Bamboo shrimp

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Fin35

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Jan 26, 2020
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I’m new to this hobby. I ended up with a bamboo shrimp in my heavily planted 10 gallon tank due to ignorance. A lady at an aquarium told me they were scavengers, last time I ever get an animal without doing research first. Anyway, she was doing really well, and I had her a month, she was fanning most of the time, I was spot feeding her fry powder and algae. I started out with blue gravel from Walmart and ended up hating it because I wanted it to look natural and planted. I ended up changing out the substrate to sand, I figured it would be ok since I’m spot feeding anyway and I kept all the filter media. After that she wasn't fanning as much but she was still fanning a bit. She was walking around the tank more. On a whim this same lady says dwarf Mexican crayfish are great scavengers and are peaceful and won’t bother fish or shrimp. I wanted something to pick up the left over food the shrimp was missing to prevent from polluting my tank. The day I introduced them, it must of scared the bamboo, she was running around the tank as fast as I’ve ever seen. The next day, I catch the Mexican dwarf crayfish attached to my Bettas fins so I return them. My Bamboo girl doesn’t fan or move all day. I have a lid on my tank but there is a small opening, well this morning we see her on the kitchen floor, she got out and went a pretty far distance. I’m surprised she even survived the fall from the tank stand down. I feel terrible, she must of been freaked out by the visitors? Anyway, I’m pretty sure she’s dead, but she did move when I picked her up, it looked like a reflex reaction. I have her in the tank now, it’s been an hour and she’s just floating there dead. I don’t want to take her out if she’s still alive, but I also don’t want her to be dead and cause an ammonia spike, what should I do? How long can they be out of the water? If she moved is that a reflex or could she be alive? I’d think if she was alive she’d be grabbing onto something and hiding.
 
Oh boy, yeah you always want to do your research in advance. It’s rare that pet store employees have a clue.

This is probably too delayed to be useful but the time I found my bamboo alive but crispy it was moving within a minute of being back in the water.

Unfortunately bamboo shrimp are notorious for that. Anything makes them uncomfortable (water parameters, new inhabitants, lack of food etc. they high tail it out of there out of any tiny crevice. They can walk out of water so she likely crawled down, not fell. They can go a pretty impressive distance.

Sorry about tour bamboo shrimp. They’re neat critters, very depressing when they take a walk.
 
He didn’t make it. I’m so sad that I changed things. He was doing well despite my smaller tank and fanning all the time. He would of been just fine if I didn’t add or change the substrate. So sad he had to go walking, ugh. Can they breath outside the water at all? It seems weird they’d leave the water if they need it to breath. How long can they stay out? He had to of climbed up the filter to get out. Those **** Mexican crawfish scared him, Poor guy. I failed him or her, not sure of the gender, I put so much effort into making sure he didn’t starve and then he had to die by leaving.
 
Researching is a wise choice. Most everyone has make an impulse buy.

Your shrimp dying is sad to be sure. Even when researching one can find conflicting information. Don't beat yourself up about it. It is a learning opportunity, though a sad one.

Also when removing the substrate, you DO loose a good amount of Beneficial Bacteria / BB. Did / do you have an established BB colony in the filter media - is your tank cycled? Removing substrate often causes a mini cycle even if your tank is cycled.

Having unsafe water parameters could also have caused the shrimp to become interested in taking a walk, or even both!

Sometimes you can save the shrimp or other creature (cray, snail, fish). I am sorry about your Bamboo shrimp loss. They are really cool creatures, fascinating to watch.

If you are in need of some solid basics on fish keeping the article in my signature, last line, has really useful content, and details and other article links for the nitrification cycle.
 
Substrate

I’ve had my tank for 4 months and I didn’t change any of the filter media since, so the filter media should be able to repopulate the tank. I’m pretty sure it was those dwarf Mexican crayfish that scared him. They are to small to hurt him and they’re peaceful, but when he saw one he flipped out and was running like crazy around the tank and then he just hid and wouldn’t fan all day. I returned them the next day, but I guess he didn’t know they were gone and tried to leave. I have been added biological booster bacteria and the ammonia level is in safe. Do you recommend a testing kit? Not sure how accurate my tetra strips are. I won’t get a bamboo until I have a. Bigger tank and they’re not compatible with the Betta because he hates heavy flow. Still sad about my bamboo though. The gravel I had was very dirty and he likes it, I shook if just left it, but my tank looks so natural now.
 
I bought some on impulse. My tank was so dirty. I had to many fish in that tank. I took out the platy's. Now my tank is clean and my cory's have had some fry.

I was only able to save 2 but more on the way. So out of 4 tanks I was thinking of buying a few more. When I first got them they was always hiding so I left my lights on 1-2 nights and they just started coming out in the day time
 
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