Shrimp With Skin Shedding Problems.

Found a dead adult shrimp under a catalpa leaf when I got home and spotted another under a leaf that looks like it's having problems shedding its skin. All the mortalities since restocking have been the reddest cherry shrimps. I'm assuming these are more inbred and therefore more prone to problems.

Can I help the one which seems to have a percentage of 'dead skin'' trapped round its abdomen, the poor thing keeps stretching and having seen last week how complete the shed skin process should be, I'm guessing he's stuck.

Also i there anything I can do to prevent this reoccurring?

I've not been using anything so far Sue, it's the first time I noticed there was a problem.

Hello Fiona,

I've been using Beta G in my shrimpery since Sue recommended it a while back. I was steadily losing all my original red cherries, but like Sue, I was left with babies. Since starting to use it, my colony has thrived. It could be that my problems were, in fact, caused by the wormer I had used previously, but I will not know until the Beta G runs out!

I started adding it once a fortnight with a w/c, but I have now relaxed that to once a month. The only difficulty with it, is that in a small tank it is impossible to accurately measure the dose. The recommendation is "1/5 spoonful twice a week in 100 liter water". I just cover the tip of the handle of the very small plastic spoon provided. I think Sue uses a laboratory spatula in a similar fashion.

Hope this helps,

                                                   Skittler

Can somebody point me in the right direction please? I can only find the capsules

Ta Sue, I'll order some

Just found the shrimp that had problems last night dead under a leaf. I refuse to be disheartened!

I'll go look.

I've seen 9 babies at one time but there may be more, there's a lot of plant i the tank and they do seem to like to inhabit the stack of catappa leaves in the corner of the tank, you frequently see them grazing on the biofilm.

The Beta Glucan arrived in the post this afternoon, very speedy delivery as I only ordered it yesterday afternoon, they included a shrimp care booklet by Dennerle which was very nice of them. I'll add the BG to the shrimpery when I give it a clean later and then wait and see if it helps. I'm going to pick up a few more shrimp tomorrow to replace the lost adults.

The guys in MA are pretty obliging, I'm sure they will  I want to try and find out where the consignment of stiphs came from too. I still havent identified some of them, so many of the females loo alike.

Since you'll be transferring lots of things covered in biofilm, and presumably have a fully cycled filter, I can't think of anything else.

The soil substrate - soil as in garden soil or one purpose made for aquariums? I have heard about some of these aquarium soils leaching ammonia, so if that's what you are using make sure it doesn't leach ammonia or if it does, run the tank without shrimps until it stops.