ImBoB Posted November 17, 2016 Report Share Posted November 17, 2016 Hello everyone. Currently I have a 30 L fish tank that has been healthy and running for about 6 months now, and i have a shrimp only 50L tank that has been running for a week. I seeded one sponge filter in the fish tank for 2 weeks and the other one i put in the shrimp tank when i filled it up, so now i placed the fish tank seeded sponge filter in my shrimp tank so it has 2 sponge filters, i transfered one plastic plant from the fish tank,squeezed out a huge amount of cotton wool filtration from the fish tank into the shrimp tank so it transfers bacteria, some bio balls and a bit of its gravel. I wanted to get an instant cycle in the shrimp tank but i guess i didnt get one? My jbl 6in one testers say i have around 10 mg/L NO3 and 0.5-2 mg/l NO2, while the fish tank is fully cycled the testers say 20 mg/l no3 and 0 no2 (when i bought the testers i didnt see they dont test for ammonia..im dumb). So now this is the problem..my family ordered some snowball shrimp for me as a present, and they arrived yesterday, i left them in their double bagged packaging and let them acclimate to the room temp (when they came they were FREEZING), all are alive still in the bag, the order was for 20 and i got like 26 + some babies....so what do i do with them now? If i slowly drip acclimate them will they still die from the no2 and possibly ammonia in the empty shrimp tank that appears to not be cycled? Should i put all 26 of them in the fish tank and then wait for the shrimp tank to cycle and then move them? Around half of the shrimp are very small so my fish would probably eat them...really have no idea what to do, any help is appreciated. I thought maybe split them put 13 of the bigger ones with the fishes and the rest of the little ones in the shrimp tank and see if they survive? I feel sorry for the shrimps xd dont want em to die Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrimple minded Posted November 17, 2016 Report Share Posted November 17, 2016 I'm not sure what you are doing for water (tap or remineralizing RO), but I would think you could perform a 100% water change on the shrimp tank (to remove NO2/NO3) and get away with adding the shrimp directly..........with the pre-cycled filters and mulm bombing there should be enough surviving beneficial bacteria to support the very low bioload of 26 shrimp. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImBoB Posted November 17, 2016 Author Report Share Posted November 17, 2016 My tap water is extremely hard, has 20GH , and PH of 8+, so i used 1/3 tap with 2/3 distilled water (i dont have a RO unit). Today I had done a 50% water change but it didnt seem to do anything since the tests were same as the ones before the water change. Do I make a 100% water change, literally drain the water till none is left or can I leave some behind, also wouldnt that remove some of the BB too? Thank you for the quick answer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrimple minded Posted November 17, 2016 Report Share Posted November 17, 2016 Yes, as your thinking, a ~90-95% water change (as much as you can). The goal would be minimizing nitrite prior to shrimp addition. In my opinion, the health of your incoming stock and their acclimation to your water parameters is going to be bigger factor in survival than how cycled your tank is currently. Depending on their originating parameters (vs your current), acclimate accordingly. A lot of shrimpers have moved shrimp into "uncycled, but seeded filter" tanks with excellent survival, and many have moved shrimp into "uncycled" tanks (without seeding) without detrimental effect. I recently moved ~100+ Neos into a 10g tank, fully uncycled, with no losses. As a disclaimer, I like to stay consistent with water changes, and that may be part of the equation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImBoB Posted November 18, 2016 Author Report Share Posted November 18, 2016 Thank you sir, just one more thing, changed around 95% of the water just now, i'll start acclimating the shrimps in 2 hours when the tank temperature stabilises, how often do i need to change the water, and how much of it for a 50l? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrimple minded Posted November 18, 2016 Report Share Posted November 18, 2016 I personally do ~25% water changes around every 2 weeks. When I've moved shrimp into uncycled tanks I've probably performed water changes more frequently, probably ~once weekly. I use remineralized RO so I am able to closely match my tank parameters with new water..........I only mention this because I've never "blended" tap/distilled water and would imagine maintaining consistent parameters could be challenging. