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Oh man, I didn't see the edit until now! Spot on, on all accounts. Thanks for the info, shame I'd come to the same conclusion without seeing this. But I think really the damage has already been done, so even if I'd read this when posted I wouldn't have lost any fewer shrimp. I still have a good 100 or so, and a dozen are still berried., so they'll bounce back in a couple of months. This is the strongest, most resilient colony I've ever had, so fingers crossed no more mistakes! Thanks to everyone for offering suggestions.

I posted this video and I am seeing things crawling around the substrate. It is a time lapsed video and you can spot them. I took another yesterday and there are tons more. Are these the harmless bugs or am I in trouble? Do I need to get rid of them? How do I get rid of them?

This is the tank... Haven't quite rid of all the dead shrimp yet. The small filter is from my (still cycled) 1 gallon cull tank. Haven't moved them into the cull tank as I think it would cause more harm than good. I have a bucket of shrimp, if they survive in the bucket overnight I'll get more buckets going and move as many out as I can. Literally every live shrimp in the tank is in this picture. It's a 6 month old colony. I honestly didn't realise I had so many before I was counting the corpses I was removing. There are even some day old shrimplets around. These shrimp are normally bold, never skittish (I can net them 99% first time), being in a species only tank and used to people walking past/looking in so they being scared is unusual. I've had to manage the water level as they keep beeching themselves. If you scatter them within less than 30 seconds they climb back to the highest point trying to escape.

Thanks for the replies, any input is helpful. I agree the cycle is messed up, and I've had worse blooms before but they weren't fatal, since I've seen very little ammonia I can only think the PH is the issue this time around. I've slowly raised the PH slowly again to 6.3 (using Bicorbanate of Soda), not going any higher as - like you said - any ammonium will turn toxic. Plus I think it might be further stressing the shrimp to try artificially raise the PH. I'm using the API liquid ammonia test kit, not sure if this detects ammonium? Can't find any info online. And no idea what's with my KH. Out of the tap it's 3 drops. But my tank just eats it... For the first 12 months I never saw a PH of less than 7.6 and a slow increase of KH. I left it a month and found it had a PH of 5.9 with 0KH. Since then I have to check every week and increase the KH back to 3 with a solution of white vinegar & BiSo, matched to the PH of the tank. No idea why that works as you'd have thought a they'd cancel each other out, but it does increase KH without increasing tank PH. If I forget, or don't check, I'll find 0KH and 6 PH. A PH of 6 is fine BUT with 0KH I get a massive swing throughout the day/night cycle, probably due to photosynthesis? It's a 125l, with medium plantage, inert substrate, pieces of cuttlebone (for calcium) and a piece of driftwood. It did occur to me that maybe the plants are using the KH as I don't use CO2 but its manageable for the most part.

Nope, same tank. I lost a few more. I do have Endler fry in there to try to clean up the bugs. I was told to get them out of there because they will eat the shrimp babies. You see I have rabbit snails in there and they are breeding very well. I have about 8 baby snails.

Yes, it is hard to see in the video. The one I took yesterday has tons more. They are just white specs in the substrate. Everything seems healthy right now. From what I gather if they are seed shrimp, every tank has them and the fish tend to eat them. Since I have no fish in there I assume they will just be more visible. I did have a massive shrimp die off but it was unrelated to those bugs. My guess is there was something in the water my tests didn't show. We are in the country and we noticed a heavy metallic (Probably Mattalicanium) smell in our water. I went and got an RO system for the tanks and things are looking up. I have two shrimp in that tank and one is berried. Not sure if two will get a colony going but we will see.

150 deaths ! There were so many possible causes that it's hard to pin it on one cause or another. Maybe a combination of all of them. I think the urgency now is to bring the tank back to normal parameters to minimise further deaths, rather than trying to figure out the cause. We might never be able find the cause. How is the bacterial bloom now? is it under control? It's strange that the bloom occurred so quickly. I would keep up with the water changes. Another 50%, and gravel vac if you can. Treat the new water, and bring it to suitable parameters before adding it into the tank. The fact tat you are also registering ammonia is a concern. It is likely the hydrogen peroxide has killed off some bacteria. What % h2O2 did you use and how did you apply it? Spray bottle? Continue the water changes until you get close to the original parameters. <edit> On 2nd thoughts, I think we have to approach this issue with the mind set that it was the bacterial bloom that caused the issue. That sudden growth has probably consumed most of the oxygen in the tank, causing deaths to the shrimp and maybe the beneficial bacteria. A bacterial bloom consumes large amounts of oxygen from aquarium water, so make sure you have extra aeration going and the water surface is being broken either by air pump or filter return valve splashing above the water surface. As mentioned blooms occur because of a build up of organic material, so definitely gravel vac and rinse out filter media (not all media, leave some unwashed) in the old aquarium water. Remove any uneaten food and any dead leaves. It would also be the bloom that cause the pH drop, both by release of lactic acid and consumption of oxygen leaving more CO2.

