Fire Shrimp molt did not come out well

My fire shrimp just molted, the 2nd time in about 3 weeks, and this molt did not come out well so far. His antenna are very "jelly" like, not straight and hard like normal, and I'm not sure if that's because I literally caught him minutes from molting, or if something went wrong. Anyone an expert of Shrimp/Invert molting that could chime in? Not sure if there's really anything I can do, worth asking.

 

Best thing to do is leave him in a dark protected spot and hope he completes molting.
Molting is extremely stressful it seems. I have had a number of shrimp or crabs fall prey to other tank inhabitants like other shrimp, crabs, fish and such.
If he does make it, the next molt might go better for him.

Good Luck

 

Well, he's doing ok so far. Wish I had a picture of his antenna, one of them was in a loop =/. I checked on him this morning and it was dark, but I could see him hanging on back there so at least that's good. Will find out more in an hour when the lights come on, but his antenna look more normal now.

Very weird, his behavior changed probably 3 weeks ago after my cleaner passed (presumably from old age, he was a big guy), to being more more reclusive, but ate as normal so I assumed it was just from there being 1 less shrimp in the tank but maybe he was trying to molt again. Just seems so soon after he just molted about 2 weeks ago.

 

if your parameters are good they should molt every couple of weeks...and if you have two of them the time between molts is used to carry and raise eggs....shortly after releasing the young shrimp, the parent shrimp will molt again...right now both of mine are carrying eggs...one seems to be a couple days ahead of the other as the eggs under one are quite a bit darker the then others...

as mentioned though, molting is stressful and dangerous for the shrimp, if they are lucky enough to live through the molting process, they are fairly susceptible to predation as their exoskeletons are very soft, making them quite palatable for fish and other inverts..should they get through the night of molting and the couple days of shell hardening they will be fine (for another couple weeks)

another cool thing to notice about shrimp and crabs alike, if they lose an antenna or leg or claw etc, their next molt should regenerate the missing parts, if not the molt following will complete the regeneration process..

 

I just lost a cleaner after a molt, because of 1 volt of stray voltage that I found out is running through my tank. make sure everything in your tank is spot on (parameters) as they are at their most vulerable time after molting. Hope your is ok! theyre cute little characters.

 

stray voltage wont do anything to anything in your tank...and measuring 1 volt in a tank is nothing...likely a bad ground more then anything...a lot of voltage measured in tanks is induced voltage from lights...you can have voltage without current...

current kills, if you have current in your tank then there is a serious issue...