What’s Going On With This Ghost Shrimp!

[FLFishChik]

I can’t tell if he is ill, getting  ready to molt or just old?? Any ideas? He’s (or she) is looking opaque and doing a lot of tail cleaning 

[Marcelo]

The same thing happened to me last month when I started to dose Seachem Excell as a way to reduce algae and after 2 days I lost my  5 ghost shrimps. I had them since months so it is pretty clear that the Seachem Excell or something on it caused my problem. I did read some posts saying this can be caused by drastic changes in the water or some chemical being added. Did you change something or started to dose something ? Some big water change ? 

[Luciferkrist]

Honestly, it could be any, all, or none of your reasons. The little buggers are drama queens - half your batch will be looking like that and the next morning all you can find are empty exoskeletons. Some because they molted, some because they died and were 'recycled' by their tank mates.

Most of mine stopped being deathly white when I started reducing my lighting to control some algae, but they will some times still turn white. Some of my now 4th or 5th generation ones have even started getting brown and green speckles before they turn white, and then they molt NORMALLY.

Test your waters, especially hardnesses, and you might need to add some calcium like I did once they started breeding. 

[FLFishChik]

On 8/10/2022 at 10:36 PM, Marcelo said:

The same thing happened to me last month when I started to dose Seachem Excell as a way to reduce algae and after 2 days I lost my  5 ghost shrimps. I had them since months so it is pretty clear that the Seachem Excell or something on it caused my problem. I did read some posts saying this can be caused by drastic changes in the water or some chemical being added. Did you change something or started to dose something ? Some big water change ? 

No water changes other than the weekly gravel vac and 25-30% wc. I haven’t dosed with anything you different, just the easy green I use normally. My water is pretty hard out of the tap. Last test I did was yesterday and 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm Nitrites and 10ppm Nitrates. 
 

im hoping it’s just a molt as the other 5 shrimp seem fine. But one just never knows. I’ve never seen any of my ghost shrimp molt or seen any exoskeleton in the tank, but they must because I’ve had some more than a year 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Marcelo]

How is your shrimp ?

[FLFishChik]

***Update***
 

it appears now that all of my Ghost Shrimp are turning white. I’ve no idea what’s happening. They seem to be acting normal, but I find it hard to believe they’d all be molting or getting old at the same time!

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Any raise in temp?

[FLFishChik]

On 8/16/2022 at 4:13 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Any raise in temp?

No, it stays a consistent 78 F in there… However, I did add a small Wonder Shell ( on that treats 5 gallons) for the snails a couple of weeks ago but I didn’t think it would have a significant impact on the 29g. None of the water tests have shown any difference in readings… but that’s the only thing different in the tank ( and it has since dissolved and water changed)