Shrimp on it's side - dead or not?

[Julien86]

Hey all. I'm relatively new to keeping shrimp and I need some advice. I just threw a red cherry shrimp that was laying on it's side. It didn't responded to me netting it out (I also gently moved it from one side to another to see if it had a white circle of death - I assume that when a shrimp dies with a white ring of death, the ring itself is still visible after death- and it only had a crack if slightly pressed), so I assumed it was dead. After I threw it out, I google it and saw that some shrimp may stay like that during a problematic molt. My question is if the shrimp does not move, is it dead or it may be alive and during molting they can't even move their legs? Also I saw no decoloration or any other shrimp or snails trying to eat it (I just assumed it was newly dead and didn't started to decompose yet). This shrimp was in my tank for about a month or so and I did a water change last Saturday (about 15% water change). 

[Aubrey]

It would be hard to say wether or not it was dead or having issues molting. You thought it was dead and checked it for a response and when it didn't respond you removed it. In my opinion that was right. If it was dead you wouldn't want it decomposing and fouling the water or possibly passing on whatever killed it to the rest of the colony. You might not have another opportunity to do this, but in the future you might put a questionable death/molt in a separate container to observe instead of disposing it. Shrimp can be fragile and sensitive to sudden change in water parameters. If you've only had them for a month then perhaps this one just couldn't adapt to your water and had issues molting.  Problem molts often do not turn out well anyway.