Cleaner shrimp molting problems (over 10 hours)

[needlepimp]

Ok I woke up this morning flicked on the lights before putting on my socks to go to work and noticed my cleaner shrimp laying on the bottom he molted the back half and the front half was hanging on so I thought he was dead. then I see him flicking around the tank, so I figure I just interupted him and he'll finish while I'm at work. I just got home about 11 hours later to see he's in the same position so I scooped him out and I started to try and help him with some tweezers. I've only pulled on some of the hanging pieces. my question is should I help him more or let him be?

 

[Tennyson]

Any pics? I'm interested in seeing what it looks like. I've read that if there aren't proper amounts of calcium and other trace elements in the water, shrimp and crabs will have problems molting. I'm afraid you will lose your shrimp if it isn't helped out soon.

I would try and save it, or it is likely to die. Molting should only take maybe 3-5 hours, or around that time, usually during the night for mine. If its easy to pick off the other parts of the integument, go for it, if the shell is kind of small and hard to pick off, I would'nt try and rip it off because you could hurt the shrimp

Good luck.

 

[Ophidia]

I may be wrong, but I THINK difficulties in molting are caused by low iodine. Someone will chime in to say yay or nay on that one, I'm sure.