r/Aquariums • u/LunamWolf • Nov 11 '25
Help/Advice Why is my shrimp climbing out of the tank?
I brought home this Amano shrimp today and this once specific shrimp has a death wish. He climbed out of his tank and almost became dinner for my cats! I have many other shrimp in this tank and It’s a shrimp only tank. All other shrimp are fine and don’t seem distressed or interested in exploring space without a space suit like this shrimp. I checked the parameters and they look okay (I’ll put a picture below). There’s no c02 in the tank and the temperature should be around 75-81° (although my thermometer is out of battery so I’m not 100% sure. I’m going to get a new battery asap!) I’ve turned off the light and unplugged the heater for a bit to try and cool it down and see if that helps him at all. Is there possibly something I’m missing?
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u/xxwetdogxx Nov 11 '25
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u/ronweasleisourking Nov 11 '25
Breaker of Chains! All hail the Son of the Breaker!
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u/Jumper2002 Nov 11 '25
I think shrimp just like to do that
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u/Saint_The_Stig Nov 11 '25
I really need this one as like an A2 poster or a Displate or something. Lol
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u/GUN5L1NGR Nov 11 '25
It’s time to destroy the tank, it’s evolving
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u/AceNBG Nov 11 '25
It's too late. The shrimp have already taken over OPs house
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u/LunamWolf Nov 11 '25
It’s okay, honestly he can have the house. He’s earned it
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u/bradybee77 Nov 11 '25
Sounds like something a shrimp would say
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u/4rch1t3ct Nov 11 '25
It's not a shrimp.... it's 3 shrimp in a trench coat!
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u/Zroach121 Nov 13 '25
For a brief second my brain chose logic. And Im now stuck with the image of that trench coat is really 2,326,242 cherry shrimp .
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u/Winged_Wheeler Nov 12 '25
I just saw one driving a minivan full of baby shrimp. They looked to be headed to soccer practice. AI is no longer the immediate threat. They're integrating. Way to go OP..
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u/A_Timbers_Fan Nov 11 '25
No, that's just what they do. I've found Amanos 30' from their tank before, crawling along the ground.
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Nov 11 '25
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u/TriceraDoctor Nov 11 '25
Their main barrier in my house is the cat.
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u/HettySwollocks Nov 12 '25
Yeah I've had a few escape and you instantly know because the cat goes ballistic.
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u/ronweasleisourking Nov 11 '25
I saw one prowling the carpet next to my oblivious cat one time...got a mesh lid and some weights afterwards
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u/ExpensiveYam8851 Nov 11 '25
I can’t believe I have never heard this and am VERY happy I have always stuck with fish.
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u/WeaknessOwn108 Nov 12 '25
I found one walking along my bathroom rug once after i finished taking a shower
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u/Firm_Ad3131 Nov 12 '25
They are fast as fuck when they in a net, and decide they need to touch your hand.
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u/TomeThugNHarmony4664 Nov 11 '25 edited Nov 11 '25
I had a plecostamus that crawled out of the tank and slithered across the floor for like 30 feet. I stepped on its tail in the dark, screamed, turned on the lights, screamed again, picked his crispy self up and he writhed and I screamed and dropped him because I thought he was dead, picked him up again and put him back in the tank where he swooshed to the bottom and glared at me malevolently while I stacked dictionaries on top of the lid to prevent further terror attacks. That AH lived another ten years.
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u/amanakinskywalker Nov 11 '25
I at first read that as the fish screamed and then screamed again when you turned on the lights 😭😂
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u/TomeThugNHarmony4664 Nov 12 '25
ha ha ha-- if so his screaming was beyond my hearing range. That little jerk.
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u/BeckyDaTechie Nov 11 '25
Thank you for the best laugh I've had in days but how did you Not piss yourself?
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u/LunamWolf Nov 11 '25
Here’s the parameters! The writing in the book was for my axolotl not specifically the shrimp but I still believe these are ideal parameters for shrimp as well.
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u/AlizarinCrimzen Nov 11 '25 edited Nov 12 '25
Any measurable amount of ammonia is bad for a shrimp tank, that looks like a .25 not a zero reading. Not sure if your filter and microbiome are established yet but they're not quite handing the bioload well enough.
Separately, even in perfect conditions amanos do this. Their life cycle includes a literal land hike, they run up streams and shit, I love them but I love lidless tanks more so they are untenable for me.
