Tropical Fish Forum

Tropical Fish Keeping => Invertebrates - Shrimps and Snails => Topic started by: Sanjo on January 11, 2016, 04:10:44 PM

Title: Rescued my baby shrimp
Post by: Sanjo on January 11, 2016, 04:10:44 PM
Hello all and a Happy Newish Year!
Well as my shrimp tank was showing a slight trace of ammonia I decided (despite no gravel cleaner as it's given up the ghost) to do a water change, placing the pump, filter sponges etc into the waste bucket and pouring the waste water on top of them

I jugged the water into a clean waste bucket using a white jug and checked the jug water very very carefully as i remember Sue saying that on a number of occasions she's had to rescue shrimp from the change bucket.  I can be 99.9% certain that there were no shrimp in the jugs of waste water.

I didn't think to check the bucket until I'd taken out about 7 litres of water and was amazed to see at least 10 shrimp swimming around, not new borns either, although nothing like full grown.

Now I did look at the filters etc before I popped them into the bucket and there wasn't anything obvious on them, so where did they come from

I do have black sponge strips on the edge of the filter compartments (which I put there originally to stop the endlers that I had at the time from jumping into the space there) and again I'm sure that there wasn't anything on them.

I know realistically that they must have been on one of the sponges or filter cloth but I don't see how I could have missed them.

They aren't a bright red but they had enough colour for me to see them at the base of an orange bucket.

The only thing that I didn't check was the pump as I couldn't get it open (fingers aren't good today) but I did check that compartment and surely if they were living in the pump, which is extremely powerful for a 22 litre tank I would have seen some left in the water after the pump was removed. Could shrimp, little ones at that, live in a powerful pump without being mashed up?
Title: Re: Rescued my baby shrimp
Post by: Sue on January 11, 2016, 06:45:05 PM
As long as they avoided the impeller they could have survived in there. But I have found that shrimps can hide anywhere.
All my plants are fixed to wood, or wound through wood, so I lift out the bits with java fern, bolbitis etc attached to them, leaving just the wood with hornwort draped through it as that makes a mess everywhere if I lift it out. I shake each bit of wood before removing it, then dunk it in and out a couple of times before putting it in the bucket. After I've removed water into another bucket I then put the wood back in the tank, and there are always shrimps in the eighth of an inch of water that drained out of the plants. I've learned to just empty that bucket straight back into the tank.
Title: Re: Rescued my baby shrimp
Post by: Sanjo on January 11, 2016, 10:21:46 PM
Thanks Sue.
I'll have to be more careful next time, especially as I'm hoping to replace the gravel cleaner soon so am likely to "hoover" more of them up.
Title: Re: Rescued my baby shrimp
Post by: Sue on January 12, 2016, 10:29:01 AM
I don't have problems with gravel and gravel cleaners as I have sand and just use a length of tubing but I still hoover up even largish shrimps. They just don't want to move out of the way! It is compounded by the fact that I can't do a water change with the lid on as the access hole is too small. No lid = no light so I can't see that clearly where the shrimps are.