brain damaged shrimp??

[sucker_fish]

Ok heres what's going on with my fire cleaner shrimp. as of yesterday he was acting somewhat lethargic he was crawling around on some of my corals (favias). When I fed the tank he perked up some and scavenged a couple pieces of food (dry flake food). When I fed the tank again last night (mysis and cyclops) I noticed him being lazy again. This morning I got up ( 630) and he was laying on his side, legs still moving, antenna twitching, but definitely not in the best of health. This afternoon when I came home and at the moment (1:47 PM) he is still laying on his side, legs twitching, antenna moving, and attempting to grab food as it floats by but not able to right himself and crawl or swim. I recently added a new frag rack to my tank and have noticed my starry blenny has knocked off a couple frag plugs. Maybe one landed on the shrimp knocking him senseless?? tank parameters: temp-78, nitrate-20ppm, nitrite-0, alkalinity-80ppm, ph-7.8 lights have been on for about 2 hours now.

 

[philter4]

Sometimes mine do that a day or two before they shed, they have trouble with feeding and movement especially. The one thing mine don't do is lay on their sides, they are usually upright, just act strange.

 

[sucker_fish]

just did a water change this morning unfortunately the shrimp didn't make it. Yes he was eating when he would catch food, I was feeding him out of a turkey baster just to make sure he was getting something to eat, I think he was injured also, anyway when I went to bed last night I placed him in a low flow area on some rock and he was actually hanging onto the rock, got up this morning and found an emerald crab munching on him, and i thought those guys only ate algae...

 

[n00by]

That's a shame, man. Fire shrimps are beautiful and expensive compared to cleaner shrimps.

 

[ralphie]

Sorry for your loss. They are one of my favorite shrimp, but never really do well long term in my tank.