Shrimp skin?

[Garnelchen]

Looking into my tank this morning I was shocked when I saw something that appeared to be a dead shrimp. :dejection:

Taking a closer look I am not sure if it really is a dead shrimp or maybe just a skin. It looks kind of rounded, incomplete and very lifeless.

All shrimp that i can see seem happy and healthy though.

What does a skin look like? I'm just not sure...:(

P.S, I just noticed that it is moving a little bit. So it is a shrimp...but it doesn't look very happy. :dejection:

[ineke]

One of the shrimp has shed it's exoskeleton it looks just like a ghostly white shrimp. If it was a girl you should find a berried female soon. When she is ready to breed she sends pheromones out and the boys do their crazy dance looking for her. They will be swimming around the tank looking for her to mate.

Cheers

Ineke:encouragement:

[KillieOrCory]

Shed skin is opaque white. The recently moulted shrimp are pale.

Either way leave it in the tank.

[Squiggle]

This is one of the shells in my tank, you should leave them in the tank for the shrimp to eat, correct me if I'm wrong but I think it helps increase their calcium levels :encouragement:

[KillieOrCory]

Yes almost all crustaceans eat their shed skin to reabsorb calcium.

[Garnelchen]

I took a picture of it. I think it's a dying shrimp :dejection:

[Squiggle]

Yeah, that doesn't look good :dejection:

[ineke]

Oh dear no that's not good. Can you do some water tests to make sure you haven't had some sort of spike , just to be on the safe side?

[OzShrimp]

I took a picture of it. I think it's a dying shrimp :dejection:

I cant see it in the pic

[BlueBolts]

Difficult to see the detail, but I'd remove it out of the tank, isolate it and perhaps get an airstone in its container ? The pics makes it look like a worm of sorts......good luck

[KillieOrCory]

Can't see it very well. Is it an insect that fell in the water? Take it out as bluebolt says.

[ineke]

It really looks like a yellow cherry

[OzShrimp]

arrrrrrgh i cant even see it lol getting frustrated now lol

[OzShrimp]

i took this a little while ago so can you compare this one also

[Garnelchen]

Oh my god! I'm such an idiot.

The thing just came to life again and it IS a shrimp after all, I think.

A couple of weeks ago I threw some little shrimpy creatures (pulex shrimp or something) from the creek in my tank.

I hadn't seen them for a long time, and forgot all about them. They also weren't that big back then.

This is what it looks like.

Can I leave it in there? (I doubt that I would find it again anyway...)

[OzShrimp]

i dont know anything about them but glad its not a dead shrimp

[Garnelchen]

I feel so silly now. :p

all of a sudden the little thing in the corner got up and crawled away....that's when I could clearly see what it was.

but when it was sitting there all hunched up in the corner it looked just like a dead shrimp to me. I even looked yellow-ish!

[BlueBolts]

Perhaps do some research, just to make sure they won't eat shrimpliets ?

[ineke]

I don't know them either looks a bit strange

[KillieOrCory]

Hehe I thought that did not look like a shrimp. Those crustaceans feed on detrius but not sure on whether they are harmful to shrimplets.

I actually would like to grow a culture of them.

If you ever loose your red cherries I would be happy to send you some red cherries if you can catch me some of these and send them to me.

In a past life living overseas I used to use them as bait when fishing.

[Squiggle]

That's awesome news that it not a dead shrimp, very interested to find out more about them though :encouragement:

[ineke]

So what is it then I would like to know and it might be a lesson to us not to put strange creatures into our tanks.

[Garnelchen]

So what is it then I would like to know and it might be a lesson to us not to put strange creatures into our tanks.

Oh, I was just desperate to have little crustaceans in my tank....and I thought they were better than nothing. :o

I'm not 100% sure that they are Gammarus Pulex, but they I think they are something close anyway.

I also had some other similar looking ones that were white. They were more active and would come up to sit on the glass of the tank to feed on algea. These ones I caught in the river.

@KillieOrCory: I sure can catch some of these for you if you want, no problem! How many would you like? :)

They are really tiny though. The one I saw in my tank this morning had grown quite a bit since I caught it.