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImBoB Posted November 18, 2016 Author Report Share Posted November 18, 2016 Thank you for all the help, im forever grateful Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrimple minded Posted November 18, 2016 Report Share Posted November 18, 2016 Hope everything works out for you. Welcome to The ShrimpSpot! ImBoB 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImBoB Posted November 19, 2016 Author Report Share Posted November 19, 2016 Last night the shrimps started swimming around the tank like crazy, this morning i found a little one was swimming upside down and was bumping into things, two hours later he died, then again now it happened with a medium sized one and it died in 30 minutes. The bigger ones seem to be doing fine, eating and hanging out on the sponge filters, tho some of the big ones sometimes flicker around the tank like they are trying to run away from something, should I be worried? There is 16 females with saddles and 3 males, if all the males die there goes my colony Very weird, while they were in that shipping bag with little water they didnt die but now they do ... The water differences werent noticable too, before i started drip acclimating them i tested my water and the shipping bag water, same KH, same GH, same no2 no3, only difference was that their water was PH 6.4 and mine is 7.2, but i drip acclimated them for 2-3 hours for 250% of the water (1L of their water and 2.5L of mine) with around 3-4 drips per second. Does the tank need more oxygen or are 2 sponge filters enough? All this time i thought distilled water doesnt contain chloride, googled a little bit and found out that it MIGHT have chloride in it..well shit..i only dechlorinated the tap water, if it was chloride doing this, wouldnt all of the shrimps die really quick (they have been in the tank for around 20 hours now) Incase i need to dechlorinate, can i do it while shrimps are in the tank, which product should i use? (my country doesnt have prime) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGlassBox Posted November 19, 2016 Report Share Posted November 19, 2016 I wouldn't be too worried yet. Some shrimp arrive alive, but for some reason just don't transition well and die a few days later... Perhaps they just weren't as hardy as the others and didn't cope well with the shipping stress and it weakened them. A few losses can be considered normal. It doesn't always happen, but a lot of times it does. The bag was pretty cold when you received it remember? So don't panic yet. Maybe some of the babies will be boys! And if those girls all have saddles, some of them will molt shortly. As long a 1 guy is still alive, she'll get berried. Shrimple minded 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImBoB Posted November 20, 2016 Author Report Share Posted November 20, 2016 Was this a molt or another dead one that got eaten overnight? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrimple minded Posted November 20, 2016 Report Share Posted November 20, 2016 'Tis a molt! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGlassBox Posted November 20, 2016 Report Share Posted November 20, 2016 Woot! Start looking for a berried female... She'll probably be hiding somewhere. Mine like to hide out in the moss when they're berried. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImBoB Posted November 20, 2016 Author Report Share Posted November 20, 2016 Another molt woooo, today no deaths so far I tried feeding them with a spirulina tablet yesterday, dropped it inside the tank for like 1 hour, only one shrimp came to eat it and didnt eat much, also today blanched a zucchini and dropped it in for an hour, none of the shrimps seemed to be interested in any of the food that i try to give them lol. Is the biofilm they eat off the sponge filters enough food for them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGlassBox Posted November 20, 2016 Report Share Posted November 20, 2016 Woot! If you've even got 1 boy in there you'll be having berried females any time! Start looking for them! They'll have a clutch of eggs under their tail... And they'll probably hide. And yes, they love biofilm. Mine like to hang out on my sponge filter and graze on it. You might try breaking the tablet in half or quarters and leave it in for a couple of hours or overnight so it softens up. Some folks put it in a little dish to help keep thinks tidy and for clean up. But they usually won't eat hard food until it softens up a bit. And sometimes it can take them a while to find it. Let us know if you find any berried ladies! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImBoB Posted November 22, 2016 Author Report Share Posted November 22, 2016 A little update 5 more molts in the past 24h, all of the ladies are still saddled but one in particular, i think that she is berried, cant see the eggs yet because she probably got fertilised just now so her eggs are still travelling to her lower abdomen, she has been hiding and being very cautious, heres some pics, cant see her saddle and she is too big to be a male so im 100% she is gonna be berried in under a week Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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