Ghost shrimp slowly dying

Bender81

Bender81

AC Members
Mar 6, 2005
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I've had some ghost shrimp in my tank for over a month, but the past week or so they've been dying off. They start to grow white and less transparent, and have a light brown colouring on them. I've been doing water changes weekly and am going to bring a water sample to be tested to my lfs tomorrow (tomorrow I'm due for a water change as well). Any ideas why this is happening? My betta, otto and adf all seem healthy. I only have one ghost shrimp left from 5! Maybe starvation since I target feed the ADF and betta, but I even target fed the shrimp once and a while with frozen blood worms. :confused:
 
What is the temperature of your tank? What did the LFS say about your water? I believe ghost shrimp do better in pretty warm water with plenty of hiding places. I also think they are basically algae eaters but will eat left over flake food on the bottom -- perhaps bloodworms were not the best choice to feed them? Are they being bothered by the betta at all?
 
Temp is 79degrees and the betta totally leaves 'em alone. They swim right by eachother a lot. Maybe I'll find something out when I bring a sample tomorrow.
 
My ghosts would eat some algea, but scavanging was always thier bread and butter. It would be very difficult to starve a ghost shrimp imo, they are very good at finding leftovers.


Is the turning white maybe a sign that they are getting ready to molt? That's how all of mine met thier ends. As soon as they would molt my apistos would have at them.
 
You may have brackish ghost shrimps that won't live long in fresh water. No matter what you do, they will turn whiter and whiter after awhile and then die...

You can try another source for getting them. Once you hit a batch of real fresh water ones (impossible to distinguish), they will stay alive very long and will breed quite easily.
 
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