Shrimp molting?

Molt.

 

Congrats on your new shrimp!
What you see there is a molt. They will molt every 2-4 weeks, so with 19 shrimp you should find ~ 1 molt per day. It is perfectly normal.
And yes, shrimp are very good at hiding, especially if the tank has other inhabitants. Youll never be able to see all 19 shrimp at once unless you remove all your decor, plants, etc, and even then some will try to squeeze themselves into the gravel to hide (so be careful when you gravel vac!)

 

Thank you all.

 

Hello all, I new to shrimp! BUT SO OBSESSED.

I started with 20 (in a community tank, most hid, or I thought). Decided 2 days after not seeing any shrimp to move all the fish to another tank and have just an invert tank. GOOD IDEA. I tried to count them, I think i lost maybe half of them, probably as fish snacks, since there were a bunch of shrimplets and i only see a few tiny ones now. So first lesson learned, the hard way.

Second, now my water seems to have nose dived to soft and lower ph. Bummer. I only have api mater kit, no kg/gh... yet. Although i did notice Kh/Gh on some strips I have, but i doubt those are going to be accurate/any good.

Tap water's ph is at 7.6 My invert tank was at 6.6 This happened over the course of several months though, while it was heavily planted, and stocked with fish. I'm sure the gh/kh must be low as well, since i'm noticing shell issues with my snails. I have started to add small amounts of Aragonite sand to increase hardness. I researched better water hardness for the sake of the snails, and decided the aragonite would be my best option. So far I've only added about 1/2 cup of it, and its increased my ph to 7.2-7.6, real close to the two colors, so hard to tell. This happened over 3 days. I did a bigger water change than i should have yesterday, and I was worried about it, i have a couple plants melting and i got carried away sucking up bits of it, ended up being about a 50%water change. I know thats not the ideal amount.

Last night, I noticed one shrimp, my biggest, darkest, prettiest female (i think female, it's got the 'saddle') hanging out on a leaf with the White ring around her middle section of body, quickly goggled that to freak out about whether or not she's making it overnight. I just killed my shrimp, im thinking.

She made it overnight, though, infact, saw several molts, so one must be hers, she avtive today, and SOLIDLY colored, not like the split she displayed yesterday. Im sure its the same shrimp too, since its the darkest one, higher grade i guess, where the rest are more sakura type.


QUESTION: What can I feed or supplement more for the shells of the shrimp (and snails) I fear a deficiency. Or will the aragonite sand be enough as it dissolves?

 

added a pic of the now molted female (i think female, can someone verify?)

 

and this is what i would think would be a sakura grade, male?

 

What size can you begin sexing smaller shrimps?

 

Yes, that's a female, but I'm afraid that's about the only question I can help you with.

 

and this is what i would think would be a sakura grade, male?
View attachment 700582

I would consider this falls in the regular cherry grade.
and the first pic look female to me too.
try feeding them green veggies. spinich, brocooli, cucumber etc..

 

I've been trying Kale, broccoli and zucchini but so far only the snails are mildly interested in the Kale, I change it out often, as soon as they start looking iffy.

On the regular cherry one, did it look male?

What size would they start to show female attributes? I have several more saturated shrimps that are half the size of the biggest ones, hoping they turn out female. So far I can't see any saddle spot.

 

and this is what i would think would be a sakura grade, male?
View attachment 700582

I believe that's a female also.

 

Really? How to tell on those ones? I am still new at spotting the difference.

 

Really? How to tell on those ones? I am still new at spotting the difference.

The area of the body indicated below is much less bulky on males. They're often lighter colored also, but you can't really go by that.

 

Try feeding French Cut green beans every 1-2 weeks. You can add watermelon, fresh veg. Seaweed is good, but really messy.
For the calcium for their shells, I've been using crushed white shells I get from Ptsmart. I usually add a some twice a month. It's really helped in all my tanks bc my snails and shrimp weren't getting enough.