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I couldn't tell you for sure why you had the spike, but plants do not die off because a tank is cycling. In fact the plants utilize ammonia during photosynthesis. Given proper levels of nutrients, light, and co2, plants will do well in tanks regardless of whether they are cycled or not.
So you cycled your tank with liquid ammonia? The only thing I can think of is if your plants were processing the ammonia rather than the tank itself building up the colony of beneficial bacteria. That seems unlikely though because that would take a lot of plants to handle the addition of pure ammonia, depending on how much you added. I would just let the tank cycle with the new additions and keep an eye on it. Also if you add a bunch of Prime water conditioner it will treat the ammonia and could inhibit the formation of beneficial bacteria.
I don't know about all the micro life in the tank. I didn't think that anything ate the beneficial bacteria. I think a bigger issue is dealing with hydra in a shrimp tank as those things can kill shrimp populations.
So you cycled your tank with liquid ammonia? The only thing I can think of is if your plants were processing the ammonia rather than the tank itself building up the colony of beneficial bacteria. That seems unlikely though because that would take a lot of plants to handle the addition of pure ammonia, depending on how much you added. I would just let the tank cycle with the new additions and keep an eye on it. Also if you add a bunch of Prime water conditioner it will treat the ammonia and could inhibit the formation of beneficial bacteria.
I don't know about all the micro life in the tank. I didn't think that anything ate the beneficial bacteria. I think a bigger issue is dealing with hydra in a shrimp tank as those things can kill shrimp populations.
