# Planted Tanks > Plant Talk > Cryptocoryne Club >  Planting new crypts causing shrimp death?

## vinz

A pattern seems to have emerged. I would just like to ask if this is the general experience for most people. Have other people planted new crypts and NOT had mass shrimp die off within 24 hours?

Please answer the following questions:
1. Have you experience mass shrimp die off, or strange shrimp behaviour within 24hours after:
1a. planting or introducing new Cryptocoryne into your tank?
1b. re-planting (i.e. uproot and re-plant in the same tank) Cryptocoryne?
1c. trimming Cryptocoryne?
1d. a long established group of Cryptocoryne melts? Do not include newly planted cryptocoryne that melted immediately.

2. Whether yes or no to any of the above,
2a. Which species of Cryptocoryne?
2b. How many plants were involved (i.e. planted, re-planted, trimmed, or melted)?
2c. What is the size of the tank in US gallons?
2d. What did you do after planting? E.g. water change, added water conditioners, etc.

3. Have you experience mass shrimp die off, or strange shrimp behaviour within 24hours after:
3a. planting or introducing new plants other than Cryptocoryne into your tank?
3b. re-planting (i.e. uproot and re-plant in the same tank) plants other than Cryptocoryne?
3c. trimming plants other than Cryptocoryne?

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## Quixotic

vinz, not trying to be funny, but mass = how many? If I had 10 shrimps and 5 died, would it be considerd as mass?

For me, I don't consider 5 out of 10 to be mass, maybe 8 or 9 out of 10, some people may have different ideas, so..

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## NDC

Me! Thank you Vinz for the help.

Please answer the following questions:
1. Have you experience mass shrimp die off, or strange shrimp behaviour within 24hours after: Yes
1a. planting or introducing new Cryptocoryne into your tank? Yes

2. Whether yes or no to any of the above,
2a. Which species of Cryptocoryne? Not sure, but i can post a picture later when im home 
2b. How many plants were involved (i.e. planted, re-planted, trimmed, or melted)? 1 pot of crypt
2c. What is the size of the tank in US gallons? About 54 gallon
2d. What did you do after planting? E.g. water change, added water conditioners, etc. I did a water change of about 20% as what i would do with other plants. The water will be treated with water conditioner before adding into the tank

3. Have you experience mass shrimp die off, or strange shrimp behaviour within 24hours after:
3a. planting or introducing new plants other than Cryptocoryne into your tank? The next morning the bottom of the tank was a mass grave for the shrimps. :Sad:  
3b. re-planting (i.e. uproot and re-plant in the same tank) plants other than Cryptocoryne? Nothing happens when i try other plants.
3c. trimming plants other than Cryptocoryne? Nothing happens when i try other plants.

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## Randall

Your plants might contain fertilizer,which means death to your shrimp :Shocked:

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## Limbeh

I planted crypts in my established shrimp tank with no problem.  :Smile:  
But note that prior to planting, the crypts were quarantee in another 2 feet tank filled with moss and hornwort for about a week.  :Wink:

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## MiSs PiGgY

you should soak your plants before introducing it into your shrimp tank

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## NDC

Hi,

I did soak the plants before introducing it to the tank.
I bought it in the morning, take back to office. Wash it at about 10am than soak in a pail til i transfer it to a bag and bring it home.
Even the bag i also fill it with water. All together i soak them for about 10hr before planting them.

Just bad luck to me, cause with the other plants that i use to introduced. I had never encounter such problem before.

 :Sad:

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## Quixotic

Basically, what I am trying to say is, conclusions by association is not all conclusive at all.

There will be others who that have planted Crypts without causing mass shrimp death. It is contrary to those who have failed and put it down to Crypts fault.

What do we make of it? Nothing really.

It may or may not cause the deaths directly (I don't know, this will have to be proven scientifically) but may indirectly deteriorate the water conditions due to rotting, which is crucial to shrimps. Even so, there will be ways to improve water conditions, e.g. water changes, increase aeration.

One thing that I have learned about shrimp keeping is NOT to introduce major changes once they are introduce to the tank. Planting is a major change, so planting ANYTHING may indirectly causes more harm to your shrimps.

Hence, there will be some who will be successful, while some will not. Always remember that your milage may vary.

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## carlfsk

> Your plants might contain fertilizer,which means death to your shrimp


yup, precisely what's I'm thinking

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## Rupert

> A pattern seems to have emerged. I would just like to ask if this is the general experience for most people. Have other people planted new crypts and NOT had mass shrimp die off within 24 hours?
> 
> Please answer the following questions:
> 1. Have you experience mass shrimp die off, or strange shrimp behaviour within 24hours after: 
> 1a. planting or introducing new Cryptocoryne into your tank?YES
> 1b. re-planting (i.e. uproot and re-plant in the same tank) Cryptocoryne?
> 1c. trimming Cryptocoryne?
> 1d. a long established group of Cryptocoryne melts? Do not include newly planted cryptocoryne that melted immediately.
> 
> ...


