What happens when a ghost shrimp lays her eggs?!?!

Question

i had a prego ghost shrimp in a quarantine tank with one male guppy and a snail. she was fine when i went to sleep last night and this morning she was dead and it looked like someone just cracked her sack open and ripped all her eggs out! maybe the guppy did it, but he is well fed.... is this normal????

Answer 1

i did some reasearch awhile back and i found that these shrimp dont "lay" eggs. the eggs stick on to the mother, and they grow on the mother until the eggs hatch, when this happens, they move away from the mother. shrimp are very sensitive to water conditions, and can easily be killed from being put into a new tank, especially one that has any meds in it or is a diffrent temp. i think this is what killed her, i think that the guppy ate parts of the corpse (gross- i know...)  

Answer 2

Ghost shrimp are very sensitive to changes in water when they're pregnant.  I was moving one time, and just putting her in the transfer tank (not even the move itself) killed one of my pregnant ghost shrimp.  If you ever have a pregnant ghost shrimp in the future, don't move it.  Just keep it in the water it is in, because the move will kill it.  

I doubt the guppy killed her, but he might have picked at her dead body.  Sad, but it happens.  Also, the eggs detach from her body after she's dead sometimes, so it's possible that they just fell off or the guppy easily picked them off.

I'm sorry to hear that your ghost shrimp died.  Pregnant ghost shrimp are very sensitive, so you shouldn't blame yourself.  It's easy for them to be killed by small things when they're pregnant.  You should still raise ghost shrimp.  Maybe buy a few more from the store and try again?  I'd hate to hear that one death scared you away from the species.