shimp bailing out?

[tomherndon]

I moved a 4 adult amano shrimp from a 5g to the 30g community tank. I got them from the LFS and kept them in the 5 for about 6 weeks, feeding them algae tabs and the occasional left over spinach leaf.

I did the usual slow transfer of water from the 30 into the container with the shrimp and eventual release into the tank. The 30g is all tetra raspora danio cory'd out with a large Java Fern/wood/rocks. Green/Pepper cories are the largest fish in the tank. The tank has a glass cover, but the back, plastic edge has never been placed - two HOB filters.

The shrimp scuttled about across the wood and glass and seemed to be enjoying the space for an hour or two later. I kept a close eye in case the fish got aggressive The danios rushed the shrimp a time or two when they were open swimming, but never made a real move on them. The shrimp were picking surfaces etc when I shut down the lights for the night.

Next morning, only one could be found and my toddler walks up and says 'what's this', handing me a dessicated shrimp carcass he found on the floor near the tank.

When I was looking up tips/pointers on shrimp, I never saw a post about jumpers. . .

I'm assuming the other two may have also jumped, but the cats found them before my toddler. A through inspection of the tank, using a scraper to probe and push water through any hiding spots failed to show another shrimp. And I would think any carcass would linger a day or two before it could be completely consumed by the cats. . .

A second sweep of the tank shows only the one remaining shrimp.

If shrimp jumpers are to be a reappearing issue ('cause I really like the crustaceans!) I'll cut the back cover and install it.

Anyone else have experience/comments in this area?

 

[gzeiger]

This is a known problem with ghost shrimp. I haven't had a chance to try Caridina yet, but they're probably the same way. I am surprised I haven't heard people talk about it more. If you lower the water level just slightly from the top of the tank you'll find they can't clear the lid and will just stick to the glass. In most cases they'll easily free themselves by flicking their tail and will end up back in the water, but I've had at least three deaths (in 8 months with hundreds of shrimp) where they just stayed stuck on the glass and dried out.

Typically I see this behavior associated with crowded conditions or poor water quality with Palaemonetes shrimp - they're much more likely to jump from a crowded bait bucket than an aquarium, although they will jump from the tank also from time to time. 3 for 3 in one night is rather unexpected though.

I haven't found my cats to show any real interest in shrimp carcasses though. However, shrimp can travel an astonishing distance over land by jumping. You might be surprised where you find them, if they did jump out.

 

[fisch]

In my one attempt at keeping ghost shrimp I had them all bail within a week. I'm thinking about giving it another go but will probably go with a more colorful variety. Does anybody know if there are certain types of shrimp less or more likely to jump than others?

 

[bs6749]

I've got red cherry shrimp, yellow shrimp, snowball shrimp, crystal red and crystal black shrimp, and ghost shrimp. I had a tank with apistos one time and I put 3 of them in the tank and they all crawled out and died. I put 24 of them into a tank by themselves and some ramshorn snails and not a single jumper or climber. My belief is that the shrimp are trying to get away from the predators. I've never had this happen to any of my other shrimp before and I have kept THOUSANDS of them. Never a single one dried up on the floor but that's probably because they aren't threatened.

On a side note, I was moving some ram eggs over to a container today and I was using a turkey baster to top off the container with water from the aquarium. Upon the first squirt I noticed that a red cherry shrimp was placed into the container. It was the same turkey baster that I used 16 hours earlier to clean my red cherry shrimp tank. Somehow it lived that long out of water before it came into contact with water again! That's just crazy. This goes to show that they can live quite a long time out of water. Some people have reported their shrimp climbing out of the water in their tanks when they had a water fall and they saw the shrimp climb to the top of the wall and get into the water in the upper part where the water trickles down the face of the water fall.

I don't think that one is more prone to jumping than another only that the tankmates are the deciding factor.

 

[kangster]

my ghost shrimps jumped out and dried out through the small opening in the back where my HOB power filter is at
i think mine jumped because my tank wasnt cycled back then
i had ammonia in my tank
as my tank is cycled i am thinking about them again...but then my gourami might look at them as a treat

 

[tomherndon]

thanks for the replies. The lone shrimp seems okay, he hids in the Java Fern majority of thetime. I'm going to pull the rest from the 5gal over and probably convert the 5 gal to a RCS breeder once summer gets here and I can meet the delivery clerk at the door.