Water Change question (10gal)

[soritan]

First up, sorry for the horrifically 'newbie' post.

I have a 10gal for my 7 ghost shrimp. They're doing very well, 2 weeks going in and 0 loss. I've seen them shed a few times. They seem to have been relatively immature when I got them, because I could swear they're developing before my eyes.

Anyways, on to the stupid question:

I want to do a 30% water change weekly, or perhaps twice weekly. If my tank's water temperature tends to be in the low 82, and my water tends to be 74, would that be an example of using water that's too cold?

If this were a larger tank, I wouldn't think it would be, but since it's a 10gal, I'm not so sure.

Sorry for trying your patience.

[badflash]

30% seem pretty high if you are using any sort of filtration. I'd drop it down to 20%, or even 10%. Ghosts are pretty harty shrimp. The rule I use is not to drop the temps more than 5 degrees at a shot. Give the animals half an hour to adjust if you want to do more.

Be sure you condition your water with a good declorinator. Tap water is not good for shrimp.

[soritan]

Yeah, I know all about dechlor and the like -- but I have african dwarf frogs in there, and feed frozen blood worm, and at the moment I'm chasing around damselfly nymph. The 30% water change would likely continue until I've caught that stupid nymph.

I typically change between 1 and 2 gallons (I know, small number, but my ammonia and nitrites are usually at .25ppm and 0ppm respectively), once a week.

It's kind of a neat setup, when it works. I have one 2 gallon bowl, and two 1 gallon bowls. I gravel vac into the 2g bowl, and then add the water from the 1g bowls -- ooor, I just vac into one 1g bowl, and fill with one 1g bowl, I haven't figured out which works best for me, I actually think that the 1G program works quite well for me, as my tank seems to posess an impressive good-bacteria colony.

But unfortunately, I need to step up my gravel vacs to chase down that nymph.

Because the tank is so small, the water moves too quickly for me to adequately hunt down the nymph in such a short amount of time. I've tried doing many 1G vacs in a week, but that's quickly getting very tiresome. I thought of modifying my gravel vac with an airline tube, but if I did that, I wouldn't have enough suction to actually suck up that damselfly nymp, and if I actually did suck it up, it would get caught in the airline tubing.

Perching at the edge of the tank with a turkey baster, eyeing the gravel for sudden movement is only entertaining for about 3 minutes.

[Shady]

I agree...more than about 5 degrees difference requires some adjusting. Can you just run more warm water from the tap?

If your NH3 is hovering around 0.25ppm even after the tank has cycled, you probably have chloramine in the tap water. You can use products to "neutralize" it, but the best thing is to use a DI or RO unit to actually remove it. It's been my expereince in keeping inverts that any additive you put in th ewater can be problematic.

I'd do smaller, more frequent changes. This should minimize the problems you are having.

BTW, why not leave the Mayfly larvae there? Is it bothering your shrimp or something? Mayflies are detritivores, so they should leave shrimp alone....might be beneficial or at least interesting anyway.

[badflash]

Damselflys are not mayflys. They are an agressive preditor and will eat small shimp or fish given a chance. I got one in a load of shrimp and thought it was pretty cool until it snatched one of my pets. They grow up to be a type of dragon fly.

[Mustafa]

I agree...more than about 5 degrees difference requires some adjusting. Can you just run more warm water from the tap?

This will kill your shrimp in most cases. Fish are not that sensitive so they are fine with this method of temperature control, but the dissolved metals in the warm water pipes mean certain death for shrimp, especially in older buildings. I am speaking from experience.

[Mustafa]

I want to do a 30% water change weekly, or perhaps twice weekly. If my tank's water temperature tends to be in the low 82, and my water tends to be 74, would that be an example of using water that's too cold?

This would work just fine with regards to temperature, although I'd recommend a 25 percent water change weekly or twice a week to minimize the water chemistry changes induced by the fresh water.

In any case even if you did the 30 percent water change with 74 degree water while your tank water is 82 degrees, you'd end up with water that is about 79.6 degrees warm. So, not much of a change and in a few hours it will be back to 82. But still, I think 20-25 percent change is plenty.

[soritan]

Mustafa, you rock.

If I could order from your shop, I would. I really want cherry shrimp, but you don't ship to my location. So I will have to wait for my local pet store to receive a live shipment. Apparently our last shipment only lived 2 days before passing.

I harbor the secret hope that one of my african dwarf frogs saw the damselfly nymph, and ate it on reflex. Because my tank has soo many nooks and crannies, I'm having a really hard time locating it. What's keeping my frogs and shrimps happy, is alas keeping my damselfly nymph happy.

[Shady]

Damselflys are not mayflys. They are an agressive preditor and will eat small shimp or fish given a chance. I got one in a load of shrimp and thought it was pretty cool until it snatched one of my pets. They grow up to be a type of dragon fly.

Sorry Badflash, I didn't read that right. You're very correct...damselfly larvae are predators.

[soritan]

Hah! I caught them!

I was rearranging my tank a little bit, and they crawled out. They met with the turkey baster of doom and were disposed of.