Peppermint Life Span (and goodbye to my old pal)

[QuAcKeR]

I'm searching around but can't seem to find info on the life span of the Peppermint Shrimp.

Mine passed away this evening ... had him for a bit over a year now (since Sept. 2003). He was great... got rid of my aiptasia quite quickly and he always had fun playing with my clown. My concern is figuring out why he died... if "old age" then so be it, but if not I'd like to track down any water quality issues. Everything seems okay. Only thing I can think of is that I may have topped off too much too quickly a few days ago and shocked the shrimp with a strong salinity drop. Everyone else in the tank seems fine (corals and the one clown... some snails).

I know I know... just a shrimp. Buy hey, I LIKED HIM!

[Deuce24]

I feel for ya, I lost a cleaner shrimp the other day. Only had him 2 weeks, he molted successfully and everything. Still unsure of his death, all parameters ok. I DID do a larger water change than normal, and switched to a LFS pre-mixed SW which is less salinity than my tank. That is the only reason I can come up with, so hopefully it is from your salinity drop (as hopefully mine was) and not some hidden danger in your tank to shrimp.

[QuAcKeR]

I should have done a slower top off I guess. I've been extremely busy for the past year and my tank has been sorely neglected.

Ironic that once I start getting things going right again is when stuff screws up. The tank has done pretty well considering the attention it has gotten this year. Only my Xenia melted away, and they were getting out of hand anyways.