Is it molting???

Our cleaner shrimp have molted several times and we have not been home for any of them. Starting yesterday one of them has been hanging around in the same spot on the bottom of the tank and its antenea are bent and almost curling. Is it having a hard time molting or worse???

 

sounds like you dose iodine?

 

We do, when we bought everything we were told by the LFS to put in one teaspoon every week. I did it yesterday morning, I am alarmed because of the whole antena thing??

 

stop dosing iodine all together. with regular water changes and feeding you get all the iodine you need. the natural level of iodine in sea water is in the parts per billion(.006 i believe)adding as much as you are your poisoning your inverts. when iodine levels are that high what shrimp do is sequester it in there shells, when they cant do that anymore they are forced to molt. i would do a few small water changes and through the iodine away

 

If you are concerned with iodine dropping in your tank as alot of the inhabitants use it and it does get removed through skimming and carbon use I would use Reef Plus. It is a vitamin supplement which also contains iodine. You should also test for everything you add into your tank.

 

i agree with you about testing everything you add, but let me tell a little story about iodine.

a few years back when pinched mantle first came about my clams had it, i knew nothing about it, all i knew was my clams were sick and dieing. i called afew chemical testing labs and brought some water samples to one and said test this for everything. i gave them a list of all the major, miner and trace elements, and the concentrations that they are found in NSW and said this is the level of testing i want. the chemist looked at the list and asked why i wanted some things tested at such low levels, iodine(iodide) was one. he said ok but to test iodide at that level i need to send samples to our main lab in Mass. because the only way to test that low is with QA-CH-P124 Rev 1 (ICP), i said i had a titration test kit at home (he got a good chuckle out of that), he said i would love to see it: .

my point is there are a few things that just cant be tested for with the "hobby" test kits we can get.

 

Thanks for all of the suggestions. We are taking a water sample to be tested tonight and hopefully find the culprit. The shrimp is still alive and dances around at the bottom of the tank when we feed its just odd b/c the other one is every. I guess we will wait and see

 

Alrightty, so all parameters are fine water wise...the poor little shrimp still seems to be struggling. It sill just hangs out on the bottom of the tank and will not use its pinchers. To add insult to injury, somehow one of his antena broke off. Is it possible that he got stung by our condy??? Everything else in the tank is doing great so I dont know what to do!:-[

 

iodine can not be tested by our hobby test kits. what you have described is classic iodine overdose. if you would like to help the shrimp, through out the iodine and do a few small water changes