How often do shrimp molt?

[markhilken]

Hello everybody. Just wondering if anybody knows what kind of time cycle would a fire shrimp molt. I have him about 4 weeks, first time he molted was a day after purchase, stress maybe? now this morning as i woke up he had molted again. Is this typical for shrimp or species? do they molt because of good or bad factors? thanks

 

[BoDog]

Generally every 4 -6 weeks

 

[Calappidae]

Many different factors contribute to molting. Feedings, size, temperature, etc all contribute.

Smaller specimens may molt much more often and the warmer the water the more metabolism they have for molting. Stress and new enviromental changes seem to trigger molts as well for some unexplained reason.. I personally theorize changes in iodine levels cause this since iodine is something they need for molting but I have no evidence to back that up.

There is no cut and dry answer for predicting molting periods, however they seem to adverage atleast once a month IME although for others they may see only once every 2 months.