Crackhead Johny Posted January 9, 2016 Report Share Posted January 9, 2016 I doubt anyone would do this but many months ago I had some ghost shrimp in a 5 gal fish bowl and was thinking "I should feed them something they can build shells with". Then I hit upon a faux clever idea "Why not just feed them powdered crab shells, there is nothing better to make shell out of better than shell!" So I took my bag of king/snow crab shells out of the freezer, grabbed a hand full and boiled them for an hour or more. Then I let them dry and ran them through my spice grinder until they were fine powder. It looked like I made a non-vegan safe white glitter. So I gave one tiny pinch to the shrimp. They were all dead when I walked past the bowl a little while later. I do not know if it plugged their gills or what, but powdered crab shells seems to be super poisonous to shrimp. So I lost a little over a dollar in shrimp (god bless cheap guinea pigs). Wygglz and Vpier 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aquariumlover10 Posted January 9, 2016 Report Share Posted January 9, 2016 it probably had salt still on it and it changed the salinity too fast or it almost acted as diatomaceous earth and cut them all up. you van buy some cuttlebone for birds I believe and use that for calcium, its what you use for mystery snails too. you also need to change the water and recycle the tank now because whatever was in those shells is going to kill everything, so wash all the decorations and substrate in white vinegar and then boil them and get new filter media. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wygglz Posted January 9, 2016 Report Share Posted January 9, 2016 Not too many people are willing to post their "oops" moments but when we do we can all learn from them. Thank you for being willing. Vpier, svetilda, aquariumlover10 and 2 others 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soothing Shrimp Posted January 9, 2016 Report Share Posted January 9, 2016 Well said Wygglz. We all can learn from oops posts! mjb1959 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crackhead Johny Posted January 10, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2016 it probably had salt still on it and it changed the salinity too fast or it almost acted as diatomaceous earth and cut them all up. you van buy some cuttlebone for birds I believe and use that for calcium, its what you use for mystery snails too. you also need to change the water and recycle the tank now because whatever was in those shells is going to kill everything, so wash all the decorations and substrate in white vinegar and then boil them and get new filter media. It was a tiny pinch that even if it was straight salt woudl have surprised me if it did anything. Besides I figured a hour of boiling removed most of the salt (usually there is not that much salt that comes out during boiling when they are freshly frozen, as that is when I make unagi sauce with them.). Home made diatomaceous earth, is what I suspect happened. The bowl and substrate got washed out and then I put in 3 new ghost shrimp. This is how I learned that ghost shrimp are jerks. The 1 remaining shrimp is big and happy (and I have to remember the shrimp is not lonely, shrimp do not get lonely). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aquariumlover10 Posted January 10, 2016 Report Share Posted January 10, 2016 yeah, I suspect it cut them up. I have found only the larger clear ghost shrimp are mean like that, my wild ones where always nice and never ate anything even guppy fry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vpier Posted January 10, 2016 Report Share Posted January 10, 2016 CSF Pure Mineral Sticks is a much safer way to give your shrimps what they need. Plus they love the stuff. http://www.hanaquatics.com/csf-exclusive-series-pure-mineral/ h4n and Soothing Shrimp 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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