[tetra73]

How do you know if any of your shrimps is dead if you couldn't see a dead body? Initially I have about 12 Amano shrimps. I think they are doing OK in my heavily stocked tank in plants and 1 inch Tetras. Throw in 1 CAE too... Recently, I didn't see a lot of them to come out by the front of the tank. It could be due to the amount of CO2. However, CO2 is off at night. My drop checker is arriving tomorrow. If some of them are dead, shouldn't I at least see the bodies??? I found 2 clear, empty shells though. Today I just got more Amano shrimps from Rachel here. I should have total of 24 Amano shrimps. FYI, I also have couple of Red Cherry shrimps too. They are out and in the open too.

 

[GeToChKn]

Empty shells are just molts and you will always see those and nothing to be worried about, they shed all the time. In terms of dead bodies, either the tetras or the shrimp could be eating them. Shrimp are scavengers by nature and will eat anything dead, plants, bugs, other shrimp. I've seen a dead shrimp in my tank and thought, I'll get it out when I come back cause I was running out, come back and there is a hoard of shrimp eating it till its gone. CO2 could the fact and really with shrimp, you shouldn't be running it without a drop checker until you know the dosage. Turning it off at night may help a bit, but its like say, I don't know why the person died, I know the room didn't have air in it for 12hours, but at night they had air. Doesn't matter at that point. Also, people who run CO2 usually run a airstone or something at night too, to help get fresh oxygen into the water.

 

[reybie]

What he said... if you don't find the dead shrimp immediately after it dies, it's fish/shrimp food.

 

[sampster5000]

They become food once dead. When I had thousands of cherries in my 15 gallon I never saw dead shrimp. They get eaten up like popcorn.

Amano shrimp are known jumpers when it comes to CO2 and poor water quality. Check around the outside of your tank. I've had several jumpers in the past when using CO2.

 

[jasonpatterson]

They can be quite good at hiding as well, so you probably have more in the tank than you think you do. They also will sometimes crawl upstream into a HOB filter and feed off of the filter media, so there could be a couple hiding in there too.

 

[tetra73]

They become food once dead. When I had thousands of cherries in my 15 gallon I never saw dead shrimp. They get eaten up like popcorn.

Amano shrimp are known jumpers when it comes to CO2 and poor water quality. Check around the outside of your tank. I've had several jumpers in the past when using CO2.

I see no dead bodies outside the tank. I think I will do some head counts every 3 days or so. If I am getting into the low teens, I may begin to worry or to restock. In the high teens, near 20s, I can relax...

 

[wetworks]

The problem with doing shrimp headcounts is that it is almost impossible to see all of them at once. Sometimes when my Amanos molt they hide out for a few days, but I only have half of the amount that you have to count in a six gallon tank. When I keep Amanos in my bigger tanks, I will wait until the lights are out and throw in a few algae wafers, wait about an hour, then put the lights on for a bit while I try to track them down. In the big tanks there is just no way to count them all without getting all of the plants and rocks and driftwood out.

 

[GDP]

Shrimp are expert hiders. If you have a really havily planted tank good luck seeing most of them at any one time. Heck all I have in my tank is moss and dont see most of the 20+ CRS I have. They will also hide a lot more with fish in the tank. If you were to take out all the fish im willing to bet within 1-2 weeks you see them all the time grazing.