# Ghost Shrimp Death



## 99problems (Feb 24, 2012)

Please help! Everytime I've been buying ghost shrimp, the shrimp have died and turned white. I don't have water test kit yet, but the only other inhabitants of the 5 gallon tank (5 Endler fry, <2 weeks old) are completely fine. I know ghost shrimp are less hardy than other types of shrimp, but I wanted to make sure nothing is wrong with my tank, before I attempt to put something more expensive in it. thanks for the help!


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## Lifeblood (Jan 31, 2012)

I would not say less hardy, but rather most pet stores keep them in bad conditions as they are feeders.

When you say died, do you mean within 72 hours or a week or 5 minutes?


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## 99problems (Feb 24, 2012)

It's actually over the course of 2-3 weeks. I forgot to mention, the tank has been running for about 4 months now, without any major changes in livestock/conditions, so it should be pretty well-cycled


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## rroginela (Sep 24, 2011)

Ghost shrimp are pretty hardy considering how most shops keep them. I would test the water when you can to see if nitrites are out whack. Other information that may help in tracking down the issue :

Tank size
How long has it been filled 
Filtration 
Etc... 

Sorry couldn't be more help... Is it possible to get a couple of shrimp from a different store to make sure it isn't a bad batch at the source? 

Sent from my A100 using Tapatalk


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

How many are you getting at a time? Are they cloudy at all when you buy them, or more or less transparent?

You might try buying a bunch (20 or so, assuming they're cheap) and hope for 5 or 6 to survive. Get the dead shrimp out as soon as you see them during this period, though once you've got a stable population it's perfectly fine to let the shrimp eat the corpses.

As the others have said, they're quite sturdy shrimp once you get past the initial dieoff. Unfortunately your source may have been keeping them in particularly bad conditions such that they really don't stand a chance. You can expect them to die over the course of a couple of weeks to a month at the outside, but the shrimp that survive that period should last years.

To be clear, are the ghost shrimp and endler fry the only inhabitants of the tank? Have you been feeding the filter during the times when it had no inhabitants? If not, the tank likely isn't cycled. The bacteria responsible for the nitrogen cycle in an aquarium need a constant supply of fresh ammonia to survive, so if there have been longish periods in which the tank was empty (or only contained a few fry) then the filter can lose the bulk of its bacteria. If that's the case, you've been adding shrimp, a few die and begin decomposing, which makes lots of ammonia, which kills more shrimp, which makes more ammonia, etc. You can just add a few flakes of fish food or a few drops of ammonia (assuming the fry are out of there) and it will be enough to keep the filter going while empty.

It is possible that there is a problem with your water supply as well, things like copper are not unheard of, but I'd be more inclined to suspect either filtration or the supplier of the animals.


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## mmccarthy781 (Jul 7, 2011)

What have you been feeding them?


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## radioman (Oct 29, 2007)

From my experience they are very sensitive to ammonia and nitrite. Parameters would be great to figure this problem out.


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## jeremyTR (Mar 21, 2012)

I have 15 ghost/glass/grass shrimp and not one of them died. *knock on wood*


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## triscene (Apr 7, 2012)

when talking about ghost shrimp, r u talking about Macrobrachium Lanchesteri?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

triscene said:


> when talking about ghost shrimp, r u talking about Macrobrachium Lanchesteri?


No. But juvi lanchesteri look nearly identical to ghost shrimp. Difference is the claws in regular ghosts are much smaller/thinner than macros.


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## cantsay39 (Jun 10, 2011)

~.~ well planted tank should help saving the shrimps of yours.. i run the tank 2 weeks took some gravels from a cycled tank. use sponge filter, air rock for air circulation.. shrimps survived had over some crs and rcs around the tank.. none dead.. suggesting you need more aeration & plants~


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## swrdply400mrelay (Mar 19, 2012)

In my experience, ghost shrimp are much more sensitive to ammonia/nitrite than fish and neos.


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

Shrimp are more sensitive to ammonia and nitrite in general.

However,

ghost shrimp are often kept as feeder shrimp and most vendors and LFS know that.
They are kept in shallow water along with crowded numbers. Like feeder goldfish, they are kept in mass for feeding and nothing else. The vendors will keep them the same way so even if it doesn't look it on the LFS end, it might be because of the vendors. 

Though it does seem true that ghost shrimp are very durable after the initial die off.


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## RRLLL (Feb 25, 2018)

I have the same issue, but since my air pump is on, the ghost shrimps are fine. when I turned off the air pump for 1 day, 2 of them died, although they are in a well planted tank. I think the critical parameter is the aeration, if you keep the air pump on for 24/7, everything will be okay I think, but the algae...


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