# Shrimp floating around: Dead or Shell?



## alyssabentley (Sep 27, 2011)

So, there's a ghostly, nearly clear shrimp thing floating around my tank on the current. I've only had shrimp for a week, but today, two days after a waterchange, I noticed that I still have shrimp, but they're hanging out in my java moss much more than usual, and today I saw the ghostly white form of a limp shrimp floating around. It looks like a complete shrimp, with whiskers and everything, but sooooo clear! no digestive tracts or anything solid. Is that a shed exoskeleton? Does it mean maybe my hiding shrimp have molted? Totally makes sense for them to hide until they've solidified. I do have green neons in the tank. (they are .8", and the smallest schooling fish I could find.) 

Anyway, it's hard to get a photo of it, because it's just drifting about the tank and so clear it's hard to pick up on camera. 

Shrimp experts: what do you think?


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## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

Definitely molting, especially if you can see a split down the back where the shrimp wiggled out of it. Though, I've never seen the exoskeletons float...


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## alyssabentley (Sep 27, 2011)

Drifting around the jetstream, not floating really. I've got a sponge filter over a powerhead submerged halfway down the tank. It just looks like it was moulted in the moss on my driftwood and kicked up into the jetstream. It's probably stuck. I'm sure it'll land eventually. Thank you for alleviating my fears.


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## debisbooked (Jan 7, 2012)

alyssabentley said:


> So, there's a ghostly, nearly clear shrimp thing floating around my tank on the current.


I've seen those 'ghosts' too and wondered if they were dead shrimp or what. Hope someone with experience answers your question.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Someone already did, I thought. It is the result of a shrimp that molted.


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