ghost shrimp lifespan

kimmisc

kimmisc

is in your closet.
Mar 12, 2007
963
0
0
50
Florence, SC
If you bought ghost shrimp and they appeared to be full grown size when you got them, how long would you expect them to live?

I found one of mine dead Sat morning, and tonight when I got home, the rest of them look cloudy white and seem to be about to die as well. I got them about 7 months ago, they were adults when I received them, and I haven't started adding anything new to their tank to bring this about.

I did remove some plastic plants Friday and replace them with some PVC pipe caves which were cured for several weeks actually, and soaked in conditioned water beforehand. The mystery snail and betta that live with them aren't showing signs of anything acute. I wonder if my betta has harrassed them too much maybe. Or maybe they're just reaching the end of their lifespans..
 
I would find it unusual that all the shrimps would decide to die of old age at about the same time, I would suspect a contaminant or something else is at fault, shrimp can be very sensitive to things in the water that are harmless/less harmful to fish (copper for example)

Also it's possible for a fish to stress kill shrimp (shrimp have poor endurance) just by chasing them around, even if the fish isn't big enough to harm the shrimp directly.
 
this is fairly common with ghost shrimp.. i'm pretty sure it's a stress issue.

my favorite new trick is to acclimate the shrimp to the new water, then put the shrimp in a breeding net just under the surface of the water, so that they can come out into the tank slowly and comfortably.

i also feed the fish on the other side of the tank.
 
Acclimation is not the issue. They've been in the tank for months.

I did some searches, and now I'm wondering if they are suffering from a shortage of iodine. It's odd they'd be fine for several months and then start getting sick though. Does tap water normally have iodine in it? If so, think that level could have dropped recently?
 
My ghost shrimp used to last about 6 months, turn cloudy/white, and die. The LFS just told me "they don't live too long," and since they were 3/$1 I'd just buy more. My last purchase was from a different LFS, these are over a year old and have grown maybe 50% larger than the ones I used to buy (plus they were 4/$1!). Sometimes it's just a matter of finding good stock...
 
Well the rest of the cloudy white guys are still alive, though still looking pitiful. Today is PWC change day. Guess I can hope they'll get better following a big water change. There might be something in the water I don't know about or can't test for.
 
Ghost shrimp live for 18 months in ideal conditions, but any stress (either from lack of cover, poor food, hurassment or water quality) hreatly reduce this life-span.

Shrimps are very susecptable to nitrAtes and often don't do well in tanks with fish for this reason. 8-10 months is common in community tanks.
 
Most of my ghost shrimp haven't lasted long at all. They'd be fine for a month or 2 maybe 3 or 4 then turn white and die.

But the couple that have lasted the longest and looked the best were from a LFS not a chain like the others. In fact the only ghost shrimp I have left is one of those from the LFS.

A few I had shared a tank with some Japonica shrimp. They didn't last long at all. I think they may have had some incompatability porblem but I never saw a problem during the day.

Q
 
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