Our cleaner shrimp molted – always a good thing because it means he’s healthy, eating and growing (as far as I know, shrimp are like lobsters and keep growing throughout life and molting once their exoskeletons get too small). Our old shrimp used to molt right after producing eggs, which happened quasi-monthly. However, it always gives me a rush of grief, because I’m walking by the tank and see what looks like a dead shrimp (Oh, no!!) and it takes a moment for my brain to sort out that the other one’s still there and acting like his normal, alive self.
We leave the shed skeleton in the tank, and it always seems to disappear in a day or so. But in the meantime, it’s such a broken, fascinating thing to look at.
Life, in all its forms, is amazing.