5 Gallon Tank Baby Shrimp Suddenly Swimming

Hey, all!

I’ve been on this forum for research purposes before, but it’s my first time posting and my first time (unintentionally) breeding shrimp, so please be easy on me.

Many of the baby shrimp in my “shrimp only” tank have suddenly started swimming all over the place, and I’m trying to figure out why. Some of them are just chilling on the moss like usual, but I haven’t seen any of them doing this much active swimming previous to this morning.

Video of their behavior.

This is the tank they were bred in, born in, and have been living in for the last few days or weeks, depending on their hatch time.

Checked all parameters — both with strips and liquid — and everything is reading great. The only recent changes within the last few days have been the following:

1. Trimmed the Java moss
2. Moved all adults, except for the two berried females, to a different community tank
3. Gave them an algae wafer

I did some searching online but only found really delicious looking recipes for how to fry up shrimp. Any ideas on what could be going on?

Thanks in advance for any insight!

Rubina

 

Shrimp swim ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

They do appear a bit stressed, from what I know of shrimp behavior. Is the water well oxygenated? I watched the video, but don't remember if I saw air stones or a wave maker. I've recently been reading a lot about how aquarium issues can be traced more to poor filtration and aeration than water parameters. It's really helped me out with several problems in my tanks. I definitely agree with you that they're swimming around a bit much, which is usually a sign that they are not happy with the water. If your parameters are good, then I'd start looking at water quality - maybe up your filtration, add a small uv light and a wave maker or air stone. Good luck!!

 

Welcome to the forum. It's my understanding that when a female molts and has eggs ready to fertilize she releases hormones into the water, and the males will swim around trying to find her. Hopefully richiep will see this and confirm or refute my theory. He's forgotten more about shrimp than I'll ever know.

 

Spot on JettsPapa

 

Welcome to the forum. It's my understanding that when a female molts and has eggs ready to fertilize she releases hormones into the water, and the males will swim around trying to find her. Hopefully richiep will see this and confirm or refute my theory. He's forgotten more about shrimp than I'll ever know.

Thank you for the response! I’ve seen the adult male shrimp behaving that way, but this was everyone. And the tank is predominantly babies.

Good news is it turned out fine! I did a small water change and used the removed water to clean the filter pad and foam very thoroughly, and they all settled down. Thanks again for your help!

They do appear a bit stressed, from what I know of shrimp behavior. Is the water well oxygenated? I watched the video, but don't remember if I saw air stones or a wave maker. I've recently been reading a lot about how aquarium issues can be traced more to poor filtration and aeration than water parameters. It's really helped me out with several problems in my tanks. I definitely agree with you that they're swimming around a bit much, which is usually a sign that they are not happy with the water. If your parameters are good, then I'd start looking at water quality - maybe up your filtration, add a small uv light and a wave maker or air stone. Good luck!!

Thank you for your helpful comment! They were definitely stressed and behaving oddly, as I watch them for hours with a magnifying glass — quarantine television substitute — and they’ve never all been swimming around frantically like that.

The tank is a Fluval Chi and has a filter at the base of the lamp attachment. It’s worked great as a shrimp tank, especially once they began breeding, because it is gentle but effective. The tiny babies hang out on it frequently and never get sucked up. Highly recommend for those keeping shrimp.

I ended up doing a water change (about 25%, since I learned the hard way that shrimp don’t like drastic water changes) and thoroughly cleaned the filter pad and foam. By the next morning everyone was back to normal. Thanks again for the thoughtful input!