# Do shrimp sleep? aka: shrimp mortuary



## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

Just curious as I've never owned shrimp before...
How active are they at night(or when the lights are out)? Reason I ask is, after I put them in yesterday, they were active, swimming about, eating algae and this morning I checked on them briefly before leaving for work and noticed one of the cherry shrimp stuck on the powerhead intake(dead I'm sure), so I turned off the powerhead, thinking it was causing too much current. Then I noticed several shrimp down on the substrate amongst the glosso and they weren't moving --- do they sleep? Or am I in bad shape? I didn't get a chance to poke at them, or get my hands wet, I had to leave, but I'll check back tonight when I get home. Obviously I'm hoping they were just sleeping as the lights were out and the room was fairly dark. Any ideas? Has anyone seen their shrimp sleeping? Or are they always active? Thanks.


----------



## John P. (Apr 10, 2004)

When they're dead they tend to get flipped over by the current in the water.


----------



## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

I'll just hope that they're sleeping then. They looked a bit pale, but then again, so do fish when they're sleeping. The 1 cherry shrimp was dead that was attached to the powerhead intake(I'm almost certain), but there are 4 other cherrys and 12 amanos. I'm just paranoid I guess b/c I spent about $60 on shrimp yesterday. So, hopefully I'll see them all swimming and cleaning my tank tonight... I hope. My water parameters are great, as I tested it before I put them in, so the only thing it could be is shock from the drive from S.F to Davis or the different water conditions (?). Mine are:
pH=7.6 (I was shocked, but it makes sense since the Co2 was off for a day or 2 while I found time to refill the tank) -- a week ago it was 6.6 or so
kh = 5.0 dkh
Ammonia 0-0.25 ppm
Nitrite =0
Nitrate = 20 ppm
Phosphate = 1- 1.5 ppm

I also dose CSM+B(extra Fe), but have heard that a lot of people do this and the shrimp are fine with it. They are sensitive to Cu, but I don't have any in the water that I know of.


----------



## Aphyosemion (Oct 15, 2004)

The hardest part about keeping shrimp in my experience is acclimating them to the tank. Most of them don't do well under less than optimal water conditions in general and they also don't respond well to large changes in water chemistry, such as PH. Poor conditions while being moved to the LFS, combined with poor conditions at the LFS and a drive home to different water parameters is a lot for the more delicate shrimp.
The best thing to do when acclimating them is to check the PH of the water in the bag and compare it to the water in your tank. Assuming they are similar you only have to take the normal precautions of adding a little water to the bag over the course of an hour before adding them to the tank (and maybe a little praying). If the PH in the bag and the tank are very different, such as 7.0 vs 7.6 in your tank, you are better to make adjustments much more slowly.
As for your particular situation, I would cross my fingers. I don't remember ever looking into any of my tanks to see my shrimp behaving strangely or lethargic, except when they needed immediate action to keep from croaking. By the time I get up in the morning and look in the fish tank, the shrimp are already going about their business. Some of them may even be more active at night. 
For less experienced hobbyists, I would recommend against a large purchase of shrimp as your first attempt at keeping them. A small purchase of, say, 3 shrimp or maybe a dozen cheap ghost shrimp will be less of a blow if it doesn't go so well.
-Aphyosemion


----------



## Stu (Feb 16, 2004)

Aphyosemion said:


> If the PH in the bag and the tank are very different, such as 7.0 vs 7.6 in your tank, you are better to make adjustments much more slowly.


I have just put 5 amano's into my planted tank.
My tank ph was 6.83, the ph of the bag water was just over 8.







Oh dear.

I acclimatised them by adding tank water over a period of about 30 minutes.

I know it's hard to tell, but they seemed alright (no erratic, stressed movements) with the adjustment this fast, even though pH is quite an important factor, so I continued.

Well, that was midday yesterday that I put them in. In the evening yesterday, one of them moulted, and today I have found another moult. They are all still in there, eating hapilly, showing no signs of stress as far as I can tell.









Perhaps because they naturally like a pH of 6-7.5, they didn't mind going into my tank at 6.83 from 8. They also had a journey of 35 minutes in the bag.


----------



## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

Thanks Stu and everyone else. 
The pH of the water they were put into was 7.6 or thereabouts and the bag water was probably around the same pH, but harder(I dilute the local tap water with bottled/RO water --- I wish I had tested the bag water ph though...
I acclimated them over about 30 minutes or so and when I put them in, there was no apparent sign of stress. I'd say about half of them disappeared into the thick forest of plants in the back of the tank, but others I saw moving around on leaves, driftwood and occasionally free swimming --- basically seemed like they were fine. The pH in the tank, like I said, was 7.6 and that's only because CO2 has been low the last week or so and I'm waiting on a new JBJ reg/needle valve, bubble counter/solenoid that I ordered -- should be here in a few days... I turned on the co2 last night, but since the needle valve is faulty, I was very careful how much...The pH will probably slowly drop back to 6.6-6.8 where it used to be, so I'm hoping they'll be fine. I just don't want a co2 disaster with turning the tank into seltzer water, so I'm being really careful until the new parts come in the mail. Thanks again!


