do more harm than good to keep messing with things too much, you should run it as you plan too, heater and lighting on as normal etc and just give the tank a bit of time to settle itself  down. Let us know if you get shrimps dying and we may need to go a bit more in depth? Those parameters look ok for cherry shrimp.

Simon

[Crabby]

Oh yeah I didn't read the slime bit. Simon has it perfect with his explanation of the slime and cloudy water.

Parameters are looking alright. What size is the tank though, and what is the litres per hour (lph) that the filter moves? Probably unrelated, but trying to cover all bases.

Edited June 25, 2020 by Crabby