Bumblebee shrimp ripped berries & swimmerets from a cherry shrimp!

DeeDeeK

DeeDeeK

Seeker of Piscean Wisdom
Apr 10, 2009
448
2
18
San Francisco
Help! :nilly:I'm a beginner where shrimp are concerned and I have been keeping a few species together - cherry shrimp, bumblebee, green, and tiger - I know they may hybridize and that's ok w/me. Anyhow, I thought they would all get along, and that is what I was told to expect - for them to be peaceful.

I'm worried I may have been starving them because the bumblebees noticed the big red cherry mama shrimp's berries were hatching and they went after her and tore the berries and most of the mama's swimmerets from her body!

I observed some aggression but didn't move her to the fish-aquarium 'cause the shrimplets would've been doomed and I thought she would hold her own, being twice the size almost of her attackers. I didn't realize she was prey.

In the AM when I checked, she was dying and had only a few tattered swimmerets. There were no berries and no shrimplets.

I'd been VERY conservative with food thinking that there'd be plenty of algae for the shrimps, because of concern over ammonia - an ammonia spike took out my first attempt with that shrimp tank. Is it possible the bumblebee shrimps would have preyed on the berries out of sheer hunger?

My invert tank is 5 gallons, with an internal filter w/foam covered intake. Temp is 70-74, no heater (I was told I didn't need one - do I?), medium/heavily planted, fluorescent light - I think it's a 10W T4 (skinny skinny tube), coarse sand substrate (~1mm grain).

ANOTHER problem has been some recent shrimp deaths (one rainbow and one bumblebee) and strange discolorations in some of the bumblebee shrimps. My parameters are NH3/NH4 <0.25ppm, NO2 0, NO3 0 PH 6.5 GH? KH? (San Francisco water is very soft and I add about 1/4 dose of Equilibrium every other water change). I use Prime to condition my water.

Yeah, two of the bumblebee shrimps have turned brownish around the saddle area and into the head as well as their black and white strips fading and become translucent. I think I'll put them in the other tank to QT them in case it's a transmissible disease. Could they have caught something from eating berries?

I've started feeding a little more daily. Usually it's just the same fish food I feed my (you guessed it) fish and sometimes some frozen brine shrimp.

Anyhow, any advice would be appreciated by this humble newbie to decapod culture!
 
Try feeding them blanched zucchini and frozen blood worms. If you don't have any Java moss now is a good time to get some :)

This is what's in Zucchini.

One cup of sliced Zucchini, boiled with no added salt contains 1.87 grams of protein, 41 calories and 2 grams of fiber.
Potassium - 319 mg
Phosphorus - 52 mg
Magnesium - 29 mg
Calcium - 40 mg
Sodium - 2 mg
Iron - 0.67 mg
Manganese - 0.283 mg
Selenium - 0.4 mg
Zinc - 0.4 mg
Copper - 0.117 mg
Also contains small amounts of other minerals.
Vitamin C - 20.9 mg
Niacin - .913 mg
Vitamin B1 (thiamine) - 0.077 mg
Vitamin B2 (riboflavin) - 0.045 mg
Vitamin B6 - 0.14 mg
Pantothenic Acid - 0.581 mg
Folate - 41 mcg
Vitamin A - 2011 mg
Vitamin K - 7.9 mcg
Vitamin E - 0.22 mg
Contains some other vitamins in small amounts.
​
 
Hey, thanks for the advice frigginchi! You know, if you put the emphasis on the middle syllable, frigginchi sounds Italian? frih-GIN-chi! Tortellini with frigginchi sauce and zucchini please!:lol2:

I'm afraid I jumped into shrimpkeeping with the same near-total ignorance I jumped into fishkeeping with. I realized I don't have an excuse this time.:shakehead:

I spoke with the owner of my favorite LFS and he said my tank needed a heater, to keep the temperature around 75ºF and that yes, I must have been starving the shrimps, especially the glass (ghost, grass) shrimp who cannot really eat algae.

I'd moved the shrimp from the accursed shrimp tank to the fish tank, where shrimp live plenty long (the biggest fish is a fire rasbora) and they settled down happily in the heavy plantings. Now I've moved a few back into the newly warm old shrimp tank to see how they fare. They look good this AM. I'm off to the store to buy a little zucchini a little later today!
 
I'm fairly new to the hobby, so I'm a little afraid to give advice. But I'll tell you what I do. I feed mine vegie sticks from Ken's. The 4 variety of shrimp I have and the snails do wonderful with them. And they are enriched with calcium they both need. Also an occasional shrimp bite treat. I keep my tanks at 76 degrees. And add calcium tablets occationally.
 
Hmm
Interesting. Never known dwarf shrimp to attack other dwarf species.

It might be difficult to keep all these species together in the same tank as they prefer different water conditions, the bumblebees prefer water a little softer and on the acidic side whereas the greens prefer it a little harder and more alkaline.

Looking at your water params, I see you show trace amounts of ammonia and 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate, which indicates to me that this tank is not yet cycled. Dwarf shrimp are very sensitive to nitrite and when you reach that stage of cycle in your tank, expect the worst. Be on top of your water changes throughout the cycle. and test your water often.

Diet is important to your shrimp and their coloration.
A good mix of plant protiens and animal protien will help insure good coloration.
I feed mine algae wafers, the occasional zuchinni, and crab/lobster bites and sometimes shrimp pellets.

