Shrimpies!

[Ltygress]

That's my new term for baby shrimp. Shrimpie or shrimpies!

Anyway. I took the risk of trying them out yesterday, checked water parameters, and then bought three ghost shrimp. I've been in the aquarium hobby for over 25 years and this is my first time owning shrimp. My two betta females had to learn to leave them alone, and gave up once they noticed the carapace was hard.

But right after adding them, I doubled the substrate with some from another aquarium. Even though I thought I had eyes on every time I poured gravel in, and I poured slowly, one got stuck under the gravel, got crushed, and died. I didn't find him until about 5 minutes ago (because he turned whitish pink).

So I went back today and asked for three more. They're only 37 cents and based on all of the photos I see, shrimp seem to be fairly social so I figured why not. The whole time I was at the LFS, I was chatting about my parrots and mollies and never really looked at the shrimp. I got home, did an acclimation drip, then dumped the bag into a net over a bucket and released them.

Finally I sat down to look at my newcomers and the ones I got yesterday, and ATTEMPT to find the missing one (the crushed one I found before posting this). The two I got yesterday are hanging out in the front corner chowing down on a frozen blueberry I dropped in. The first new one I spotted though, seemed really milky-white in her tail. Not on it, but IN it. That's when I realized under her tail in the pleopods were several dark spots.

EGGS!

Of course I have no idea about breeding shrimp, but read a little on the freshwater shrimp forums. It seems some species sold as ghost shrimp can reproduce in fresh water while others are used to the larvae floating downstream to brackish or saltwater. But I am assuming she'll be fine since she's a super-cheap shrimp (usually a sign that they are easier to breed) and because she is holding eggs despite the lack of brackish water. I'm still doing research, and I admit a lack of knowledge here so feel free to impart any of your own!

 

[Baccus]

Good for you dipping your toes in shrimp keeping

. Baby shrimp are generally called Shrimplets

 
Sadly even "cheap" feeder species of fish and shrimp are often wild caught because they are difficult to breed in captivity. Its wrong but people do it because they see a quick easy buck to be made, at the expense of the environment.
The milky white inside of the tail  of the shrimp is not a good sign. Sadly it will more than likely progress until the entire body is milky white and the shrimp eventually dies. If this happens remove it immediately and don't let the other shrimp eat it other wise they can also become infected. Best to look up things like White Muscle Disease in shrimp.
Best of luck with your shrimp and be sure to post pictures, we love seeing pictures

 

[Ltygress]

Ouch, thanks for the disease info! Researching it now...

 

[Ltygress]

Lots out there to read. I even came across a thread you replied to back in July 2012 about the same thing. But I'm not completely certain that she has WMD. Reason being; she still has full use of her body.

When I say "tail" in shrimp, I refer to the entire tail end, as we humans call it when consuming them. Anatomy-wise, it's actually the abdomenal segments.

But I have twice witnessed her folding her "tail" under like the others to clean it - or in her case, check and clean the eggs too. Apparently the viral form causes full necrosis and death within a few days. But she ACTS fine, swimming up the side a bit and occasionally "fanning" the eggs by gently moving her pleopods in the water. She also has a normal appetite, seeing as how she tore up part of that blueberry herself, once she found it.

And the parasite version reportedly causes sterility in shrimp. That's definitely not the case considering she has eggs! Plus...

She's about to be moved to my "fry tank" anyway, because those eggs already have eyes! So they're close to hatching from what I read, and I would like to keep the babies if I can. The biggest problem with that is the possibility that the babies may get the disease. But then based on timelines, she could have produced the eggs before she got the disease, which would render them safe.

I have no idea right now. I do know that the white coloring is still pale. I can't call it opaque yet, but I can't call it clear either.

I will TRY to get a pic tomorrow when their lights turn back on. Hopefully she will not get significantly worse overnight.
Oh, and I'm still going with Shrimpies for the babies, lol!

 

[Baccus]

The whitening of the body can be caused by quite a few causes, and there are a number of ways the different bacteria and or viruses can be transmitted. The simple fact is that there is very limited research that has been done to date on the problem, and the research that has been done was in relation to intensively farmed shrimp. Intense farming situations and over crowding will cause the stress that allows infection to take hold and then spread.
With clean water and good water quality standards being maintained I have seen shrimp with the body whitening living for quite sometime, but ultimately the shrimp do die.
I have even found wild shrimp that would have been stressed due to weather conditions and bad water infected. But not all the shrimp in the wild population showed obvious signs of also being infected.
Without testing on a micro level it is practically impossible to accurately determine what exactly is causing the whitening body.
I don't know if you would have found reference to these two names but they might also be worth looking up in relation  to shrimp disease.
Vibrio
and
Milk or Cotton Shrimp Disease

 

[Ltygress]

Milk disease is the one I read that supposedly makes them sterile.

