Split/cracked back shell on RCS
- Thread starter lake_tuna
- Start date
High PH favors neocaridina (RCS, yellows, blue pearl, snowballs) over most caridina species (with some exceptions). It's a good idea to find out your GH/KH.
Are they breeding?
Are they breeding?
What you're doing with the tank sound good. Could just be a nutritional problem, like you've said. I'd blanch some veggies for them that are calcium rich... either bok choy, cabbage, turnip greens, or broccoli and see if there's any improvement.
There is a good chance the shrimp didn't heal and that it simply molted. The area in the picture that looks "cracked" is right where the shell splits during molting. Here is part of my first post on AC that hlf way explains molting:
"I guess this is as good a time as any for a first post. You asked how they get their bodies out of the old shell. Well If i remember my marine biology, when it is time for a crustacean to molt a gland in the eye stalk will release a hormone that induces molting. It will then bloat itself by absorbing a large quantity of water. This will cause the carapace (shell) to split. The split is usually near the tail or rear end. After the carapace splits the animal will them expel all the water it absorbed and then some in order to make itself as small as possible. Once all the water is expelled, it simply backs out of the old shell. After it has finished backing out, it will again absorb large amounts of water in order to "stretch" the new shell out while it is still soft. This gives it a little room to grow before the next molt."
"I guess this is as good a time as any for a first post. You asked how they get their bodies out of the old shell. Well If i remember my marine biology, when it is time for a crustacean to molt a gland in the eye stalk will release a hormone that induces molting. It will then bloat itself by absorbing a large quantity of water. This will cause the carapace (shell) to split. The split is usually near the tail or rear end. After the carapace splits the animal will them expel all the water it absorbed and then some in order to make itself as small as possible. Once all the water is expelled, it simply backs out of the old shell. After it has finished backing out, it will again absorb large amounts of water in order to "stretch" the new shell out while it is still soft. This gives it a little room to grow before the next molt."
Yeah, that's where the shell splits when they molt, but this wasn't the exoskeleton that was shedding. I took a look at the shrimp that died like this, and it was clearly their red shell that had split open, exposing their soft inside. If you look closely at the original picture in the first post, you can see that the red head shell is loose. It came right off when I fished out the shrimp soon after it died. But it's possible that it was just recovering from a molting.
Another update: that last shrimp I mentioned cracked again and died. I moved all of my shrimp into the fish tank, where I already had some shrimp that were doing very well. One thing I noticed a few days later was that the RCS color was redder than before. I'm guessing there's something wrong with the shrimp tank. I'm going to be redoing that tank entirely.
This is very interesting, though I am sorry you lost some shrimp. I just lost a cherry female and had noticed some whitish mark as in your first photo. I thought this was a color variation, as I am very new to shrimp. After she died, I noticed her carapace was detached a little and some of her insides were coming out. I think she might have molted as well, as I found an exoskeleton.
Please update on how your other shrimp do and if you have more problems in the new tank. I would really like to know what to do to avoid this.
Please update on how your other shrimp do and if you have more problems in the new tank. I would really like to know what to do to avoid this.