New plant stock, which mine was, is the problem as they probably come with pesticides or something that caused my shrimp grief/death for many weeks, in fact I had to catch as many as I could and put them in a smaller tank for 6 weeks.

I kept the plants in a bucket for one week before planting so was quite surprised then sad at how toxic new plants can be. Now I tend to be very wary of plants from the farms, better to get them off other members.

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## vinz

Well, the purpose of this thread is to either confirm or demolish the theory and most importantly find out why.

The is still a question of why mostly Cryptocoryne, and few or zero occurences with other plants?

*Disclaimer: The following are just speculation. More needs to be done to really figure it out.*

Many plant farms grow most aquatic plants emersed. To keep the plants from being eaten by pests, pesticides are used. Don't forget too that most of our plants come from countries that have less strict pesticide control laws. Before distribution, the plants are completely submersed for weeks to allow the plants to convert to auqatic form. That would have washed off or diluted of a lot of the pesticides.

Cryptocorynes on the other hand, can be planted in shallow (hence less water) or semi-aquatic conditions, in their aquatic form. Hence those sold could still be laced with enough pesticide to kill more sensitive fauna like shrimp.

I'm unsure about farm practices, but most crypts do fine (some do better) with stagnant or well aged water, and farms may not change the water for the simple reason of reducing the cost of water usage.

Come to think of it, most mass shrimp death seem to occur with the planting of the shorter crypts rather then the taller ones, which require deeper and hence more water.

The amount of time that the plant has spent in the LFS, likely fully submersed with regular water changes, will also have an effect.

Thoughts?

In any case, in addition to quarantining fish, it looks like quarantining plants is something we should practice too. Especially for plants obtained from farms.

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## [C]irRuS

I feel that another cause of mass shrimp death after planting new crypts or shifting of crypt is due to the melting of the leaves. The substance produce due to the decomposition of crypt will cause death to shrimp.

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## NDC

Sorry to ask stupid question again.
So what if the crypt that has been in the tank for quite some time melted?
Will it cause the shrimps to die?

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## Quixotic

vinz, this will still be pure speculation unless we see any related scientific papers, but nevertheless, it is still something worth discussing. I do understand where you are coming from.

However, I just don't like the idea of some to jump to conclusion by association: plant Crypts -> shrimps die -> Crypts caused shrimpts to die. It is too simplistic to conclude that.

For what it's worth, I have problems when planting anything, not just Crypts. So I refuse to conclude that the Crypts have any direct effect on shrimps. If I were to conclude that, then by association, I would also be forced to conclude that all plants have the same effect. This cannot be true.

Perhaps I have stirred up/introduced something while planting and this could be the cause, I don't know. I noticed they normally do better after a large water change (> 40%) but then again, some shrimps would still die, presumably, due to their sensitivity of the change.

And Crypts melting after being established in the tank due to water change/shifting do no harm per my observation. If decomposition of Crypts is poisonous, rightfully, the shrimps wouldn't survive. So again, I really don't think that Crypts would directly cause shrimp deaths.

However, the melting/rotting of Crypts, in theory, may cause bad water conditions, which is bad news to senstive fauna like shrimps. But that too, is subjected to the amount of melting/rotting.

So Crypts may indirectly play a part but I don't really think they could be blamed directly (unless proven scientifically otherwise). I have looked around for related scientific papers regarding Crypts and shrimps but have found none so far.  :Sad:

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## vinz

Exactly, I do not want to jump to any conclusions. The purpose of this thread is to discuss and figure out the possibilities. And unless someone does some experiments to confirm any of the theories, we can never be really sure.

At least though, we should try to see why crypts are turning up as one of the more common denominators. I'm not saying that crypts are the direct causes but something associated with them, be it pesticides, how they are grown, their nature, how we handle them. That's why I asked in my original thread if people get the same effect when they plant other plants.

By gathering hobbyists experiences, we can whither downthe possibilities to a few and maybe do some things to confirm the real culprit.

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## vinz

> I feel that another cause of mass shrimp death after planting new crypts or shifting of crypt is due to the melting of the leaves. The substance produce due to the decomposition of crypt will cause death to shrimp.


See, we have to be careful here. Is it something unique to cryptocoryne, or something that is produced by all decomposing organic matter? Is it just that cryptocoryne usually melts enmass and so rapidly that they simply overwhelm the tank ecology with a ammonia spike?

