(contributed by Imke) Link Here
Ever have shrimps dying for no reason after awhile? Did you do a proper acclimation? or was it due to bacteria infection? Did you have a wipe of shrimps recently due to poor handling?
I read this on a forum and have decided to share this as I feel it is really important to learn and understand this. It will give you a better picture and offer a better preparation for shrimp keeping in the future.
Although most shrimp keepers think it is unnecessary, quarantine is a key to minimize losses. Within a few days or weeks after buying new shrimps and introducing them to existing breeding groups, some keepers moan about having fatal casualties every now and then. Shrimp have to not only acclimate to water parameters but to local bacterial colonies and other tank fauna, too. The bacterial count in tanks differs from 1,000-10,000,000/mL water while tap water should come with 10-100/mL (at temperature 22ºC). The unwanted increase of microbial count leads to pathogen bacteria.
So preparing the newly arrived shrimp to the bacterial count and composition is the most important intent of quarantine. It also protects old stock from parasites, diseases and fungal infections.
The following quarantine procedure relies on experiences from Kurt Mack, who has been breeding fish and shrimp for many years as a professional. The assumption is to get the shrimp used to local water parameter and to bacterial fauna step-by-step before introducing them into the target tank. A small tank (12-25 L) is sufficient as quarantine container; it should have no gravel but some hiding places and filtration.
Day 1
Introduce the shrimp into the quarantine tank. If the transport water isn’t contaminated by dead shrimp, you should use as much as possible for the first charge of the quarantine tank. Top off with suitable water which has similar parameter as the origin water. Use the drip method for acclimating if you have no suitable water. The parameters of the quarantine tank should match the transport water – whenever possible.
Days 3-14
Do water changes (30-50%) with aged tap water (dechlorinate, if necessary) every third day; shrimp gets acclimated to local water parameter.
Days 15-30
After the first step of acclimating to water parameter is successfully finished, go on and add water of the target tank to the quarantine tank daily. It should be an amount of 2% of the quarantine tank volume. Do it vice versa and add water from the quarantine tank to the target tank. Like this, every shrimp colony gets used to the unknown bacteria populations from the other.
