# Do Shrimp carry parasites like Snails do?



## sand

my favorite fish got really sick after snails were added to his tank years ago. i got rid of the snails, treated him with parasite meds and completely changed his substrate. he's alive and well today. also my local fish store doesn't carry snails because they said they carry parasites, okay i've heard that.

what about shrimp?

cherry shrimp & ghost lived in a hospital tank with two veryyyy sick goldfish who recently passed away (the goldfish were OLD and they were feeders when i got them years ago.) i am thinking i should euthanize the shrimp because i am afraid to put them back in the main tank since they lived with the sick goldfish for months. there are plants in the hospital tank too, but they will have a 100 % water change, be treated and left for a month in clean water b4 they go back in the community tank.

anyone know if shrimp carry parasites like snails do?


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## Mark13

According to research I have doen, and to my own experience, the ghost shrimp can carry ick from tnak to tank. The Cherry Shrimp, I hope not but I do not know. What were the goldfish sick with?


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## automatic-hydromatic

I know that shrimp can carry worm-like parasites, and I'm pretty sure they can pass to fish such as if the fish were to eat them, but that's about the extent of my knowledge on the subject, for what it's worth 


if they do, you can still get rid of the parasites by treating the water in the quarantine tank and keeping the tank clean with frequent water changes. there's some good anti parasitic formulas out there that are safe for inverts. I dose my planted 30 gallon with Paraguard whenever adding new fish, and I've got Ghosts and Cherrys living happily in the tank


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## sand

automatic-hydromatic said:


> I know that shrimp can carry worm-like parasites


ugh, thx, that's ALL i needed to know


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## Shotgun

im pretty sure that almost all animals, fish, crustacians, humans, etc, can all carry some form of a parasite...


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## automatic-hydromatic

it's very obvious in Ghost Shrimp, since you can see right into their bodies


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## sand

ya i have cherry shrimp  thx 4 the pix


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## chris oe

Thing you need to remember is that parasites are very host specific, and most of the time when you have something bringing a parasite into a tank, it is because it is an intermediate host of that parasite. A lot of the time snails get blamed for bringing in a parasite you do a little research you find out that snails can't carry that parasite, in fact blessed few parasites that effect fish can even infect the snails you'd buy at a pet store. But there are a few parasites that can infect crustaceans, like daphnia and various kinds of live and frozen foods that can come into an aquarium that way, or even hitch a ride in live plants or in water that rides with new fish in the bag from the pet store.


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