Neocaridina disease or parasite

[bpmox]

Something has been wiping out my yellow, cherry, and natural color neocaridina's. The meat that runs from the base of the head to the tail turns white. The whole shrimp is not milky, just the core around the vein that runs the length of the tail. The bottom half and the head of the shrimp remain clear. I believe this started after I introduced some new shrimp into one of the tanks that I received from a seller on aquabid.

My camera isn't working so I photoshopped a picture from planet inverts to try to show what my healthy shrimp look like verses the sick ones:


It's photoshop but it's very close to how they appear.

The shrimp that have it are clumsy and are easily caught, but if left alone will continue to live for weeks. They do eventually die from it and if a shrimp is pregnant and contracts this the eggs will die and be shed the next time the mother molts. I've been dealing with this for a while now and things just slowly get worse even if I dispose of all the visibly infected. I had hoped that only a portion of the population would die off and the rest would survive it and recover, but this is not happening.

I have been keeping these shrimp for over a couple of years now, I have many hundreds of them and never had anything like this happen before and now it's happening in all of my shrimp tanks (undoubtedly spread by me through my net or wet arm). I'm considering just bleaching all of my tanks and starting over from scratch. The thought of that kills me but I don't know what else to do. Does anyone know what this is?

*EDIT: The follow post has a photo of the problem and suggests it could be a water quality issue: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1979&p=15602&hilit= ... ite#p15602

Is there a chance this is not a water quality concern? I can't imagine that my yellowship tank had poor water quality because it was well planted and only had 30-40 shrimp for 75 gallons of water. My other tanks are much more populated but I've never had this issue with them before.

[adimeatatime]

Could there be a build up of fertilizers in these tanks? You may be overfeeding, I know I have to really be careful that I don't overfeed in my tanks. It is harder in the tanks with fewer shrimp and snails in them.

Here is another thread viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2242&hilit=white+sick where another hobbyist had this issue.

I would continue to remove the affected shrimp and give it some time before starting over. That's just my thought though because it is so much work to completely redo a tank. Maybe someone else will join in with some updated information.

[bpmox]

I gave the tanks a good cleaning / water change and we'll see how it goes. I seriously doubt it could be a fertilizer problem but if it was that would be great, I can deal with that.

[adimeatatime]

Let us know how it goes.

[gr81]

I had same (as I can recognize from picture). only way is to separate infected shrimps. It's really lethal and highly infective.
Buy maybe am I wrong. Photoshoped picture is not good to identify disease.

[southerndesert]

Is this as it appears, a lack of pigment? Or is the flesh showing a "milky look"? Could just be an odd colored shrimp and I have some clear looking ones show up in my colony from time to time...

A milky look to the shrimp is not a good sign....

[Mustafa]

It would really help to see an actual picture of the shrimp, but from your descriptions it does not sound like an infectious disease. With shrimp, all kinds of physical problems and issues with death come down to problems with the water source and overfeeding. Think of anything and everything you may have changed around the time this problem started

[bpmox]

As far as a photo goes they look just like this photo that was posted by another member:


Sometimes the white area is larger. I definitely do not think it's a fertilizer problem but outside of being infected by the new shrimp I introduced, which I feel was the most likely cause there are two other idea's I'm entertaining. One is that I temporary held some local trapdoor snails in the tank that first became sick and I'm thinking the shrimp might have picked up some local disease that they might not be prepared for, but that doesn't seem as likely and it took a long time from this happening to the shrimp showing signs of sickness.

The other is that I also keep a few small bridgesii apple snails in each of the tanks, nothing significant in terms of bio-load but I feed them leafy greens from the supermarket and I wonder if they might have had some sort of pesticide on them that the shrimp have been eating. I don't think this could be it though because I have a sick aquarium that has had almost no vegetable's put into it (just one small piece one time).

[gr81]

I advice eliminate this shrimps, it could be disease I also had. Be as be, don't let shrimps to eat dead bodies it can spread in tank.

[bpmox]

Definitely gr81. Before I made this topic there was a tank I had decided to give up on. A couple weeks before I bleached it I just stopped caring for it and I didn't take out any of the sick shrimp. Some died and I left them in there and the number of sick shrimp went from maybe a 10th of the population to probably a 3rd or better, it just exploded.

[fishgeek]

white muscle disease in mamaliansystems can be associated with selenium deficency

that (in my mind obvious link- someone said white muscle) made me think about possible nutritional aspects
perhasp certain amino acids are lacking in the diet.. i think there are particular one's that are required and can not be synsthesised by inveterbrates

a varied diet rather than the same or aged foods should make this theory less likely

the product by mosura? i think? they claim it is an immunomodulator or immune protein produced naturally by invetebrates could be trialled, it seems you have nothing to lose except the seemingly already condemed shrimp and the cost of the product

and my last wild thought... is porcelain disease of crayfish a parasdite that attacks the neural column and muscular system? i may be confused on naming and will have to trawl my limited invert disease sources

maybe some of these thoughts can help your shrimp

andrew

[fishgeek]

perhaps microsporidian?
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RT_q ... &ct=result

http://welcome.upei.ca/news/discovery-w ... an-vaccine

some studies in i think bee's with microsporidian infection has shown that antibiotic therapy can reduce spread, maybe allowing you to develop a clear population again
i think oxytetracycline and sulphonamides are the options that have been trialled there, though i am not able to commnet on there safety in shrimp... just assuming similar as both are oinveterbrate hosts... obviously lots of conjecture there

andrew

[fishgeek]

something else that might be intersting to try
how many tanks do you have
http://kasetsartjournal.ku.ac.th/kuj_fi ... 035949.pdf

can you tell i'm having a boring lunch

[fishgeek]

bpmox , have you had any thoughts about links?
what do you think of possible diagnosis? are you willing to try some of the treatments?
it would be interesting to hear of any response

andrew

[mdafonz]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but this was the only discussion I could find on my similar issue.

I have a male shrimp that is affected by this very same disease/parasite, although I'm beginning to doubt that it's harmful- or even a disease/parasite at all. I bought this shrimp from the store and it already had a white tail, sorta looked like it was "cream filled". I mistook it for a female thinking it was a saddle, but it's been 4 months since then and I've had much breeding and maturation going on, and none of the offspring shrimp seem to have this whiteness in the tail.

None of my shrimp have gotten sick or died so it's probably not contagious. As fishgeek pointed out, I think it's most likely a permanent disability the shrimp exhibit when they have a diet deficiency. The the shrimp has actually grown in size since I purchased him with his strange tail and he's always looked healthy.