Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Mustafa posted in an aquabid listing:

"the animals will be in top shape and without parasites, unlike most imported animals which went through a lot of stress under bad conditions in several exporters', importers' and dealers' tanks."

What kind of parasites do shrimp get? What do they look like, and what can be done about them?

I dont have any that I know about, but... I'd like to know what to look for, and what to do in case somehow I get something.

It seems like most meds for parasites have copper, which is bad for things with shells, which is like.. everything I have in plant tanks.

For one, there are direct parasites sitting on the carapace of the shrimp. They look like fish lice. Those can sometimes be removed by hand since some are pretty big.

Then you have viral and bacterial parasites both on the shrimp (sometimes seen as black or reddish spots or "tears" in the carapace) and also in the shrimp (shrimp does not eat well, not active, washed out colors, stringy excrement...etc.).

The only problem is that shrimp react almost the same way to unfit water parameters as to internal parasites so it's sometimes hard to diagnose what the real problem is.

Shrimp diseases in the Aquarium Hobby are not well researched yet...no wonder because the shrimp hobby just started. Hence, I don't really know of any effective treatments or cures. I guess you can try some antibiotics used for fish if you want to experiment around. However, shrimp diseases in aquaculture (food shrimp) industry have been observed and described for a long time. That's where most information comes from.

If you type "shrimp diseases" into google, you'll get a bunch of results. Here is an example link from the search results that describes some diseases in food shrimp.

http://www.dec.ctu.edu.vn/cdrom/cd2/pro ... mp.dis.htm

Bottom line is that wherever shrimp are kept in less than ideal conditions (i.e. in very large numbers and in pretty bad water as in exporters tanks PLUS going through stress being shipped in HUGE numbers in way too small bags to importers overseas along with tons of dead shrimp in the bag creating even worse water...etc..etc.) diseases are bound to break out and affect the shrimp. After all, all the diseases are out there already...they are just looking for weakened immune systems to express themselves and become established.

That is usually not a problem in captive bred populations since sick shrimp will die and you won't have a breeding colony for long if you have parasites in your tank. In contrast to that there is always a fresh supply of diseased, stressed out shrimp coming in from overseas.

The challenge for breeders like me is to keep enough of those weak, imported shrimp alive to start a breeding colony. All you can do is just provide them with ideal conditions and hope they can "heal" themselves (i.e. recover).

Mustafa,

How would you derive "ideal condition" of certain shrimps say bee shrimps when the collection location is kept a secret.

blenny wrote:Mustafa,

How would you derive "ideal condition" of certain shrimps say bee shrimps when the collection location is kept a secret.

Ideal conditions are present if your shrimp are healthy, strong and breeding. You don't need to know the exact water parameters of the location where the shrimp were caught. Plus, freshwater organisms have to be able to adjust to a wide range of conditions since the same river can have different water parameters in different locations (but with the same animals present) or the same species of shrimp can live in different rivers or creeks with different water parameters.