Fred-the most stressful pet I have ever had!!!

[turtle]

Okay, I have had dogs since I was four, fostered over 300 animals, licensed wildlife rehabber...but this little shrimp....OMG...I have never been so stressed over an animal. BECAUSE I NEVER SEE HIM...okay I see him maybe once every 2 days. I have not seen him for 3 days now. His is still translucent and I have never seen him eat. I have seen him swim a few times but mostly he just sits there. What am I doing wrong Is it normal for them to be this inactive. As I am typing this I am not even sure he is still alive. Unless I start taking things out of his enclosure to look for him I cannot find him?? I have not been messing with him as you suggested. Is getting too close to look also stressing him out? HELP!!! I have attached a pic of his digs. Also, besides fish flake are Omega One Veggie Rounds for fresh and saltwater good for him once a month??

[Mustafa]

Your shrimp is probably doing just fine. One shrimp in a tank usually has so much to eat that it doesn't move around much. I mean..the food is all around it so it will just sit there and munch on things in situ. And I wouldn't feed anything at all at this point..not until the shrimp starts becoming more visible. It's not a lack of food that causes this... If you want the biofilm to be eaten a bit quicker, you might want to get some snails or more shrimp.

[Varanus]

If you only have one then its perfectly normal to usually not see it. That's one reason why it is recommended to get a fair number of them. I started with 20 animals and usually less than half of them were ever visible in the tank at any given time. Even at feeding I never saw all twenty at a time. And the babies were even worse, despite tons of observations I thought less than half of them had survived, until they got bigger and I saw a larger number at feeding time.

And indeed as Mustafa noted, with a whole tank of biofilm and no competitors your shrimp has little reason to move about much.

[turtle]

So I had to know if Fred is alive, so about a week ago I started removing things from his setup until I saw him. I know....I am an ass :} Still translucent but seems to be doing fine. I added 2 snails I got from our local fish store, Bob and Ralph. They are cleaning things up well. My next question is about algae. Are these little sprinkle looking things algae? If so, are they bad? Thanks!!!

[jonesinfershrimp]

those chocolate sprinkle looking things are snail poop. theyre giant little poop factories. in the second picture the green spots in the shell are the algae. and judging by the size of the snails, they will have it all cleaned up in no longer than a week.

[turtle]

Is the poop bad for Fred? Thanks!

[Mustafa]

Is the poop bad for Fred? Thanks!

No, it'll become part of their food eventually.