I have a pretty heavily planted nano aquarium that seems to be doing fairly well over the last few months. I've got two amano shrimp, about 7 sakura shrimp, and some MTS snails who i supplement with 1-2 sinking Thera +A pellets a week.
I just noticed today that one of my amano shrimp has what looks like some sort of infection on his side. Hes acting normal, swimming and eating and going crazy for food.
I give the tank a 20% water change a week and have a canister filter running with excel doses for the plants in the meantime.
Okay guys! I'm bringing this back. I went away for vacation, and as of right now the same shrimp is alive and kicking, still with the "growth" in his side. Now i'm extra nervous, because it seems the second amano might have something going on.
Heres another Imgur post, with multiple pics of shrimp #2 with the signs of sickness, and an updated image of shrimp #1, with the ball in his back. Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet
Has anyone seen this before? Please help! I don't want to kill them, but i do not want my cherry shrimp to be infected, either. =(
Nitrates are 5ppm
Nitrites are 0ppm
Ammonia is .25 (been 3 weeks since i cleaned the tank due to vacation, cleaning it today)
PH: 7.6+ (tap water is atrocious)
The tank is very heavily planted, which offsets most of the waste coming from the MTS, 7 sakura shrimp and 2 amano. I havent had any issues up until now!
Also, the site suggests using H202. Will that kill moss I have residing in the tank?
I think H202 can be harmful to moss. It can also be harmful to fish and shrimp, so it needs to be used with caution. Likewise, if you choose to use it, you need to find H202 without stabilizers in it. As in, food grade H202, which may need to be diluted.
It looks like some sort of internal parasite to me. It's quite possible he's carrying a parasite that needs to find another host to reproduce inside of; shrimp are intermediaries for several of these.
I think you might be right, actually. He was eating up near the surface today and I got an excellent look of the mass - it seems to have lighter and darker components to it, almost like a worm wrapped in a ball of sorts.
Do you have any idea what I can use to treat them? I heard "no planaria" and "Flubenol" are effective, but I also have MTS in that tank I would prefer to keep alive, and both these claim to kill snails.
While im responding to this, I came across this site ( http://nsgl.gso.uri.edu/tamu/tamuh95001.pdf ), which talks about inflammation and melazination of tissue if its injured or infected:
Inflammation and Melanization
Darkening of shell and deeper tissues is a frequent occur
rence with shrimp and other crustaceans. In the usual case,
blood cells gradually congregate in particular tissue areas (in
flammation) where damage has occurred and this is followed
by pigment (melanin) deposition. An infective agent, injury or
a toxin may cause damage and stimulate the process (Fig. 7).
Gills arc particularly prone to darkening due to their fragile
nature and their function as a collecting site for elimination of
the body's waste products (Fig. 8). Gills readily darken upon
exposure to toxic metals or chemicals and as a result of infec
tion by certain fungi (Fusarium sp.).
Less common but important are dark blotches that sometime
occur within the tails of pond shrimp. This manifestation of
necrosis (breakdown and death) of muscle portions followed by
melanization degrades the product's market potential. It is
possible that this condition results from deep microbial
invasions that run through spaces between muscle bundles but its
actual causes remain unknown.
I suppose we'd have to guess as to whether this LOOKS like that, but could it be possible? If he were injured somehow in the past (maybe i accidentally caught him near a siphon or something) it would explain why his behavior is normal and he's survived up until this point, instead of getting worse. What do you guys think?
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