----------



## Aphyosemion (Oct 15, 2004)

Stu said:


> I have just put 5 amano's into my planted tank.
> My tank ph was 6.83, the ph of the bag water was just over 8.
> 
> 
> ...


All I can say, is good luck on that one. I have one fish tank that has a PH of about 8.0, which I keep some rainbows and a couple cichlids in. I regularly add snails from a PH 7.0 tank as food for the cichlids. What is interesting is that even if the snails are ignored by the cichlids, which happens occasionally, they still croak just from the PH shock. You might get lucky and not lose a single shrimp, but on the other hand, why take the risk if you have the choice?
As an additional point, I would like to add that amano shrimp are probably considerably more adaptable to high PH changes than most freshwater creatures, due to the fact that in their natural environment they have the chance of wandering into brackish estuaries or even saltwater, downstream. I am guessing that, not only would the PH be hugely different, but the salinity would be enough to kill most little freshwater critters.
-Aphyosemion


----------



## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

Well, it looks like my intuition was correct...It seems as though ALL of the shrimp that I bought yesterday are dead. My wife was trying to count them to me over the phone and she got to 7 (out of 17) before I said to stop and I'll look at it later, its too depressing. 
They were in the bag from the LFS for about 3 hrs(LFS wasn't so local), but they were all moving around and lively last night when I put them in, then BAM! mass genocide by the next morning? What gives? I feel as though I should have just given the LFS $60 to save this from happening. 
They seem pretty fragile, but like some have said, it can be from stress due to transit from the supplier, etc, so I'm not convinced its all due to me. The water parameters were great & I acclimated them for roughly 20-30 minutes before putting them into the tank. I'd like to try them again sometime, but now I'm hesistant as it seems like I'm just wasting $.


----------



## danmhippo (Feb 3, 2005)

I don't know if this applies to your case, but I had a massive shrimp die-off not too long ago due to too much CO2 in the water. I check on the tank in the morning and find all fish gasping for air at the surface, while all shrimps, including all the baby shrimps died. 

Obviously shrimps decomposes fast, some shrimps's head has already starting to detach from the body. I had to spend some time to find each and every shrimps that died under the bogwood, to keep ammonia down in the water.

If your shrimps is indeed dead, make sure you look around in the bushes to get them out before they cause major ammonia spike.


----------



## Lotus (Mar 5, 2005)

Shrimp are pretty sensitive to ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. I would say your nitrates are a little high for shrimp to be comfortable.


----------



## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

Well, I removed and manually cleaned off all of the plants as good as possible, removing leaves that were too far gone. I gravel vacuumed and removed 90% of the algae(think bga) that was on the surface of the substrate, plus I cleaned algae off the driftwood with a toothbrush. There is still some algae, but I'd say I removed 60-70% of it. I also re-aquascaped everything while I had it all out. The glosso is filling in nicely, I just need the algae to go away 
There are 4 SAEs and 1 otto to do the dirty work for now. Think I'll just leave it alone and let the tank mature and grow in some. Keeping up dosing, water changes and occasional manual removal of algae. Time will tell.
Thanks again.
-Ryan


----------



## item1702 (Oct 30, 2004)

danmhippo said:


> I don't know if this applies to your case, but I had a massive shrimp die-off not too long ago due to too much CO2 in the water. I check on the tank in the morning and find all fish gasping for air at the surface, while all shrimps, including all the baby shrimps died.


 :icon_eek: I had the same thing happen to me once. I actually saw them passing out. I removed the co2 right away and surprisingly some of the ones that appeared to be dead stated started to move again. Most of the ones that did pass out died but some of them did recover. Another thing that I notice is that through the whole ordeal the one cherry I had was doing fine. Just munchin away on algae. :icon_conf 

Hey ringram, those are the shrimp you got from SF right? Amanos tend to be pretty hardy. It takes a lot to kill them. I had one living in my frog tank for over a year and I hardly ever changed that water. After that I took him out and put him in my betta bowl and he was still doing fine. 

I’m not sure how hardy cherry’s are but mine seems pretty tough. Also I heard those cherry’s you got from Albany had been in quarantine for over three weeks before he put them out on the floor. So most of the frail ones should have died off before you got them. 

Well I hope none of the rest die on you. Good luck with them.


----------



## Naplesfrank (Jul 16, 2014)

*My shrimp sleeps!*

I recently went fishing and used live shrimp as bait. After my fishing trip I had a couple of left over live shrimp. Instead of dumping them back into the Gulf of Mexico, I decided to put them in my reef tank. The next morning one of them was floating and was as dead as a door nail but the other larger one was happy swimming around. Later on in the evening I noticed the shrimp acting very weird. I pulled up a chair and watched him for about 10 minutes. Eventually, the shrimp settled on the bottom of the tank and immediately started flipping all of his belly flippers. Within three seconds, he buried himself under the sand and just his eyes were above the level of the sand. I noticed that the shrimp also moved small shells and broken bits of coral into the area before he buried himself and realized that the shell and bits of coral were being used as camouflage. In the end, and in answer to the original question, I guess shrimp do sleep because my shrimp does this ritual a few times during the day and at night he is always buried away getting some rest. Very weird but true. 😃


----------