Frankly, we won't know unless someone plant and cause to melt, some crypts in a mature tank without fauna, and measure the ammonia/ammonium levels. (Without fauna because, (a) we don't want to murder them, and (b) we don't want murdered fauna skewing the ammonia readings).

I have to apologise that I can't do the experiments as I'm unable to start new tanks anytime soon.

For the pesticide theory, there is a half-measure experiment to try. If nothing else it may at least give us a way to reduce shrimp fatalities due to planting (any plant). It has to be done by someone who is still keen to plant crypts into their shrimp tank
1. get crypts from the same source that killed their last bunch,
2. quarantine the crypts in a separate tank for at least 2 weeks, making sure of regular water changes,
3. At the end of the quarantine, plant the crypts in the shrimp tank.

Anyone want to risk it? * Vinz setting himself up as flame-bait *

Note though, there's nothing to say the crypts won't melt after step 3. To reduce the risk, use water from the main tank to replace water in the quarantine tank and use the same amount of light. At least the water and light conditions will be similar. Make sure to remove all packing materials (especially the rock wool which is probably soaked with whatever comes with the crypts) and rinse the crypts before introducing to either tanks.

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## illumbomb

Hi All,

I know this is an old thread but happened to see it and thus would like to share my recent experience :Crying: :

I went to the farm last Sunday and bought some emmersed ecryptocorynes. When I planted the cryptocorynes emmersed on Monday night, I plucked off some of the smaller plantlets from the parent plant, gave them a quick rinse and just planted them straight into my nano shrimp tank (silly me). After that I feeded my shrimps some food and found that they were all congregating at one corner (furthest away from where I planted the new cryptcorynes) and were not interested in the food. I went to sleep immediately and 6 hours later, 32 of my 35 shrimps were found dead.

Regards,
T S Wang

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## vinz

So the shrimp died before the crypts started melting?

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## DanGoh59

From personal experience, it is not just planting/re-planting crypts but rather all/any plants that would cause the death of shrimps/fish. This is
especially so for the more "weaker and sensitive" fish and shrimps tend 
fall under this category. For sensitive fish, my cardinals had been hit 
the worst  :Crying: 

Planting new crypts/plants is not that bad. The damage is lesser and can
even be properly contained if you "cleaned" the plants properly and most of all, your planting actions does not create too many soil/sand movement
resulting in a lot of debris and "stuff" to be released to the water.

Re-planting is the worst and there is no way to avoid the casualties. This is because re-planting involves pulling out plants that are already well
entrenched in the soil/sand. When you pull them up by the roots, there
is no way to avoid whatever is in the soil to also be released to the water.
This might be decaying matter, fertilizer, whatever and most of all, harmful bacteria. During the latest re-planting exercise, I sought to limit the damage by immediately siphoning the debris and "cloudy" water around the area where I pulled up the plants. I did this after each and every plant I pulled up and re-planted. Still, I lost about 70% of my livestock in the tank. Not immediately, but a few every single day.

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## vinz

Actually, livestock death form massive replanting may be a result of the massive water change too. Also we often either:
(a) switch off the filter, or
(b) continue to let it run

In (a), the length of time may cause bacteria death in the filter.
In (b), the filter media gets clogged with debris and we do a massive cleaning of the filter media as well. The clogging could have caused bacteria death as well. Or worse, we forget to clean the filter.

Playing devil's advocate.

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## illumbomb

> So the shrimp died before the crypts started melting?


Yup, not melted yet. For those people keeping nano tanks, just be really careful when you plant any new plants..... you better soak them in water for a few hours and wash them before planting

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## spgan

Before reading up this post:

Just yesterday I planted one bunch of crypts to my 2ft tank. Dumb enough, i try to remove most of the wool and plain shower it through and goes straight to my tank. Soon started noticing my tiger and bee shrimps with slower reactions. Cherry shrimps gathered at top corner of my moss. They have no appetite for the algae wafer. I tried changing 20% of my water and off to bed.

To my horror this morning when I woke up. Dead shrimps everywhere.  :Flame:  :Flame:  :Flame:  Some of them are still struggling. Was devastated when i saw this.  :Exasperated:  :Exasperated:  :Exasperated:  Imagine before going to work and had to quickly clear up the piles of dead shrimps. Did a 50% water change. Came home and continued more burial service. 

Lesson learnt: Soak your plants before planting. But with other stem plants which i usually do not soak as well, however this time it proved deadly with 80% of shrimps wiped out. Neons and ottos are fine.

What should be my next course of action? Do more water change daily? I still got maybe less than 10 cherry shrimps in there. I do not have a ammonia test kit so when will be good to add in new shrimps? 

Thanks for reading and sharing my sorrow... :Sad:

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