Temperature is also important, the bees and tigers prefer slightly cooler waters as the cherries are more tolerant of warmer waters. Keep the water below 80F for the sake of the bees. I would say 72-74F should be Ok for what you have.

As for the agression, this is unusual to me, but all my shrimp are in species only tanks.

Hope this is helpful.


VICKI!
I thought you moved away or something? Havent heard from you in a while!
Glad to see you're back!
 
The Zigman said:
Looking at your water params, I see you show trace amounts of ammonia and 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate, which indicates to me that this tank is not yet cycled. Dwarf shrimp are very sensitive to nitrite and when you reach that stage of cycle in your tank, expect the worst. Be on top of your water changes throughout the cycle. and test your water often.

Temperature is also important, the bees and tigers prefer slightly cooler waters as the cherries are more tolerant of warmer waters. Keep the water below 80F for the sake of the bees. I would say 72-74F should be Ok for what you have.

Hope this is helpful.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the pointers! Actually, the tank had been cycled and seemed pretty happy until I put five juvie cpds in it to grow in safety. Overfeedings piled up, there was an ammonia spike. It's been settling down very slowly ever since. That's why I unwittingly starved the shrimp - to stop adding fuel to the fire. Oh, well. Nitrite was >0 until the last few days. Nitrate <10ppm PH now = 6.8.

My other tank's parameters are 0,0,10 PH 6.8. Both tanks are ~76ºF now. Because San Francisco water is usually 0.5ppm ammonia and up to 1ppm ammonia, I'm siphoning water from the shrimp tank into a bucket, then siphoning water from the fish tank (0,0,10, PH 6.8) into the shrimp tank. Then I put the shrimp tank water into the fish tank. The fish tank just eats up ammonia like crazy so the water continues to measure 0ppm ammonia and nitrite. I only top off for the most part, a common SF Bay Area practice.

It occurs to me that even though the shrimp tank is only having a mini-cycle, the shrimp might benefit from being transferred to the fish tank (again!) to wait it out. The water in each tank is virtually the same aside from the ammonia level, since I'm swapping it all the time. QUESTION: leave the shrimp to deal with the stress of a small cycle probably close to over or stress them with the move to another, albeit much healthier, tank? The fish in the fish tank are all 1.25" or LESS:fairy:I bought them over craigslist from a fairy.

Say, can anyone recommend an excellent site with great information on dwarf shrimp that say a shrimp newbie who's fairly experienced with fishes might get something out of? Aside from this forum and its prestigious members, of course!
 
One of my favorite invert sites with all sorts of good info:

http://www.arizonainverts.com/

If the shrimp are already starting to die off, I'd move them. You may lose a few more, but likely not as many as if you leave them in for the mini-cycle.

Another possibly better alternative is plants. What kind of lighting and plants do you have in the tank now? It may be a good idea to throw some fast-growers in there (like elodea, guppy grass, water wisteria) along with 2.5watts/gal or more of 6500K+ lighting to take up the ammonia. I've had great success with fast growers and barely-there cycles.
 
pbmax said:
One of my favorite invert sites with all sorts of good info:

http://www.arizonainverts.com/

If the shrimp are already starting to die off, I'd move them. You may lose a few more, but likely not as many as if you leave them in for the mini-cycle.

Another possibly better alternative is plants. What kind of lighting and plants do you have in the tank now? It may be a good idea to throw some fast-growers in there (like elodea, guppy grass, water wisteria) along with 2.5watts/gal or more of 6500K+ lighting to take up the ammonia. I've had great success with fast growers and barely-there cycles.
Click to expand...

Well, they die-off seems to have stopped! I think the LFS guy might have been right about unstable temperatures being the main culprit. I panicked earlier and thought there was some horrible thing wrong with the shrimp tank itself and moved the shrimps to the fish tank. I discovered a small ammonia spike was happening and then got the heater and THEN thought the spike was over and put the shrimps back. BUT now they seem fine even tho' there's a little (less than 0.25ppm) ammonia. I think nitrite MIGHT be non-zero. It's close - the color printed on the card doesn't always match up with the color of the reagents when under different spectrum lights.

The lighting is 2wpg T4 (I think it's T4, it's that skinny fluorescent tube like they use under cabinets I guess). Cool white balance, which works almost as well as the most naturalistically balanced grow-bulbs, I understand. I'm growing eichhornia diversifolia, java fern, java moss, xmas moss, dwarf hair grass, watersprite, and frogbit. Oh, and let's not forget algae:headbang2:!!!!!

I just measured the parameters and they're NH3/NH4 non-zero, NO2 0, NO3 ~10ppm, PH 6.8, temp 76ºF. The API ammonia test results for the shrimp looks pretty much yellow until compared with a true 0ppm result, which is CLEARLY yellow. Compared to the 0.25ppm color on the chart, it seems almost half way between 0.25ppm and 0ppm. I kinda figure that I shouldn't worry so much over such a low level but ....

So...since they aren't apparently dying off, I guess I'll leave the poor little bugs alone. The male bumblebee shrimp is actually following a female around and kind of groping her and climbing on her. Lucky her!
 
The water sprite is good, but double the lighting would definitely help. The WPG rule breaks down for tanks 10g and smaller, unfortunately. I'd forgotten about your temp issue; that's a more likely source of the die off in my opinion. Even so, if it were my tank I'd add some more light, if only temporarily.

Either way, good luck!
 
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