Coral Banded Shrimp help

[AquasKy]

Hi all, don’t know if I posted it in the right place or not but I’ve had my coral banded shrimp for four or five months now with no issues. Healthy molts and everything. Today when I peeked in at him, I noticed that he had either molted over the night or before I saw him in the early morning hours. The thing I noticed which has never happened before is his smaller arms are bent near the joint, like they look broken, and he can’t bring them to his mouth or clean himself properly. I can’t say if he is acting lethargic as he usually does keep to his cave during the day and come out to scavenge and such once the lights go out. I dropped a couple pellets in to see if I could draw him out which did work, he moves fine but as I feared, he can’t pick up food or bring it to his mouth with his little arms, only his big claw arms which drops the food before he gets it to his mouth. My water parameters are all within the ranges, and other than some hairy mushroom coral, 7 lbs of live rock, his cave and a hermit that hitchhiked, the coral banded is alone in the tank. It’s 20g tall. I greatly appreciate any help anyone has to offer, if you have experienced this or just know more than I do. I really worry he will starve if he can’t get food to his mouth and I don’t want him to suffer.

 

[mta_morrow]

He may have had a difficult molt.

for now, try turning off your main pump and power heads so there is no flow. Then squirt a few mysis right in front of him to help him out.

all I can think of right now.

 

[Dburr1014]

Hi all, don’t know if I posted it in the right place or not but I’ve had my coral banded shrimp for four or five months now with no issues. Healthy molts and everything. Today when I peeked in at him, I noticed that he had either molted over the night or before I saw him in the early morning hours. The thing I noticed which has never happened before is his smaller arms are bent near the joint, like they look broken, and he can’t bring them to his mouth or clean himself properly. I can’t say if he is acting lethargic as he usually does keep to his cave during the day and come out to scavenge and such once the lights go out. I dropped a couple pellets in to see if I could draw him out which did work, he moves fine but as I feared, he can’t pick up food or bring it to his mouth with his little arms, only his big claw arms which drops the food before he gets it to his mouth. My water parameters are all within the ranges, and other than some hairy mushroom coral, 7 lbs of live rock, his cave and a hermit that hitchhiked, the coral banded is alone in the tank. It’s 20g tall. I greatly appreciate any help anyone has to offer, if you have experienced this or just know more than I do. I really worry he will starve if he can’t get food to his mouth and I don’t want him to suffer.

Pictures? White light

 

[AquasKy]

He may have had a difficult molt.

for now, try turning off your main pump and power heads so there is no flow. Then squirt a few mysis right in front of him to help him out.

all I can think of right now.

Pictures? White light

Can’t believe he actually let me get some half decent pics of him, don’t know if you can see his arms though. I didn’t realize he is also yellowing? He didn’t have yellow on him before.

 

[Dburr1014]

Hmmm, how about the rest of his legs? No problems? If it's hungry enough he can use the other legs to feed.

 

[AquasKy]

Hmmm, how about the rest of his legs? No problems? If it's hungry enough he can use the other legs to feed.

He moves perfectly, all four legs work fine, he has been in and out of his cave, hanging and on the gravel. It’s just those three you can see have the extra bend near the joint. I have the power head off, but the filter running. As the other commenter recommended, I dropped him some thawed out brine shrimp as I am out of mysis at the moment. He didn’t seem able to use the three arms that have the bends, but was successful at grabbing some food with the one that doesn’t appear injured, and dropped a lot of what he could grab with his big claws.