Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Hi, I have a twenty-gallon tank exclusively for shrimp. The bottom tank is lightly covered with a fine sand-like substrate. Plants in the tank include java moss, marimo algae, hornwort, and duckweed. I feed sinking algae tablets every few days.

Anyway, it seems that my shrimp sometimes have sticky feet. I will sometimes see them with substrate of a bit of plant matter stuck to the bottom of there feet. At first I thought that maybe they were holding it, but they try so fervently to get it off. It doesn't seem to harm them as they are thriving and breeding, and they will usually get it off after a minute or so, but I was wondering if anyone else has had a similar situation? I suspect it has something to do with molting.

Oops, forgot to mention the species. I have only cherry shrimp (Neocaridina denticulata sinensis).

Hi Cro117, I have sand in some of my tanks and I too have very occasionally seen my RCS with a grain of sand temporarily "stuck" to one of their legs or feet. The short answer is, it's nothing to worry about, completely normal.

The long answer - while blowing up some of my pictures on my computer moniter or observing shrimp very closely while magnified (I use the backward end of a 10X Agfa loop), I've found out a bunch of interesting things about shrimp! Among them is the fact that they seem to have hundreds (thousands?) of cilia-like (hair-like) growth on various parts of their body. The most obvious is their pleopods (swimmerettes), though I didn't figure it out until I saw them on pictures (this one, a Macrobrachium shrimp):


Then recently, I got this picture and was very surprised to finally get a better view of their brush-like pincers. Have you ever noticed their front "arms" with pincers look kind of white? Well it's actually made up of a bunch of cilia-type growth which look like brushes. Although this is a Bumblebee shrimp, I'm pretty sure RCS have the same type of equipment:


Anyway, in finally getting to your question, I was very surprised to find little bristles growing out of their legs too. Previously, I could never see them, even looking through magnification; however, because this picture was backlit, I was able to see the little bristles on their legs (again, a Bumblebee, but suspect RCS would be the same in this regard):


So between the "hairy legs" and the fact that their feet end in tiny little pointed nails (claws) which help them to cling on the surfaces of things - it's not really a stretch for tiny bits of sand or detritus to cling onto THEM occasionally too.

-GB