What The!?!

[4jlong]

i came home today to add my newest fish, a flame angel, , and i had a dead cleaner shrimp sucked on to the intake of a powerhead ...the weird part is that i had only added ONE cleaner shrimp to my tank, about 2 weeks ago, and that one was still there! it was underneath this one rock, same place it always is. so where did this second CS come from? could it have been inside some LR? whats also weird is yesterday i had been looking at my tank and jumped up to get a closer look at what looked like a baby shrimp! it was clear and barely 1/8 of an inch. still not sure where it came from or where it went. well, just wanted to share.

 

[rleechb]

your shrimp molted. The shed their exoskeleton every few weeks. The baby shrimp you saw was likely an amphipod.

 

[4jlong]

molted? is that like when a snake sheds it's skin? every 6 weeks? will that cause an ammonia spike? do all shrimp molt? amphipod, thats a real good thing right? thanks for the help.

 

[northbay-reefer]

LOL sorry but I cant help it

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Amphipods generally are a good thing.

If your shrimp is getting enough food, sometimes they'll molt after you do a water change or dose iodine.

 

[bladze]

LOLz ..

My shrimp molted twice last month.

 

[funman1]

Mine molt about once every month.
As they get older they will molt less and less.
The shrimp grows a skelleton and outgorws it in a month or so, and it needs to make a bigger one, so it sheds the smaller one.

Make sure your Iodine levels are normal or your shrimp won't be able to molt and it will die.

If you have hermits they will clean up the old molt.
No it won't cause a spike of any kind, it's perfectly normal.

 

[4jlong]

thank you for the helpfull replies

 

[Al G Blenny]

The clear shrimp might also be a mysis shrimp. They are much faster than the amphipods. If it looked sort of like a flea it was an amphipod. If it looked very much like a normal shrimp it was probably a mysis. Mysis tend to swim around in circles and when you find one you can usually find others. Take a closer look at the area you saw it last time.

 

[rhaey]

I bought my first cleaner shrimp at AG and after 2 days I saw what it seems to be shrimp left over (like something devour the shrimp and left the skin). I called AG and ask them about their return policy and off course they said bring it back and they will replace it. So I took the left over back on a ziplock with water, once I got there and showed them the bag, they told me how shrimp can out grow their shell and check my LR for the actually shrimp. I did what they told me and went I got home, i found my shrimp cleaning one of my fish.