shrimp swimming sideways

[cowfish7]

Have RCS and the group is doing fine. Noticed one guy on his side, not able to swim well. Put him in breeder box in the tank to observe, and he has been like this all day. He is moving around, but seems unable to orient himself properly. Always on his side. His little legs are moving a lot, not sure if he is feeding, or what.
At first I hoped maybe he was trying to molt, but I seriously doubt that is the issue. Other shrimps in the tank are molting OK ( I don't see them do it but find the debris), so I think my water is fine.

Don't think he could have gotten damaged on decor, and my filter intake has sponge prefilter. Perhaps the legs on one side of body were damaged? They are pretty hard to see because they are so small, but they do not look damaged.

Any other ideas?

 

[cowfish7]

Ugh, this little guy is looking worse. Mostly just lying on his side. Soooooooo tiny (1.5cm) and those transparent legs are hard to see, but it looks like all the legs are there/undamaged.

 

[Anemone afterlife]

Have RCS and the group is doing fine. Noticed one guy on his side, not able to swim well. Put him in breeder box in the tank to observe, and he has been like this all day. He is moving around, but seems unable to orient himself properly. Always on his side. His little legs are moving a lot, not sure if he is feeding, or what.
At first I hoped maybe he was trying to molt, but I seriously doubt that is the issue. Other shrimps in the tank are molting OK ( I don't see them do it but find the debris), so I think my water is fine.

Don't think he could have gotten damaged on decor, and my filter intake has sponge prefilter. Perhaps the legs on one side of body were damaged? They are pretty hard to see because they are so small, but they do not look damaged.

Any other ideas?

Are there any other tankmates??

 

[cowfish7]

No, this is all shrimps. This little guy didn't make it, really wish I knew what happened.

 

[Anemone afterlife]

It might have been old

 

[cowfish7]

That is always a possibility, but this was not full size shrimp.
However, I found some hydra today, so that could be an issue.

 

[Fishfur]

Hydra aren't dangerous to adult shrimp, only to tiny babies, newborns mostly. They can't eat them but they can kill them, as they aren't very clever at telling whether the thing they sting is small enough to consume.

The little guy may have had a moulting problem.. sometimes the shell is too hard and they can't break it to get out, so they sort of get squeeze to death after awhile. And sometimes they get a bacterial infection, which sometimes shows up as a colour change in the body, but not always.

So long as the rest are doing ok, this one was probably just unfortunate, which is sad, but also bound to happen at times. Shrimp are pretty inbred these days, so the odd genetic flaw may crop up as well.