Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

I encountered a problem where the shrimp would molt but it would be a bad one where it would eventually die. being in the hobby for almost a yr this has happened to me 5-6 times and i want to know if this is a disease of some sort. I cant seem to take good pictures but i'll give a description. the sides on the carapace of the shrimp after the molt would seem enlarged compared to the rest of the body and it looks like the shell is not attached to the shrimp but not to the extent that its flappy and is about to fall off. the line inbetween the abdomen and the carapace usually has a white line when a shrimp is about the molt. for these shrimps it looks like its in the process of molting still because it white line still shows until death and a little of the flesh can be seen. all these shrimps also have a distinct white line on the 4th to 5th abdomen the white line looks like a light gash into the skin, almost like the white line running between the carapace and abdomen. during this 3-4 wks that they are alive, they are eating still and moving, but less active that other shrimps.

I have seen what you describe before. I am just not sure if it's really a disease or just an adverse reaction to *something* (maybe water, maybe food..could be many things). The problem with shrimp is that that every individual reacts differently at different timeframes to adverse conditions. For example, "bad things" in food tend to accumlate at different rates in individual shrimp. That's why not all shrimp die at the same time. Same applies to bad water conditions.

Knowledge about shrimp diseases is still in its infancy and most information comes from food shrimp aquaculture. As most of our shrimp are quite different from the ones being eaten, I don't know how much of the knowledge from aquaculture applies to our aquarium shrimp. In any case, unless the shrimp are all affected at the same time, I doubt it's a disease.