fishheadNJ

Well, since I've begun keeping these guys in our 12 gallon Eclipse, I've noticed a pattern.

They do great from 2-4 weeks, then slowly die off.

And I don't know why.

The tank also has six rasboras (used to have 7 but one passed; I suspect old age as they're the original inhabitants of the tank and are all quite large for Rasboras - the other six have remained healthy and the water always tests ok). I've a couple ramshorn snails and some pond snails I'm still working on removing.

I do water changes of 20% weekly. I originally started with 6, when we were down to 1 I bought 10 more. That was about a month ago and I think we're at 2 or 3. I only occasionally see bodies though - I've definitely not see 12-13 shrimp bodies.

I double check the water bucket that I haven't vacummed up one during the water change...

There are areas of gravel that are harder to get to to vacuum...could that be a problem? Or is it just the rough treatment they seem to get in transit (all have been bought at the local Petsmart as they seem to be the only ones that carry them locally)

namehater

i have the same problem with ghost shrimp, even in a perfectly established tank i can barely keep them alive longer than a couple of weeks. im not sure, but i think my betta was killing them when he lived in that community. once i took out the betta they stopped dissapearing. right now i only have one or 2 left after purchasing around 16 of them. i had also thought maybe they were just up and dying because of their weak backgrounds. most of the time when i see them for sale in a store that are intended to be 'feeders'/

fishheadNJ

We're down to 2 as far as I can tell. FWIW they're two of the smaller ones; the big guys are all gone. I've tried to consider things other than age/shipment damage, but I haven't found anything else to be awry.

MeGustaUnaPez926

Well ghost shrimp burrow, so who knows they may always be in your gravel, sand etc. They could be molting, so they stay hiding. I don't know where they would be going though, have you checked the fitler?