odd bamboo shrimp behavior

RoseFishWatcher

RoseFishWatcher

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Oct 31, 2006
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Colorado
I have 4 bamboos in a 20gal (1m, 3f). Last night, one of the girls was acting strange. I thought maybe she was going to molt (I have never seen them molt, just the shell in the morning, and it seemed like it could be what she was doing). No sign of a molt this morning, but she is back to acting normally.

The odd behavior was this:
- she was down on the sand (normally they stay up high on the decor next to the filter output, all crowded together)
- she looked like her legs wouldn't support her, and would try to move and not get far
- she spent a great deal of time with the base of her legs and the tip of her tail touching the ground, arching her body.

I have no idea what might have been going on. The others continued to act normally during this time.
Any idea what was going on?
 
Could it be that she had molted and you only saw her after?
 
I suppose it's possible. I regularly see the old exoskeleton from their molts. Since there was none, I assumed she hadn't molted, but I can't know for sure.
 
Update: Although I don't know how to check, I believe it is a disease or parasite (or something that can be passed from shrimp to shrimp.)

The full story goes like this:

I had 3 females for months, all doing quite well.
In May, I added a single male. He never seemed to eat well, and died today.
He was NOT the shrimp I reported above acting sickly, but shared several symptoms. I believe I should have used a QT, but it's too late now. I just hope the rest don't fall ill too.

While the girls all ate normally, the male never did. He would push them out of the way to get prime feeding spots, but never opened his fans. (He had them open at the store, and he looked good then, but I only ever saw him eat a few times while I owned him).

For the last week or so, he seemed to have trouble holding on to stuff - only would have a maybe 3 legs in contact with the driftwood, so would 'wobble' in the current. Still not eating.

I judge that my shrimp are eating well by their poo. The 2 girls who still seem healthy continue to produce lots of it. A few days ago, I saw the male poo for the first time. It was think and white/clear instead of thick and brown. Just like a sick fish.

A few days after the female and her leg trouble mentioned above, the male did the same thing. In addition, the area above his legs turned white, while the rest of him remained red.

He died.

One female (almost certainly the one displaying leg problems) now has this same white mark. She is spending most of her time on her back, although occasionally manages to get back upright.

The other 2 seem fine. I removed the sick female, who is now in a bucket. I suspect she'll pass on soon, but will try to care for her.

I don't think this is an environmental issue, as the other 2 are fine, but just in case, I took out the driftwood and swapped it for one in another tank. I don't believe that had anything meaningful to do with this problem though.

I don't know of any resources or knowledge for sickness in shrimps. I can only find information on molting problems. I looked at petshrimp.com (I read it regularly) and spotted nothing useful.

Mostly, I just wanted to share this, on the off-chance someone has seen symptoms like this before, or knows of some shrimp-health resources I'm not familiar with.
 
an alternative to the parasite theory might be stress

they do get easily stressed, especially during trasportation

bought a bamboo of guy at lfs last weekend...he insisted on putting a plant (free!) in the bag too as they like to cling on to plants as it makes them feel more secure (this guys keeps a lot of them, so i was listening!)

i have had varying success in the past and found that they will put themselves in a comfortable position when stressed, but will closed their fans and not feed

i think they are far more of a social species than we account for, imo
 
RoseFish...

How large was the bamboo shrimp that died? Could it be that it died of old age? The only color changes that I have seen with my bamboo shrimp is a darkening from light brown to a reddish brown, most notably on the female shrimp. My shrimp are all fairly young, only an inch and a half to two inches long.
 
The female died yesterday, as predicted. 2 females remain, seem healthy for now.

The biggest reason I doubt stress is that it affected 2 shrimp in a way that appeared to more like disease transmission - although I don't know for sure, obviously - and seems to resemble a description of a shrimp disease (which I found by looking in a commercial shrimpery book). The diesease was called "white spot virus complex" or "white spot syndrome baculovirus". I tried google, but didn't get good results to confirm / find more info on the first try, and haven't had time to look more yet. The book gave only the vaguest description, but I intend to look more at this virus to see if it could have been the problem.

I do not use ferts. This is a "shrimp only" tank, dedicated to them. (It's not actually only shrimp - the other inhabitants are 3 banjo catfish, 1 guppy who hitchhiked into the bag with the shrimp as a baby, and an applesnail). I added the applesnail very very recently (he was in another tank, and not doing too hot in there because the fish picked on him). It just occured to me that this could be related to the deaths (although I can't really imagine how - and it could of course be coincidence).

I wish I had a way to guess at age, but I really can't. It could have died of old age - if I hadn't lost 2 shrimp to the same symptoms a day apart. The male came from a LFS, and all the shrimp from this shipment were larger than I normally see in stores - I'd guess around 3 inches, but am poor at estimating sizes. I think that he actually lost size when he molted, but I never measured, and it could be that my perception is off because I keep my shrimp in a larger tank than the LFS.

Interestingly, both shrimp that died displayed a very red/orange coloration, much brighter than their counterparts. I have seen them display this kind of color, but not on a regular / long term basis. Mine tend to be more brown or yellow colored. More interestingly, I read on petshrimp of someone who had the same tendency (bright red and they died shortly after, although their shrimp never sounded sick if I remember correctly).


I know that no matter what conclusion I reach (if I reach one) that it will be based entirely off guesses. If you happen to come across / know of resources on shrimp disease, health, etc, I'd be quite interested. Whenever something like this happens I turn (if I can) to books and try to learn something substantial. The book I mentioned above is "Freshwater Prawn Culture", and deals primarily with the genus Macrobrachium. I am simply assuming that disease would be similar for shrimps in general, especially since I don't know of any research or publications regarding filter feeding species.

Sorry for so much words, thanks for all your help, even if I end up stuck here with no idea what really happened.
 
Rose, please do not apologise for this thread.

I find this thread fascinating.

Our knowledge of Shrimp is nowhere near our knowledge of fish and their diseases, imo, certainly in the hobby. I could not name one shrimp disease (with the exception of bbq or cocktail LOL), but it threads like this where we start to share and accumulte knowledge and work it all out for ourselves...I'm certain whitespot was a mystery at som stage way back in the hobbies history? In fact we still debate the treatment.

So the way I see it, as a team, we have concluded three possibilities:

1. Disease
2. Ferts
3. Stress

On point 1 it sounds like you have certinly done your homework an it is the most likely...I think we need to dig more on that, so if anyonecan help about where to look that would be great; amaing you got hold of a book for that one Rose

On point 2 we are well aware of the danger of Ferts. We are also aware of how water quality can affect. Is it a case of TDS being too high? Are certain other elements also not good for these critters? I dont think we have enough knowledge on this one to say for definite, so unless someone can help, we may have to stick with the disease conclusionwhich sounds the most viable.

On point 3 we must remember it is 99.9% certain that these creatures are wild caught and imported and do not enjoy the journey. It is feasible that when we buy one and it dies, its has simply become two stressed and we get it near the end, whereas I assume countless die on the way, imo. I still sustain, imo, that these creatures are more social than we allow for, so I wonder about the social stress as well as the journey stress for these guys.

Please keep this one going, keep digging and lets work it all out, here on AC!!!
 
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