My Red Cherry Shrimps get dark spots and dies one by one!

[Woooloowoooloo]

Hello all,

Roughly a year ago I received a planted tank with about 50 cherry shrimps. Now, i probably have only 30 or so left. Every now and then, perhaps once a week, I see a dead corpse of a shrimp on the ground.

Hearing that its natural and that shrimps have short lifespans of a year or so, I thought nothing of it. However, recently I've noticed that BEFORE they die, the dying shrimp develops black spots or blotches on their red bodies, mainly on the joints in their tails. They are listless do not graze, and 10 minutes ago I fished one out (with little effort, it gave no resistance) into a specimen bin where is sits, still with a bit a life but waiting to die.

HELP! Is this a disease that is spreading among my shrimps? My Ph, Nitrites, and water are within normal parameters. Am I not giving them enough calcium? (I feed algae wafers + fish food + blood worms as a treat every now and then)

If need be, I'll borrow a high def camera to take a photo of him, but please, has anyone else who raises RCS had similar experiences?

 

[Frogki]

I've never heard of it, and I'm not really an expert at this point however, I have a thought that may seem strange... Is this possibly how they die? They naturally die because they don't need to anymore, etc... Maybe it is something they do after reproducing, maybe it'll be repopulated soon... IDK, maybe the dark green spots are what they get before they die?

 

[Lotus]

I've never heard of that. I'm guessing your shrimps aren't breeding. Normally, you'd be overrun with shrimp (at least have more than you can easily count) by now.