Quarantining Shrimp

(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.

Worm Cluster on Cherry's head

Recently, I noticed something on 1 of my cherry's head. At first I though it was some food that was caught between it's eye, but on closer examination, I realized it was a cluster of worms! EWWW!

A very blurry picture I got off the web that resembled what I encountered. After searching the web for a bit, apparently these are parasites known as "scutariella japonica"


After reading on how to save my cherry, I decided to catch the little guy and give him a salt bath!


I started of with a low concentration of salt, I waited about 10 seconds and the worm did not swim off, hence I added a high dosage, about 1 teaspoon for 1 cup of water. This time, the worms start to wriggle off the shrimp and die. 


There were no noticeable ill effect on the cherry shrimp (maybe due to their hardy nature).


It has been 2 weeks now and my shrimp is swimming around healthily with no more worms between its eyes.


What I read was these parasites usually occur on adult shrimps only. Reason was that they don't mold as often due to their max size, resulting in parasites! 


At least there was a quick and easy way to get rid of these nasty worms.


Cheers!


[Kevyn]

[Article] Shrimp Artificial Egg Hatching

I have stumbled onto this topic once or twice by my friends and I would like to share something that I have found on Shrimp now! I did not write this and credits to seetharam from ShrimpNow! link here Artificial Egg Hatcher


Written below is how it is done;


During the course of my experience keeping inverts, there was a time when i used to keep dwarf crayfish and when the female used to get berried I would transfer the female to a seperate tank and during this process she used to drop some eggs. In one such situation i decided to salvage the dropped eggs and try to hatch them artificially. I have often come across threads where hobbyists have lost shrimps that were berried and wanted to salvage the eggs and try to hatch them artificially. So i decided to share the contraption that i had come up with, though i dont have it with me anymore, i have shown it in the form of a diagram. I was able to successfully hatch 50% of the eggs that i had salvaged using this contraption.


Things You Need to Make This:


1. 2 Ltr Empty Plastic Pet Bottle (This has to be very clean)
2. Plastic Airline Tubing Connector
3. Airline Tubing
4. Airstone
5. Aerator
6. A Fine Mesh


How To Make the Contraption


The Diagram of the final contraption is below and is pretty self explanatory, So refer the diagram and go through the steps for easy understanding.

Step 1: Take the pet bottle, clean it very well and cut the bottle right in the middle. The top portion will be your hatcher and the bottom portion will work as a stand.


Step 2: Make a hole in the cap of the bottle such that the plastic airline connector fits snugly without any leaks or gaps. Also make a hole in the side of the bottom portion of the bottle and run an airline tubing through it.


Step 3: Place the top portion of the bottle that you have cut off in an inverted fashion into the bottom portion and connect the airline tubing and airstone as shown in the diagram.


Step 4: Take a fine mesh and place it at the open end of the contraption such that it is in a "U" shaped sack form as shown in the diagram. The mesh can be secured around the bottle using a rubber band.


Step 5: Fill the inverted portion of the bottle using water from the tank to a level such that it fills the mesh as well.


Step 6: Place the eggs that you have salvaged in the mesh. Run the aerator, you may need to control the output of the air bubbles such that the air bubbles rising up gently disturbs the mesh and hence the eggs in the mesh. This will achieve pretty much the same result of the female fanning the eggs.


In cases where you would need the water temp in the contraption to be low and your room temp is high , the top portion can be placed in the tank itself on which you have a chiller or cooling fan so that the temp of the water in the contraption will be the same as the tank. You can use a clip to secure the top portion of the contraption to the glass of the aquarium.


With that you are done, and now you have to wait. Keep a watch on the eggs everyday, If you see any eggs infected with fungus, remove those eggs immediately. Ideally you should see the eggs showing changes as they mature. I have also noticed that all eggs sometimes dont hatch at the same time, so as and when the shrimplets arrive, transfer them to a holding container or a seperate tank based on what you want to do.


Conclusion: Please remember , this is not a fool proof method to Artifical Egg Hatching and does not gaurantee that the eggs will hatch for sure. There may be a possibility that you may loose all the eggs due to various reasons like fungal infection for example. This method just gives you an opportunity to save some of the offspring. I hope this helps people on this forum.


Thanks.


[Kevyn]

3 Steps to healthy shrimps

Article Written by Kevyn

There are certain things that you need to look out for in shrimp keeping hobby, but there are 3 most important things that stand out from the rest. Importance of the following will ensure happy breeding shrimps!

1. Temperature

As we all know from our research we know roughly the temperature range which our shrimps are capable of surviving in.

For E.g Cherry = 23-28Deg C // Crystal Red Shrimp = 20-25 Deg C

However, due to the weather in the Tropics, we will not be able to achieve our desirable temperature with the unforgiving heat emitted from the sun. Hence artificial chilling is introduced into this hobby.

Of course you may argue that the shrimps are fine in adapting in a higher temperature than it is suppose to. But have you ever felt comfortable when you are sweating most of the time? That’s how a shrimp feels when they are in a high temperature environment; uncomfortable. This will ultimately affect their coloration and their growth habits.

So ask yourself if you would want to introduce a cooling fan (-1/-2 Deg C) or a chiller(which is very costly) to allow your shrimps to show its full coloration. Which will be your choice? The cost will be your main clue.

2. Water Parameters

How often do you change your Aquarium water? Recommendation will be to do a weekly change of at least 10% - 30% water. Shrimps like clean water which does not have a lot of harmful bacteria and parasites eating into their shells, affecting their health. Every time a water change is introduced, do remember to use “aged water”, where you “seat” the water in a bucket for min 48 hours, to ensure that all chlorine have dissolved.

Do remember to add anti-chlorine as well to speed up the process (P/S DO NOT ADD ANTI CHLORINE DIRECT TO AQUARIUM). There are certain products out there that also helps build a better bacteria colony and breaks down harmful substances like Ammonia. A product that I would recommend will be Mosura BT-9. I will touch more on that if I get requests for it.

3. Lighting

As we know, shrimps from the wild has a natural environment where they have at least 12hours sunlight and night a day. Hence we would like to mimic nature as much as possible by having at least a form of light source for the shrimps. Be it tank by the window or having a LED light hanging over the top of the aquarium will suffice. We would like to have enough light for up to 6-8hrs, this will help the plants in photosynthesis, which helps the tank from breaking down ammonia and improving oxygen content.

Hope this helps in keeping your shrimps happy and alive!

[Article] Newcomer For Shrimps

Article by Kevyn

Why Shrimps?


At a certain point of time shrimp keeping will become of interest to you and you may be hesitating to start on this wonderful hobby. So you may ask why shrimps and not fishes? First of all, shrimps are not easier to raise compared to other high quality fishes. They still require Tender Loving Care and your every bit of patience in raising them. With the right amount of care, be assured that your shrimps will not disappoint you with their vibrant colors. The minute actions of the shrimp community foraging on plants will amaze the majority of us. With Aqua Scaping being so popular these days, shrimps will also be an excellent addition to any design that you may think of!

With these in mind, do read up more on shrimp keeping before you start keeping them in your tank!