I started out with two shrimps, attempted to have four shrimps, failed, and somehow decided to buy more shrimps. All in all I have now bought 6 shrimps, and yet just like my last post, I still only have one. For a time, I definitely had two. I saw my red one around and sometimes I saw one of the latest two I’d bought, a small yellow cherry type. I’d bought a pair of yellow ones as I thought they’d blend in better, therefore reducing chances of getting eaten. And one of the pair disappeared, but there was one left that I could spot now and again. It seemed utterly fine. On Tuesday night it was swimming around and it came to the front of the tank for the very first time, allowing me to take some pictures of it.

On Wednesday morning I looked into the tank and it was dead. It didn’t seem like it had been attacked, there was no sign of damage, no sign of disease. It was just….dead. I was hurt and confused. How could it just die like that, overnight? It was ok. And then it was dead.

I’d had a danio death just on Monday so this was a bit of a blow. But I know my tank is clean and stable so I’m mostly confused. The shrimp seemed too young to pass of old age. I think I need to test the water for copper? That could be a reason. (But the other one is fine so you’d think they’d both be in trouble if there was something anti shrimp in the water… ) The only other thing could be stress from the water change I carried out on Tuesday, but I didn’t cause a massive flux in tank temperature. I did gravel clean, maybe it was too disruptive?

I thought shrimp were meant to be easy. But I’ve definitely lost two, probably lost another, and I’m missing another two.

The real question is – how is that one red shrimp thriving still when all its mates have died? I look at it and I’m amazed at it’s resilience. It swims about the tank amongst the fish without fear (perhaps trying to blend in to prevent attack?) And it’s big and healthy…

These creatures baffle me. I need to resist buying more…it’s just expensive fish food by this point (I left the yellow shrimp in the tank on Wednesday just in case I was wrong but of course all that happened was my fish ate it. Partially. So I had to take out the remains…. )