Organic spinach is my #1 most popular food for both babies and adults thus far. Oddly enough, cauliflower leaf is a close 2nd. Both, however, need to be blanched I have found in order to be immediately palatable, particularly to the smaller shrimp. I bring to a quick boil for 3-5 minutes, almost to the point of sogginess; seems to do the trick.

I'm going to update the main post with the info in case anyone comes across this in the future, saves reading the entire thread. If you get a bacteria bloom in an established shrimp tank - think about O2 in addition to all the other parameters. Lethargic shrimp at the top of the tank and dead shrimp at the bottom in a bloom situation may be starved of O2. Aerate! ##################### Hi, So I had what appears to be a self inflicted bacteria bloom overnight, and about 150 adults/Sub adult Cherry Shrimp died out of around 250. My PH was 4.4 down from 7.0. Ammonia is <0.25, Nitrites & Nitrates 0. KH also 0. I can only assume that the deaths were attributed to either the PH or the lack of O2 and not directly to the bacteria bloom? Would any agree/disagree? And why is my PH so low? Is that because the bacteria will be producing loads of CO2? Or has an overnight surge of Ammonia caused a PH drop? More details below but only for background info, I'm fairly certain of the bacteria bloom cause just unsure as to the mechanics involved. Normal tank stats are PH of 7, 3GH and 3KH (But I'm constantly fighting KH, I have to monitor it as it reduces quickly). 2 Days ago I did a 30% w/c, and whilst I was at it I turned off the filter and used about 10ml of Hydrogen Peroxide to treat a little BBA. I've done this before no issues. Left the filter off for an hour and turned it back on. Yesterday I bought some cucumber and added a slice to the tank. I also added 8x Oto's (tank is over a year old so well cycled). Midnight last night just before the lights went off all was well, everyone happy. 8am this morning 100+ dead shrimp and milky water, staggeringly low PH of 4.4 (maybe even less, it was still dropping on the pen). So I figured that I've messed up by letting the Hydrogen Peroxide into the filter and killed the bacteria, which is the more likely cause, but I did wonder if the cucumber has pesticides which killed shrimp/caused an ammonia spike/caused a bacteria bloom. I did a 50% water change but the PH was still under 5 (tap water is 8.2 here!) so I'm adding small doses of KH booster, less than 0.1PH/hour, it's now 5.3 and most of the remaining shrimp are happy again. Just a handful sitting around not doing a real much of anything. No Oto deaths.

So the PH is swinging wildly. KH is now 6 drops but PH is still dropping by 0.05 per hour. Still very little ammonia, it's halfway between 0 and 0.25ppm. 0 Nitrites, 0 Nitrates. My tap water for some reason varies in PH from 7 up to 8.2. Even if it's at the lower end of 7 what's really odd is changing 5l of this 7+ PH clean water actually REDUCES the PH of the tank (???). There must be some reaction going on that I'm not seeing. I think what's happened, from researching most of the day, is that I've uncycled the tank. Whilst ammonia is generally slightly base (7+ PH) the other processes going on when cycling a tank decrease the overall PH. Once you get as low as I have all the beneficial bacteria remaining will be killed, and as long as the PH remains low it will not cycle. If that's right it doesn't explain why I have almost 0 ammonia... I'm going to leave it be and hope most of the remaining shrimp/Oto's (still going...) survive the cycling. I have a spare tank but I don't see the point of setting it up as it will also be uncycled.

Hey Crabby Cheers for the reply. Got the little guys today. Many more than the guy said, but they really didn't travel well. Most of the poor little guys appear to have perished in transit. Maybe 3-4 have survived. They are pretty stressed out. One of them has done about 50 laps of the tank without pause, the other 3-4 are hiding. I hope they are ok. ? Poor little guys. Would have been horrible for them....

Yeah maybe, in hindsight I did think so many things changing at once could muddy the water. Left it at 7pm @ 5.8ph, came home at midnight PH was 5.4, woke up this morning PH was 4.6 and another 50-70 deaths. Still around 50+ alive but not happy, they are clumped on top of the filter. Which I think answers my original question - the water doesn't seem to be killing them directly but it's making them so unhappy they are leaving the water and suffocating. Never seen that, ever. I probably should have mentioned that the corpses pile up in a corner under the filter which is not naturally the way the current would deposit them, so that makes sense. Now I'm in a cycle, deaths>more ammonia>poorer water quality>more deaths>repeat. I'm picking out 90% of the dead but some are just unreachable. I think I'll have enough pull through to build up the numbers again - counting shrimplets I now figure it's closer to 400 I had originally. Oto's still active... which is odd, never got them before and my understanding was they are sensitive as heck when you first introduce them.