Bee Shrimp

[Mrrussells]

Hello,

I brought three bee shrimp yesterday with an assassin snail (these were all kept in the same tank at the LFS)

I woke up this morning and all three shrimp have dissapeard. I did a water test and did notice the hardness of the water was high all other levels were fine.

Do you think the snail could have eaten them as I can not see them anywhere in the tank.

Russ

 

[phoenixgsd]

hiding maybe?

 

[Mrrussells]

Do you know how long they can hide for? It's been about two days with no sight of them at all. Just a little concerned that of I get more they will also disappear

 

[StandbySetting]

They'll be in there somewhere, unless you've used a copper based treatment in the past.

 

[Mrrussells]

Is there anything I can do to encourage them out or just be patient ? sorry for all the questions, these are the first shrimp I have ever had.

 

[Haveagojoe]

Just a thought are they very small because they may have been drawn into your filter, I speak from experience I had to buy a sponge inlet cover for the hob filter on the Fluval Edge because I was losing small lamp eyes so there is always the chance a similar thing could have happened.

 

[Mrrussells]

Thank you for your reply, I looked into the filter as this is something I had heard about. I'm going to try keep the moon lighting on this evening and see if that can draw them out assuming there alive do they shed often they were only in my tank 12 hours before disappearing ?

 

[Haveagojoe]

Try a small piece of cucumber weighted down so it stays submerged mine go crazy when you put something like that in, I'm not sure how often they shed but you would see the empty "skin"on the floor of the tank, one thing you can rule out is the snail would not have ate them, but what else have you got in the tank that might see them as a tasty snack, I only keep shrimp in two tanks one with shrimp only and the other one has lamp eyes in and I know they will eat shrimplets I've seen them with baby cherrys.

 

[Mrrussells]

I only had three shrimp and an assassin snail. My local lfs are getting the cardinal tetra in tomorrow so they were going to go in. The shrimp are so cool, do they bury them selfs in the substrate at all?

 

[Haveagojoe]

No they don't bury in the substrate, is the tank well planted because in one of my planted tanks sometimes i don't see my crystals for days on end, if you havn't seen any pink corpses its odds on they are just being shrimps and found somewhere where there's something they can graze on which they can easily do out of sight of you, when I got my crystals I was paranoid that they had all died but they show themselves every so often they are masters at hiding themselves.

 

[Mrrussells]

I have a few bits of drift wood in the tank and one bit has a large fern growing on it. I am just hoping there hiding somewhere. I will be patient and see if they appear. Would it help them feel more comfortable if I get more shrimp?

 

[Haveagojoe]

I would wait and see if they appear, if they are your first attempt at shrimp keeping I would have gone for the fool proof species the cherrys, they are cheaper as well.

 

[Mrrussells]

If I was to get a couple of Cherry Shrimp with the bee shrimp with the 6 cardinal tetra and a Dwarf cat fish. Would this be a problem?

 

[Mattatat]

Your shrimp are probably just hiding, I had 3 cherry shrimp go missing for three weeks before popping up out of nowhere. The catfish completely depends on what type of catfish you get, a BN Pleco, or Corys, if you have sand will be fine.

 

[Mrrussells]

I have the fluval edge and have been told by other people that dwarf cat fish will live comfortably with about 8 cardinal tetra. I will go to my lfs this weekend and get the cardinals