Moving My Cherry Shrimp

[deanrar]

I have just bought a 25 gallon tank for my cherry shrimp as i'm going to start them breeding in a couple of days wen i will be getting some pregnant females to go with my 15 or so males so i thought they could leave the little 5 gal tank they are in now.
The problem is i have only got 1 heater for the 2 tanks and i was wanting to do the drip method to acclimatise them to the new tank (which has no heater at the moment), so would they be ok to cool down while the other tank heats up for probably hours (as i know they sometimes have to put up with that when sent places).

Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated and its not as simple as just buying a new heater for nearly 2 weeks when i get paid as i literally have no cash on my cards (spent it on the tank lol).

Dean.

 

[GoldLenny]

What is your room temperature and is it stable?

I keep my Cherry Shrimp tank unheated at room temperature around 75F and they are doing great and babies are hatching like crazy.

If your room temp goes below 70F on a regular basis, then it might be better to heat the tank. I've read they can live below 70F but they don't breed as well.

As far as acclimating them, are you planning on keeping the 5G going also? If not, you could clone the 5G into the 25G so you would keep the water parameters as close as possible and keep the filter cycled. I would move almost everything (1/2 of the water, shrimp, filter, decorations, heater) to a temporary tub/bucket while you finish setting up the 25G.

If you don't have a large enough temporary holding tub/bucket, prior to making the change, I would do a series of 20% PWC's on the 5G tank every hour or two, to get them acclimated to very fresh clean (new) water like they will encounter in the 25G tank. Then move 4G of their 5G water and the shrimp over to the 25G. Then add a gallon of tap/source water (dechlored of course) every hour to the 25G and start the transfer of your substrate as described in the below paragraph.

This would be like a 20% PWC. Wait an hour, then add another 20% (1G). Keep doing this till you are at 10G. Then increase it to 2G every hour. This would be like drip acclimation but on a larger scale. You wouldn't be adding more than 20% at any one time so it should not alter the water chemistry very much at any one time.

Now, as far as your substrate and plants... what do you have? If you have typical gravel, use a colander/strainer in the 5G tank and use a slotted spatula or spoon to pick up the gravel and put it in the colander until you have all of the gravel off the bottom of the 5G. Then will allow the gravel to drain most of the detritus out before moving it to your new tank. You could also use some dechlored water to pour over the colander to rinse the gravel a little more. Then move the colander of gravel to the 25G and pour out the gravel. You may get some cloudiness but it will quickly settle. Then finish setting up the 25G and continue adding no more than 20% dechlored tap water per hour till full.

This will be an all day adventure but it's better than shocking the critters with a drastic water parameter change. I've done this with fish several times when upgrading tank size and never experienced any cycling problems. I've never tried it with shrimp which are much smaller so you will have to be a little careful to give them time to get out the way as you add the gravel and move things around.

 

[deanrar]

over the last week i have been changing about 20-30% water changes from the small tank to the big tank and put alot of the gravel in a net with the new filter media in the big tank to speed things up as i wont actually be using the gravel from the small tank as i am using sand in the big tank.
the temperature in my room does fluctuate a bit generally because my housemates keep turning the heating on without telling me but i never gets very cold although the water in the big tank feels alot colder than in the small tank and that is the main problem wondering if they will be ok not having the heating for a while when the big tank heats up.
oh and i'm not really sure what my room temp is to be honest.

 

[fatboy]

MY cherrie are in a tank kept at around 72f and they are doing fine. I've kept them in an unheated vase for months with the temp around 60-65f and they survived but didn't grow quickly. One of the females did have babies though.

They do fine at low temps for long periods so would last in an unheated indoor tank until you can buy a small, cheap heater to keep the temp stable. You can 'borrow' the heater from your exisiting tank to raise temp to around 70 if you want. In an unheated room I bet the temp is at least 70f anyway at this time of year, unless you're cooling it. Before you bother moving the heater, try letting the water settle at room temp and then measure it. You might not need to switch the heater around at all.

Incidentally, I've got some outside at the moment and they are thriving. They're in a 50 litre storage container with leaf litter. No filter, heater or water changes, just a screen cut-out so water can run off when the tub fills with rain water. It amazes me how hardy they are.

 

[GoldLenny]

over the last week i have been changing about 20-30% water changes from the small tank to the big tank and put alot of the gravel in a net with the new filter media in the big tank to speed things up as i wont actually be using the gravel from the small tank as i am using sand in the big tank.
the temperature in my room does fluctuate a bit generally because my housemates keep turning the heating on without telling me but i never gets very cold although the water in the big tank feels alot colder than in the small tank and that is the main problem wondering if they will be ok not having the heating for a while when the big tank heats up.
oh and i'm not really sure what my room temp is to be honest.

With a 25G, the water temp will remain more constant. It won't change as rapidly as on a 5G tank. As long as your room temp stays between 70-80F, I don't think you would need heater. Besides, if your roommate turns the heat up, the heater wouldn't be on anyhow. I understand if you would want to keep the tank at say, 75F, so even if roomie turned heat up, the tank would only change by a few degrees. I think you would be OK in the short term though until you decide to get a heater. Remember when heater shopping, it would be better to get two smaller heaters rather than one correct sized one. This way, if either heater fails in the on or off position, it would not severely affect the tank temp. With a full sized heater, if it got stuck in the on position, it could easily raise the water temp into the high 80's or even into the 90's rather quickly.

I keep mine at room temp but my home is centrally heater and cooled so the temp stays between 74-78F most of the time. I try to keep it at 74F but sometimes it gets too hot down here and I live on the 2nd floor of a condo building. My goldfish prefer the low 70's.

 

[deanrar]

since my last messgae i have been acclimitising the shrimp (and mts and apple snails) and have just got them in and they have all started eating the cucumber and pleco wafers straight away which makes me feel a bit better but will keep checking on them for the next few days to be really confident they are comfortable plus i found loads and loads of baby cherry shrimp in the small tank hideing so thats a bonus.

 

[GoldLenny]

Deanrar,

I know what you mean about the babies. When I did my PWC this week, I saw dozens and dozens of 1/4" little shrimp foraging around in the gravel. Normally I use a media bag over the intake of my gravel vacuum hose and prod around in the gravel to get up any shrimp poop but I just had to do a PWC without vacuuming the gravel since there were so many babies running around.

I have a feeling, I'll be upgrading my 10G to my 20G soon.