I'll look up Vibrio today. I saw it mentioned once, but only once and it wasn't very clear reading.

Either way I will keep an eye on her and watch for signs of it getting worse, better, etc. And the moment she seems to start dying, I'll move her into a one-gallon tank to keep her away from the others.

 

[Ltygress]

Took me roughly an hour, but I got some pics.

Here's a blurry one of her swimming upwards just fine:

And one of a healthy shrimp:

And some of the goodies they get... But the bettas and guppies tear it up more than the shrimp do!

 

[Ltygress]

Yay, shrimpies for real now! She made it!

I moved her to my "fry tank" and she didn't seem stressed at all going in. She didn't like being the the drip cup for an hour and kept flipping herself up onto the sides. But once released, she seemed fine.

I just went in to check on her in between smashing a laptop with a hammer, and rolling it over with my car. I found her on top of the tank heater with a little moving dot with eyeballs! He was halfway down a pleopod, but definitely outside of her egg incubator!

So whatever her tail problem is, she survived long enough to hatch out her babies!

It's the only one that is out so far, but I'm sure the rest are right behind him. Once she flicks them off and I see nothing attached to her, I will probably move her back to the main tank for the remainder of her days. I did notice just now that the white coloring has indeed spread all the way up and it's more opaque. But at least the babies made it into this world before she left!

 

[Baccus]

Congratulations, I hope the shrimplets survive and thrive for you.

 

[Ltygress]

Mental note: If you ever want to see babies (shrimp OR fish) get a sand substrate, or none at all!
And probably skip the plants too. At least not as many. I can not see these things hardly at all. It took me about two hours of dead staring yesterday (off and on) to find one!

 

[Ltygress]

White tail is still doing okay. She still has use of her pleopods (swimmerlets?). Although ever since flicking the babies off I have not seen her curl her tail under for cleaning at all.

But with the addition of LOTS of live plants today, I haven't SEEN much of anything - fish and shrimp alike!

Meanwhile, another tank that received hornwort last Friday has already had that hornwort TRIPLE in height! They got into the water and just shot up! And they were already one of the tallest plants I had! The shrimp tank will almost have to take some of that later on.

But today I went out in search of Paraguard for my hospital tank and picked up another three ghost shrimp. Two of them I bought intentionallty because they had huge groups of eggs. It actually made me realize White Tail had either been through trauma or her reproductive system was already slowing down at the time. She only had about 6 or 7 eggs total. These two new girls have at least a dozen, if not two! The third newcomer today was just incredibly tiny and got caught in the net without being noticed so I told the girl I'd just take him too.

But no one around this area carried Paraguard. So I came home and I'm about to order it on Amazon. The UPS man is going to hate me enough as it is, getting 13 packages today, three tomorrow, and one each day through the middle of next week...

 

[Ltygress]

A new love for freshwater shrimp...
They are supposed to be scavengers, but that didn't stop white tail! I just watched her pluck a tiny snail off of the glass, put his shell up to her mouth, and eat him! Then she dropped the shell and swam off to find more! I know she actually ate the snail because his entire shell was see-through after that!

YES! EAT THOSE SNAILS, LITTLE SHRIMP! KILL THOSE #%$&*!!!

 

[Ltygress]

I have good news and bad news today. The bad news first. White tail finally passed away last night. I THOUGHT she had passed away yesterday because she wasn't out when I fed the fish (I noticed she doesn't wait for it to hit the gravel, she climbs the side and grabs mysis shrimp, blood worms, and flakes from the water's surface). And I found a pink-ish white body beside the cave. But the others were accounted for, and the body looked oddly thick. Turns out the krill I had dropped in for the shrimp to snack on overnight wasn't touched. White Tail eventually swam out and up to do her usual - just later than normal.
 
But this morning, there was no mistaking it. She was laying against the front glass, with the same pure-white shade to her tail, abdomen, and even chest. It didn't have the pinkish shade like others do when they die. But I'm sure she lived the last of her days in happiness because she was back in the big main tank with LOTS of plants, hiding places, and yummy foods! Although she honestly didn't fear the fish - because she stole a blood shrimp from one who was trying to stuff a third one in her mouth, but kept having to spit it back out for lack of room. White tail reached out and grabbed it one of the times the fish spit it out.

But there is good news, of course. I SAW one of her babies this morning! I was looking in the tank they're in and checking on the plants, and saw something go zipping right by the glass where I was looking in. I got the flashlight and lit it up, and it was a teeny tiny shrimpie! Her babies were in the larvae stage when she shook them off, but he's already morphed into a miniature shrimpie! He was SO cute! AND he was clear! So her legacy lives on!