Would Water Changes Really Harm Shrimps?

[senemedar]

Aww, I sorry to hear about your shrimp

Like coursair stated, that's a pretty high amount of nitrate for shrimp. Is the tank appropriately stocked? (overstocked?) those 50% water changes could be killing the shrimp itself. Do you use prime? Some nitrate absorbers are floating plants, and fast growing plants. Some GREAT floating plants are water lettuce, dwarf water lettuce, Salvinia, frogbit, and duckweed. Duckweed works the best at sucking up nitrates, but can be quite annoying because of it's small size and fast reproductive rate (doubles in 48 hours) Some fast growing plants that are nitrate sponges are hornwort. Cabomba, and pennywort a dirty filter can also cause nitrates.

First of all-- IT'S ALIVE!!!!! Today I've seen my RCS for the first time in a few days, after her playing strange, but it's OK, munching the algaes as usual
Thanks to everybody for your kind words.

But other thing has caught my eye in the mean time-- this line, that "water changes could be killing the shrimps itself"... How can that be? After all we've talked about water quality and purity, how can the water changes be harmful for shrimps?

 

[alLexX]

i dont beleive that. unless your water source contains copper or ammonia/nitrite/relly high nitrate it wont kill them as long as the temp isnt really far off

 

[Cornstar]

+1 on Alex.

Doing water changes would not hurt unless you have some toxic tap water.

 

[Austin.b]

I've had many shrimp keepers tell me that large water changes in a shrimp tank will stress them out. Since I've been doing 20% water changes instead of 75%, I have not had any shrimp dead after a water change. I asked about you using prime, because I've HEARD that the dechlorinater I was using was causing an NH3 spike. Thus causing the dead shrimp after. This was all happening in my 10G RCS tank by the way

 

[jetajockey]

I do 50-75% wc on shrimp tanks, never had an issue.

I guess it's a bad idea to do really big wc if your tap is way different than the tank or if its unreasonably harsh.

Doing really small wcs means more frequency, which is ok if you have the time.

 

[MABJ]

Like stated, there are variables which could make it stressful/dangerous.

I doubt the stress of a change is bad for them. Shrimp live on the bottom, they don't really have the issue of swimming room that others have.

Id say it's tap nitrates, stirred up substrate junk and temperature swings. Maybe even PH.

Nobody knows lol.

 

[senemedar]

LOL! And one would think that this is just a water change
In my case it's a community tank - large 165 litres - with lots of fishes in there and just a few shrimps, so there's always a lot of room, even with a water change. I figured out how to match temperature of the water I'm adding to a tank's water. So the only stressing thing would be a higher nitrates, but that's unavoidable since my tap water is reading around 10ppm.

 

[Austin.b]

LOL! And one would think that this is just a water change
In my case it's a community tank - large 165 litres - with lots of fishes in there and just a few shrimps, so there's always a lot of room, even with a water change. I figured out how to match temperature of the water I'm adding to a tank's water. So the only stressing thing would be a higher nitrates, but that's unavoidable since my tap water is reading around 10ppm.

WHat about the pH of the new water?

 

[Coursair]

LOL! And one would think that this is just a water change
In my case it's a community tank - large 165 litres - with lots of fishes in there and just a few shrimps, so there's always a lot of room, even with a water change. I figured out how to match temperature of the water I'm adding to a tank's water. So the only stressing thing would be a higher nitrates, but that's unavoidable since my tap water is reading around 10ppm.

As long as you keep Nitrates as low as you can. 10ppm isn't bad, and with parameters stable then they can do well. Big or small water changes are fine as long as the water chemistry isn't going through big changes. AFAIK.

I've even done colder water changes to stimulate my Corydoras habrosus to breed. My Shrimp were all fine, but it's a 10g so temp drops are temporary, and will get back to normal easily.

High Nitrates have killed my Shrimp faster than anything else, I was sick and missed my PWCs at the time. I didn't lose all, but any loss is big to me.

 

[Cichlid Kid]

Thankfully rcs and most other shrimps like planted setups because I've noticed my rcs are really sensitive to nitrates, almost as much in fact as my gbr's are.

 

[senemedar]

WHat about the pH of the new water?

The pH is stable at 7.6, as I use tap water all the time and there is nothing on the tank that would change it in any way.
Even with water changes my Nitrates are floating around 20ppm, and it doesn't look like I can hanger it with anything I try, I suppose because of the slightly higher tap water original nitrates; but apparently because they're stable the shrimps (and everyone else) are doing fine.