10 Gallon Tank Odd Ghost Shrimp

[ThatSidhe]

My first post! And it's kind of an interesting one.

Warning, I say "they" a lot to mean a single individual, because it's always been a pet-peeve of mine to refer to animals as if they were inanimate objects... I'm not a fan of, "it," in other words.

Okay, so, after ten years out of the game due to living off-grid for a good, long while, I bought myself a 10 gallon tank to basically pretend like I've never had water friends before. I've had some very successful tanks in the past, including a Chinese Water Dragon enclosure attached to a 75 gallon aquarium with all kinds of goodies and feeders (which, Zoot, the dragon, made many a morsel of). But I digress...

About a week ago, I decided to make the first inhabitants of this new, very cycled tank some Ghosties. I've never had them before -- I've had Bamboos, though! After doing some research before purchasing, we bought ten of them, knowing that many may not even make the drive home. So far, we still have 8 healthy ones. One died during a molt because they literally got stuck under a corner of Mopani wood (I've widened the gap now), and the other is what brings me to this post.

This one isn't dead... yet. Working on it, though (to the point where the mature ones are seeking this one out to literally pick apart, alive). I expected this for this particular one, as they were fairly beaten from the get-go, with broken antennae and frazzled tail fan. It's not the "dying-ness" that I'm curious about, it's that this one has always looked different to me. A little darker than the rest, slightly different spotting, the scaphocerite are more rounded, and the rostrum is blunted by comparison to even the Ghost Shrimp of equal size. Otherwise, anyone could say that's a normal Ghost Shrimp at quick glance.

Maybe a hybrid of some other shrimp? A mellanistic version? Just beaten and bruised through development and became stunted?

Anyone have any ideas?

And before anyone asks, pH 7.4, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0, TDS 150, GH 6, KH also 6, between 74° and 76° F.

Thanks, everyone!

 

[richiep]

Hi croseo welcome to fishlore.
The only thing I can think of here is that its stress, shrimp naturally change colour when stressed and with the others picking on him may be the reason why.

 

[ThatSidhe]

I thought about that, too, seeing as this one was never in good shape to begin with. I think they've finally met their demise, as I can't find 'em anywhere, which is probably a good thing. Seemed like a long, slow torture, and, of course, I didn't want to out right "speed up the process," ya know? I knew that even if I removed them to my little QT, it wouldn't have made any difference.

That said, despite so many people saying, "Aw, Ghosties are so gentle and peaceful!" these guys can be pretty downright cruel. I get it, they're opportunistic, and I swear they could smell the death on this one.

Another question, though: how do you sex Ghost Shrimp? With other species, it's easier by saddle differentiation, but with these guys, it seems more based off of antennae length, general size, and a supposed slightly green band. But, as their so transparent, they just take on whatever color they're around. So, anyone an expert at this?

 

[richiep]

Theres a few ways the female is larger than the male but I think that can be confusing but they do have a saddle which is located underneath the shrimp its best to find one like that in pictures to identify in real life

 

[ThatSidhe]

Man, it's so hard to find reliable photos online! So many contain a berried female, and it's like, well, yeah, obviously. Some photos aren't even the right shrimp; they might be Whisker Shrimp or Amanos! But, most are just generalized topic images on basic care, which do look like my bigger ones, which are maybe about 2" long (through the distortion of the water, anyway). So, maybe I do have a bunch of ladies? The smaller ones I have are definitely juvenile, so I probably won't know if I have any males or not for quite some time. But, as I started with 10, and am down to 8, there's still a good chance of mixed sexes, right?

Also, what does everyone think about adding 6 or so Ember Tetras to this tank with them?
Oh, and any recommendations on a good type of snail for such a tank that won't get eaten by the shrimp? The Ghosties are excellent at cleaning up detritus, but I know there will be algae eventually. I'm finding Ghosts can be quite mean to a stationary creature, or maybe they just smell food and just grab whatever their pincers touch in the vicinity, but I'd hate to add a good algae dude and have them be picked apart.

Thanks, everyone!