One-armed Jack (Coral banded Shrimp) question

[MrMikeB]

Hey all,

I have a coral banded shrimp (One armed Jack), who... well, has one arm (the larger claw). The other arm was lost in a battle I imagine as I have only recently received him with a less than spectacular invert order. His other arm is now looking a bit limp as well and looks as if it may fall off any day now. He is still able to eat with the smaller hands, but looks rather helpless without his 'claws.' Has anybody had this happen to a shrimp, and are his chances slim and his fate sealed? Do these things 'grow' back porportionate to the body size? Should I take him out now or let him fight his way back to health?

The tank he is in has a mixture of little critters, most of them seem peaceful enough and the coral banded shrimp seem to pal around together and not notice the fact that one of them is not like the others.

Thank you in advance for your thoughts...

[lilleahseafreak]

i bought a coral banded from petco and to my dismay the kid pulled a claw off trying to catch him!!! well his claw came back when he shed his skin, it came back small the first time but with the second shed the claw was back full size.

it sounds like your shrimp has a mangled claw, it may sound mean but removing the damaged claw may be best, otherwise he'll only lose it with his next shed and then start to grow it back with the shed after that. as far as i know loosing the claw is not too tramatic as they fall off pretty dang easy with the slightest tug (as i found out with one i tried to catch, i hardly touched his claw)

but yeah, the grow back readily, i still don;t see how the claw just suddenly appears when they shed, i thought i'd grow back gradually like a starfish leg, but no, you find a shrimp skin in your tank and suddenly o'l one arm has 2 arms!!!

[MrMikeB]

Amazing! So the muscles and everything used to work the claw just grows back automagicaly at the next molting cycle? That almost seems unnatural that it occurs that quickly.

Thanks for the tip!

[pbetito]

I have two of them Mike and the bigger one constantly rips the smaller ones arm off and eats it. It always comes back strong. Was a little shocking the first time I saw it though.

[Nu2SW]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8836197#post8836197 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pbetito
I have two of them Mike and the bigger one constantly rips the smaller ones arm off and eats it. It always comes back strong. Was a little shocking the first time I saw it though.

That is just wrong and mean.


Ugh.....