[AshleyMac]

So about about a week ago I moved one of my tanks to my office. My Amano took the move pretty well. Hid for a day or two.

A few days ago I bought a "Bamboo Shrimp" according to the tank label. I acclimated her and moved her in. She took well and the Amano came out of hiding and everyone is friends.

Question 1. My supposed Bamboo shrimp is not red...it has the same markings but they are blue and the spaces in between the veining is clear tinged blue. Her fans and end of tail tail are brownish. Exoskeleton after molt (see below) is also brownish. She is feeding well and has claimed a perch at the bottom of the filter output. I never see her scraping the gravel which leads me to believe she is getting her nutrients. She does not seem to feel threatened since she loves to take some time exploring before returning to her perch. Is there a blue variety of Bamboo shrimp? By the way, her stripe is vivid and a bit more yellow than white. I wish I could show pictures, but my camera is really terrible and all I get is blur when I try to get the wee ones in my tank.

Question 2. Molting equals healthy and comfortable? The Bamboo went into hiding for a day (yesterday morning before I came to work at 7am). I came back to the office today and found her exoskeleton, and a few hours later she returned to her perch. Four hours later my Amano molted (I got to watch!) and went back to feeding on his rock out in the open. Does this mean I have happy shrimps? My water readings are coming out the same as they did when I first moved the tank -all levels good (I stored four gallons of the water before the move to keep it as consistent as possible.) I used to have a ghost shrimp (who my Amano did not like) and they never molted together. Does it mean anything, or am I reading into it?

I know these are probably no brainer questions. I've just never had a Bamboo and want to make sure she is well. I have also had my Amano for two years now and love him. Since he is a senior citizen I would also like to make sure he is as happy and healthy as possible.

 

[eser21]

hey, sadly both my bamboos died from lack of o2, i think. But while they were doing well they would change from bright orange to blue to dark red almost purple. I would think from what you have said they are pretty happy.
But who want to take advise from someone with dead shrimp lol

 

[mordalphus]

molting can be brought about by water changes, so it's not really an indicator of happiness. Also, bamboo shrimp can display a large range of coloration, so yours is just doing her thing

You will want to supplement the tank with powdered food for her though, she will not get all she needs just from the water column. Any powdered shrimp food works, or powdered spirulina/chlorella. They don't need a ton, but a pinch every now and again directly in front of them seems to keep them happy.

Ghost shrimp are jerks, I'm not surprised your amano hated him :>

 

[Bettatail]

agree with mordalphus, I had some bamboo shrimp before.
bamboo shrimps have the ability to camouflage themselves with the surrounding, in a green color planted environment, they should appear dull brown, blue, or a little bit tint of green.
If they are red/bright brown against the environment, there is something wrong, they will become weak and die.

if the shrimp become smaller, or less active after recover from molt, there is something wrong also.
But if they molt and get fatter, they sure are happy shrimps.

 

[AshleyMac]

Thank you guys so much, I was very worried because all pictures I saw were of orange or brown. Mrs. Shrimpers is definitely a very true blue and perched in her plant, though she has been the same color since I first saw her. I looked up care sheets for Bamboo shrimp after I saw her but didn't think to look at pictures. Now that I have her I wouldn't trade her though, she is quite sweet to everyone in the tank.

I haven't seen any powdered shrimp food in my LFS, but I have seen people recommend using fry food. Which would be better? I will order the shrimp food if it is going to be better for her. In the mean time I have been grinding soaked algae wafers into a watery mix and drop feeding her. She seems to be doing well according to how much she poops

 

[wetworks]

I feed my Bamboo Shrimps with Spectrum Small Fish Formula and Hikari algae wafers. I grind them up in a mortar and pestle and drop into the water in front of my power filters spillway. One of them is about a year old, and the other is about four months, and they both have molted multiple times. They never sift my substrate or scrape my plants, which I think means they are getting enough to eat. I only have two in the tank, so there is enough organic matter in the water column to support them if I supplement their diet with the powdered foods placed into the filter spillway.

Regarding the color, both of mine look drastically different from each other. I have read (but do not know if it is true) that these shrimps are very difficult to breed in captivity, so the specimens that are available in your LFS are almost all (if not all) going to be wild caught. Because of this you do not see the consistency of coloring that you do in CRS, RCS, Tiger Shrimps, etc. Also, I have noticed that the three most common species of filter shrimps are often mislabeled for each other, which probably makes an image search on the internet even more confusing. These shrimps also change color over a surprising range of shades (more than other shrimps I have kept, anyway), though I have not been able to locate any reliable data as to why they do this.

 

[jasonpatterson]

I didn't want to keep yet another type of fish food around, so I wound up pulverizing sinking pellets and flake food then mixing that with with to feed my bamboo shrimp. They did very well and grew substantially. One of them never did anything except filter, the other never did anything but pick at the substrate, so I'm a bit dubious about the idea that these shrimp are necessarily hungry if they are picking.

They stayed a fairly nice light brown for the year or so that I had them. Once they turned even slightly orange, they were goners within a week.

I don't suppose your blue bamboo shrimp could actually be a vampire shrimp?

 

[msjinkzd]

I have had bamboos in a gamut of colors, as noted, turning orange with opacity inbetween the ocloring (instead of clear, as you noted) is when I get concerned.


I feed my pulverized flake, cyclops (they LOVE it), and golden pearls. Sounds like things are going well and wish you could get some pics

 

[Kitty_Kitsch]

I want a vampire shrimp :/

 

[wetworks]

I didn't want to keep yet another type of fish food around, so I wound up pulverizing sinking pellets and flake food then mixing that with with to feed my bamboo shrimp. They did very well and grew substantially. One of them never did anything except filter, the other never did anything but pick at the substrate, so I'm a bit dubious about the idea that these shrimp are necessarily hungry if they are picking.

They stayed a fairly nice light brown for the year or so that I had them. Once they turned even slightly orange, they were goners within a week.

I don't suppose your blue bamboo shrimp could actually be a vampire shrimp?

jasonpatterson has a good point; I have not seen many vampire shrimps in person, but I have seen a bunch of photos and they are often a bluish coloration. They get quite a bit larger than bamboo shrimps though. Also, they are not anywhere near as common in the hobby as the bamboo shrimps, at least here in Florida. Any chance you could put up some pics?

 

[Aphyosemion]

No matter if you have vampire shrimp or bamboo shrimp you are going to want to supplement with a powdered fish food or they will eventually starve.
I had 2 vampire shrimp for a long time and they have to be my single favorite species of shrimp ever. They look so vicious but they are completely harmless.
Unfortunately, I put all my shrimp in a holding tank while redoing my main tank and then got lazy and left them in there for a couple of days and lost my vampire shrimp and a couple of golden macrobrachium shrimp. Ug, that was a huge mistake and I knew better.

 

[Kitty_Kitsch]

Could I offer them spirulina powder?

 

[jasonpatterson]

They'll eat virtually anything they catch in their fans, and I don't see why spirulina would be any different. You wouldn't want to try to feed them only spirulina, of course, but it's not going to poison them. They will spit out things they don't want to eat as well, so you could watch them carefully as they are cleaning their fans and see whether they start dropping whatever they filter.