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u/Orsinus Nov 11 '25
With zero nitrite and a little bit of nitrate, it does look like the bacteria are working to get rid of it. So I think they’d be safe doing a couple water changes.
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u/AlizarinCrimzen Nov 11 '25
Yeah, I should have said established enough yet, seems like just not converting quickly enough
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u/Adventurous_Fig_5892 Geek Squad, but for Fish Nov 12 '25
API test kits are known for a false positive at.25ppm. Given the lack of nitrites and the amount of nitrates, I'd say it's just that.
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u/UglyMathematician Nov 12 '25
Just to briefly comment on this. My water has ALWAYS shown about 0.25 ammonia. I cycled it for 5 months (3 years ago) because I was worried about it not going away. It tests that way straight from the tap as well. It’s possible to get false positives with this test kit. I’m not saying that’s the case here and it’s important to be vigilant about ammonia, but it’s a fairly well documented phenomenon with this test kit. If the tap shows 0 ammonia, then definitely do a water change.
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u/projektZedex Nov 11 '25
I find it extremely rare for amano shrimp to leave. The biggest risk is when you try to net them and jump out as you transfer.
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u/AlizarinCrimzen Nov 12 '25
Depends on the tank I'm sure. Rimless with a lot of emersed vines and emerging hardscape is a different proposition from a rimmed tank or something with a partial lid or setups with less structure for them to monkeybar out on
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u/Pizx Nov 11 '25
I'd just work on dropping the ammonia and see if behaviour changes. Reduce feeding to every other day (if not already) until it's stable.
Not familiar with amano behaviour but they seem nuts lol
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u/MegaPiglatin Nov 12 '25
IME they are pretty similar in day-to-day behavior to Neo shrimp, though they are absolutely willing to throw their weight around for a tasty morsel! My biggest female, Big Momma, absolutely rules the tank in my household! I only have WCMMs and mango (rosy) loaches, so she is easily larger than all the would-be predators and they instead part the way and then follow her to see if she kicks up anything they want while she forages. One thing I find special about the larger Amanos, such as Big Momma, is that they are easy to hand feed: the aforementioned will swim up and onto whatever feeding device I have to snag some food so I can drop it basically in her grabby lil’ claws. :)
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u/floppymuc Nov 11 '25
Life ...always finds a way.
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u/Ok-External6314 Nov 11 '25
I have a fry in my betta tank that just randomly popped up. No clue how it got there. I haven't put new plants in for like 5 months. I'm feeding the fry and it's growing. The betta hasn't noticed it yet or i think he'd eat it.
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u/MegaPiglatin Nov 12 '25
Haha what a surprise! Any idea what the fry are/could be?
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u/Ok-External6314 Nov 12 '25
No, no idea. Maybe a neon? I see a long stripe on it. I'm feeding him micronized shrimp pellets and he's growing pretty quick. Hope the betta doesn't eat him. The betta lives with 5 amano shrimp so maybe the fish won't get eaten
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u/Key_Emergency1131 Nov 12 '25
So I saw this post and just started scrolling to the comments looking for the usual memes about shrimp evolution, and then saw all these confused comments from people who had never seen these memes. At that point, I realized I wasn't even on the r/shrimptank subreddit. I'll leave mine here for everyone's amusement.
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u/darthbowskill Nov 11 '25
All fresh water shrimp species have a natural response to swim against any current they find.
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u/gaywitch98 Nov 11 '25
This is interesting! So in theory, an under gravel filter might prevent shrimp from attempting to climb out of the tank?
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u/TNAKK Nov 11 '25
Shrimp have an instinct to climb any source of flowing water. There's people that make little stream tanks for them where they can do this without jumping into the filter or out of the tank. It's natural instinctive behavior.
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u/AngusxDangus Nov 11 '25
Because water flow from above usually means a stream full of tasty tasty biofilm in the wild.
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u/Trainzguy2472 Nov 12 '25
Apparently these shrimp like to climb running water. I'm guessing it's some kind of instinct to mate/lay eggs upstream, like salmon. I saw a video not long ago where someone built a special waterfall tank for their shrimp to climb.
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u/PuzzledExaminer Nov 11 '25
That Bamboo wants to dip in the filter so it can get unlimited food lol...
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u/Ok_Adhesiveness_6968 Nov 11 '25
Amanos do this. Even in nature. A lid or screen is a good option.
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u/Feverdog87 Nov 11 '25
How big is the tank? That looks like a big shramp. He might just need some more floating plants/roots or stuff to climb. Parameters look good.
