Shrimp eating sand?

[Squiffy]

I recently switched to a sand substrate from gravel and now one of my ghost shrimp has a belly full of sand. She doesn't seem too be bothered by it and is still eating her regular food, just wondering if this is something i need to be worried about or if she'll work it out.

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[Andrew McFadden]

Are you sure it's sand and not eggs?

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[Squiffy]

Positive. One is carrying eggs so I'm without a doubt that it's not eggs.

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[Squiffy]

I should mention that it's black sand and that's how i can really tell the difference.

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[Andrew McFadden]

I have sand in all my shrimp tanks. I've never noticed it in any of mine.

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[Squiffy]

I'll try to post a picture.

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[Squiffy]

Egg plus black belly.

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[Andrew McFadden]

Interesting keep us posted.. it doesn't look to be doing the ghost harm.

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[Squiffy]

Nah, she's still eating like a pig so i don't think it's blocking her up. She's been on gravel for about 6 months now so i think she's just not used to sand being in her food and having to pick around it.

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[cecaunan]

mine has the same color of the belly and i think it is some kind of fat. when you cooked a prawn, you can see some orange colored thing inside the belly. i think its the same.


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[Fishfur]

In any event, if she was eating sand, it would not show up in the belly. Whatever they eat only gets into the digestive system, which is the darkish colour vein that runs to the tail in every shrimp. Location of this 'vein', which is actually the intestinal tract, varies from one species to another, but it's always there.

I've never seen this before, but I'd suspect some sort of internal abnormality. Since she eats, it's clearly not bothering her much, though it would be interesting to see if she ever gets pregnant.

 

[Squiffy]

Well the black stuff cleared out. I assume she expelled it.

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[Fishfur]

That's good then. I wonder if she had a batch of eggs that either died or perhaps got some fungal infection on them ? I've never seen it, but not every egg hatches successfully, so it could have been something like that. Glad it's gone in any case. Hope the shrimp remains healthy.

 

[Squiffy]

Thanks! She seems pretty healthy, very active, nice and clear.

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[Fishfur]

That's always good. Shrimp who lose that clear, transparent look are usually sick and eventually they die, poor things. But I haven't seen it happen to Ghost shrimp nearly so often as it seems to happen to some cherry shrimps. Tough little guys !