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Bamboo shrimp died


abigail
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I woke up this morning and saw that my bamboo shrimp had molted (perfect looking molt) and seemed to be doing well. She was  swimming around. Then I left the house for a few hours and came back to her dead. Anyone know what could happened? I am so sad that she died and I have no idea why. I checked my water parameters and everything is fine. All the other fish and snails in the tank are healthy too.

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I have had this happen before. I could not find a reason but but my best guess is when they molt there new exoskeleton is still soft. I had them a tank with other fish. I think that the other fish bothered the soft shell and stressed it to death. Molting is extremely stressful for shrimp/crabs. Some can die for the stress it’s self or being stress after molt by fish and other animals. The shrimp are also more vulnerable to stressors in the tank that normally would not effect the shrimp when their exoskeleton are hard and can protect against things in the tank that would not normally affect them. I doubt you will ever know. If it is a one off I would not worry to much. There are so many variables that unless you did something different just before or just after I would not worry.

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Bamboo shrimp can be especially sensitive as they are often wild caught so don't fret too much! I'm very sorry for your loss. 

Some common issues for them: 

Parameter swings (my suspicion): Any sudden pH, temperature, ammonia/nitrite spikes/drops affect them a lot. It's common for shrimp to immediately molt in response to a sudden change in water parameters. While your ammonia/nitrite may be 0ppm- this doesn't mean that your pH hasn't been swinging or that you did not have a sudden temperature spike/drop

- Stress: they're skittish shrimp and are especially so after molting. Their skin is very soft and if they're in with other fish and cannot find somewhere to hide after molting there is genuine risk of them sustaining serious injury from being nipped at. 

- Unclean water: you mentioned this wasn't the case but

- Copper/heavy metal toxicity: You'd notice other inverts dying too if this were the case

Nutrition: This one is up there with causes of death- be it acute or gradual. As you know, bamboo shrimp are filter feeders and need to get their nutrients from the water column. If you see the shrimp digging in the substrate for food, it means that it is not getting enough. It's important to make sure you're providing a reasonably varied diet of powdered foods as dietary nutrition has a much greater effect for shrimp than calcium in the water column for example. Post-molt, shrimp use a good bit of stored calcium to regenerate and harden their exoskeleton, it's possible she was lacking in these nutrients if your water is particularly soft or if you were not feeding specialized/enriched foods. 

My bamboo shrimp died of stress/shock. His tank had sprung a leak so I moved him and all my cherry shrimp into a 5g and my betta into a plastic tote. Once I got the replacement tank and put everyone in, he was notably panicked and wouldn't stop running around. He eventually stopped moving or eating and then died a few days later. 

 

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Hi everyone, thank you all so so much for your kind words and these helpful and detailed responses. 💛 

I wasn't able to get any clear pictures of the shrimp right when I noticed her, but she looked completely normal (no white spots or anything apparent). I didn't want to move her because I was hoping that maybe she was playing dead (which Google told me was possible). Then later I saw my mystery snail consuming the body, creating several white spots and I knew she was gone.

Now that I think about it, stress and nutrition are definitely both strong possibilities. This is my first bamboo shrimp and I have only had her for two months so it's possible that she was not getting enough to eat and/or enough calcium the whole time. This is not her first molt and there were already fish in the tank before, but I added glowlight tetras to my tank a few weeks ago and they are actually quite nippy, so the fish stressing her out after the molt is very possible. Of course, it is also always possible that there were other water parameter issues/fluctuations I am not aware of, so I will keep a closer eye on my water parameters for now.

Again thank you all so so much! I feel much better now and will keep all this in mind if I get another bamboo shrimp in the future. 

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