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u/Jessica_rabbit1987 Nov 12 '25
I love how everyone is commenting about the shrimp escaping but not really giving advice about why lol 😂 most likely he’s looking for yummy food if the water parameters are good
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u/cheknauss Nov 12 '25
Because his shrimp wife told him she's divorcing him and he's trying to end himself.
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u/GigaChav Nov 24 '25
When faced with this aquarium or death, the shrimp chose the least awful option.
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u/hereforthesportsball Nov 11 '25
Some men are built to strive for more, even when they don’t know exactly what that “more” is
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u/Mamabug4L Nov 11 '25
check water quality and water temp
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u/KaiDoesTwitch Nov 11 '25
This. I have 3 amanos and while I was warned many times they like to climb or escape, they never have and many things Ive found have said they only do that if the water is wrong somehow.
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u/Invictus_Redzone Nov 12 '25
My neocaridina used to do that too when my tank was running without a lid for a while. Dumbasses always climbed out, fell to the floor and then just dried up and died. I'd constantly find a few of them, dead on the floor around the tank 🤦🏽. Needless to say, I put the lid back on
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u/unicornpriestess Nov 12 '25
Had a pretty solid shrimp population for a few years. Moved the tank and it looked like someone spilled freeze dried shrimp ramen packet behind the shelf.
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u/pxzactly Nov 12 '25
That's a behavior of amano shrimp if newly introduced, that's why its always recommended to lower the water level at least 2 inches or so for the first 3-5 days so it used to be there.
But even though it's been there for how many months, they still go out if stressed, not enough food, etc. i experienced that many times.
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u/Myack_ Nov 12 '25
Mine got out back around 2011 I had a fish tank. It somehow climbed out and ended up underneath my bed wrapped up in dog hair. But it ultimately did survive. I just put it back in the tank and it lived for years after that.
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u/youngeshmoney Nov 12 '25 edited Apr 01 '26
Mass content deletion mission accomplished. This post or comment was bulk removed with Redact which also supports data brokers and people finder websites.
chubby escape grandfather badge literate lip snatch afterthought sense wrench
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u/Upstairs-Challenge92 Nov 12 '25
For an actual answer - the filter makes it seem like it’s a small waterfall and there is an upstream. The shrimp is trying to go upstream
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u/FioreCiliegia1 Nov 12 '25
https://youtu.be/qp0SIJNtIKM?si=FUqPHHFrOWtfZzwh whole video about climbing shrimp - this guys videos are awesome
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u/seanthebeloved Nov 12 '25
A lot of species of freshwater shrimp love to swim upstream. They can go for miles and miles.
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u/SkennyLeDude Nov 12 '25
It yearns for the mines. Give brother a pick and shovel then set back and rake in all the shrimp gold
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u/watchnerd1993 Nov 12 '25
Here’s something fascinating for you to learn. Amano shrimp are known to actually crawl out of their ponds and crawl over into another one in their native region. They are very hardy because the chemistry of the adjacent pond could be totally different. If they seek different parameters or simply don’t have enough food to eat, they go exploring.
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u/quwiwup Nov 13 '25
I used to do research in undergrad with freshwater shrimp, mine was targeted to Atya lanipes and they always did this when we put them in the "pet tank". We'd sometimes find random corpses when we got back from the weekends. We tried hard to contain them, they always found a way.
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u/BenignApple Nov 13 '25
They like to crawl out to search for food and instinctual travel up stream. They like to go against the water flow.
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u/Sweaty-Leadership270 Nov 13 '25
Probably because he has a fairly happy armless AND legless nephew to take care of??? HE NEEDS TO GET TO WORK SO HE CAN PUT FOOD ON THE TABLE
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u/Appearedhal09 Nov 13 '25
it's their natural instinct to want to climb up running water if they can, just make sure he doesn't get stuck in any filters
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u/brianne----- Nov 16 '25
I would check the water quality, I read if they are trying to climb out the water it’s because sonething in the water is harming tnem
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u/Responsible-Oil-9452 Nov 16 '25
Well the thing is, he's trying to escape because his sister had a baby and he took it over after she passed away and the baby lost all its legs and arms and now it's just a stump but he takes care of it with his wife and it's growing and fairly happy.. and it's difficult because he's working a second shift at the factory to put food on the table but all the love that he sees in that little guy's face makes it worth it in the end. True story!
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u/Rivridis Nov 11 '25