sick amanos

[badflash]

After 2 weeks I noticed that 2 of my 15 amanos had an internal whitish look to them rather than the normal clear yellowish green look. They both moved to the far end of the tank behind one of the foam filters and isolated themselves from the group. Tonight I noticed that one of my apple snails was making a meal of one of these guys and the other one, while still active was very white internally. I removed both the carcas and white shrimp from the main tank.

Anyone know what is going on? Should i expect more of the same?

[Mustafa]

Have you done any changes to your tank recently? If just one or two shrimp are affected, it might be an isolated issue particular to those shrimp and it may just be coincidence that both shrimp got affected at the same time. However, if you shrimp population keeps turning white one by one then there is a bigger issue at hand here. If that's the case, think of everything that you might done to your tank in the recent days or weeks and compare it to the reasons for death and stress I listed in my Article "Why are my shrimp dying?" Hopefully that will identify what the problem is.

[badflash]

Me thinks I over reacted.

One died, one turned white & I moved it, and it died. None have since died. Several others turned whitish, then all of a sudden they were back to normal. On closer observation I now see several molts in the tank that are that same whitish color. Looks like these guys just turn white before they molt.

I am being hyper sensitive to my water conditions after my last disaster. No more marble stone. I've changed all the gravel for quartz and will be putting in some crushed coral to augment. The marble disolves too fast and makes pH uncontrollable. I sample for pH twice a day and have a stable 7.5 running for a week+. I'm not over feeding. No waste on the filters or sand. Shrimp are actively working the riccia and not free-loading on the filters. Water temperature is a constant 77 degrees F.

I'll keep my fingers crossed, but I think I'm out of the woods this time. Yes, I've carefully read your articles and am watching closely.

[Mustafa]

You observed correctly. Shrimp can turn a whitish, almost washed out color (if they are species with color) right before they molt. The intensity of this varies from species to species and even from individual to individual.

[GunmetalBlue]

Hi Badflash, glad to hear you didn't lose any more of your shrimp and that things are looking up.

No more marble stone.

I'm really glad you decided it best not to use this. In another thread of yours, when you mentioned using it, I thought it was a bad idea, but you sounded like you had a reason for it and sounded like you knew what you were doing, so I didn't push it. Frankly, I thought the tanks (5 gal) were too small too, to try to keep a stable environment in that situation.

My one little suggestion about crushed coral use is you could try using a media bag. That way you can control how much or how little of it you want without having to uproot the whole bottom of the tank. Some people run it in their filter.

Something that had been puzzling me, is there a reason why you use all RO water (unless I misunderstood)? Normally, most people use conditioned tap and only supplement with RO to top off or to mix into tap to help reduce pH. Was that the logic for the marble - to try to put back into the water some things missing in RO? I'm terrible with chemistry and thus personally try to stick to fundamentals, as it presents less potential for problems. But everyone has their own way of doing things. Are some of your methods more related to growing Riccia (I know very little about this subject except they need a lot of light - and thus must be why you have lots of algae)?

I sample for pH twice a day and have a stable 7.5 running for a week+. I'm not over feeding. No waste on the filters or sand. Shrimp are actively working the riccia and not free-loading on the filters. Water temperature is a constant 77 degrees F.

Sounds great!

-GB

[badflash]

I use pure RO water because my conditioned water was killing my other animals like daphnia and triops. Shrimp are far more expensive so I didn't wat to risk it. I suspect there are some metals in my water.

I reconstitute the water using a 7.5 pH buffer and Pro Culture. Now that I have quartz/granite rather than marble I can control the pH.

I grow the algae for the daphnia (for the triops), and when it clumps I give that to the shrimp. I grow Riccia commercialy and got hooked on shrimp as a way to get rid of the hair algae I don't want. Riccia grows so thick that the tanks don't support green water. The shrimp aren't harty enough to be very effecte at keeping it clean, and they don't like the horse hair algae. I'm going to experiment with Siamese Algae Eaters next.

[badflash]

While browsing a local Ma & Pop petstore today I was told that they had some Amano's. They took me over to a sad little goldfish fishbowl with 2 disgusting lumps of string algae in in it.

Sure enough there were 3 Amanos, but also about 5 other shrimp I was not familiar with. They called them "zebra shrimp" which I told them I doubted. Looking closely there was sort of a zebra pattern on their backs. In form they looked a lot like large cherry shrimp, but the coloration was completely different.

I got the Amano's ($2.50 each, not bad) and in spite of how I found them seem to be doing nicely. One of the 3 is definitely a female. The 13 Amano's that I have now are all males, go figure, so this will aid in my breeding experiment.

I think the "zebra shrimp" are actually Tigers, so tomorrow I go back to resque them.

[badflash]

Resqued the rest of the shrimp. They do look to be tigers, but they are pretty washed out & milky. I'll wait a few days to be sure. 6 for $10. Hard to pass up.

[Mustafa]

Good luck with the shrimp. Post some pics if you get a chance. Stressed out tigers have really thin stripes and milky coloration, so if they look like tigers, they probably are.

[badflash]

I will once I re-configure my computer. My laptop crashed and it had all the camera software on it. I have a pro-scope that does a great job, but it needs a PC to work.

Only 2 of the 6 tigers lived through the night. I kind of figured that would happen. They bodies on the living ones are yellowish and the stripes are brown. They look a lot tike the ones in your pictures.

[badflash]

The "tiger shrimp" actually were zebra shrimp afer all. They are Indian Zebra Shrimp. Now that they are getting acclimated the color is really pretty striking. Being a gemstone enthusiast the only color that fits is padparadscha. This is a pink-orange translucent color that defies description. You have to see it. The zebra stripes are a darker orange brown.

[Mustafa]

Hmm...I have Indian Zebra Shrimp and that's not what they look like just judging from your descriptions. They are usually a grayish, sometimes brownish color with vertical, black stripes. I hope you can take some pictures soon.

[badflash]

There are pictures at Frank's Aquarium that look just like mine. I've seen other photos on the web that look like what you describe. Maybe there are a few varieties?