Lost my cleaner shrimp today

[iceet]

The dead body of my purple firefish was stuck on the grating of my PVC overflow. Was not sure if something killed him or he died from getting stuck. I decided instead of flushing him to throw him in my sump because I have a hefty clean-up crew there and his carcass could at least feed a few of them. Well when I tossed him into my sump he got sucked into my Eshopps S-200 skimmer and was promptly chased by one of my cleaner shrimp (have a pair in my sump). Needless to say the shrimp did not make it. I used a pair of tweezer to pick the dead shrimp out of the inlet of the skimmer, I was lucky and he did not get sucked in all the way or it would have been a long night. The firefish carcass did get sucked all the way but is still in the skimmer pump. Not too worried about it though because his body is a lot more dissolvable than a shrimp body.

 

Moral of the story:

 

Don't fiddle with your tank if you don't have to

Edited November 20, 2014 by iceet

[treesprite]

I found a cleaner shrimp dead today, but definately did not have to deal with the dead fish. Sorry you lost them both.

[Coral Hind]

I would put some foam or something over the intake so you don't kill something else. Why do you not keep the shrimp in the display part of the tank? The idea for a skimmer is to remove nutrients before they can breakdown, so why leave something in the tank to rot? You might as well just unplug the skimmer.

[iceet]

True I have some inverts in my sump and they help keep it clean. I have many inverts in my display as well, which includes 2 cleaners. I did not want to add a third cleaner to the display since I hear the odd one out will get killed and you end up with two.

 

I never feed my sump, all of the creatures there survive on food that was fed to the display but entered my overflow into my sump. I don't run filter socks for this reason, that would starve my sump inverts. Also filter socks require too much maintenance and are unnecessary in my opinion if you keep a small clean up crew in your sump/refugium.

 

Good idea in the foam, I don't want to risk losing another creature.

[iceet]

You are right in that I should have thrown the dead fish away rather than trying to feed him to my other creatures. I learned my lesson.