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I currently own a 10 gal tank with 2 adult cherry red shrimps (used to have 10 but i'll tell the tale another time) and around 11 baby shrimplets.
Recently I have discovered that there is a leak in my 10 gal tank. The leak does not seem to be huge but water seems to seep out little by little. I need some advice on how to cover this leak !! Preferably by not disturbing the shrimps at all !
I really hope I don't need to change the entire tank since I don't think the shrimplets can't handle the stress.

Any comments are welcome

Can you tell where the leak is?

If it is near the top them maybe you can just lower the water level. Unfortunately if it is lower or you are unable to locate it you will have no choice but to empty the tank and replace it or resilicone it. The baby shrimp should not be to badly effected by the move. I have moved baby cherries around quite a bit without issue.

Inspect all areas of the tank carefully? I had a tank develop a what I thought was a slow leak but on closer inspection it was the power cord on my fliter that had become trapped under the filter and was causing water to slowly run down the side.

Good luck.

Hey Thanks for replying BiffMalawi
I'm sure its not a power filter leakage, since I use under box filter.
I have a rough idea where the leak is, I think it is the far left corner of the tank. But still, I cannot locate the exact part which is leaking...
That means I might need to empty the tank.

What procedure should I take to empty the tank??
How should I take the baby shrimplets out?
How can I seal the leak?
I don't want to lose any shrimp since I lost 8 of my shrimps last time I emptied it.
I am a newbie to pet shrimps and also sealing leak tanks.
Please help !!

Whatever you decide to do, a new tank or a temperary tank, be sure to use the water you are currently housing the shrimp in! This has worked well for me whenever I have moved my shrimp or started a new tank for them. I would also keep some or all of the plants/substrate with the shrimp as they still have beneficial microorganisms and will help maintain the water conditions. I hope it works out well for you and please keep us updated.

Hi,

The way I moved my tank was to get a tub or bucket big enough to hold most of the water. For my big tanks I use a clean 45 gallon plastic trash barrel that I have wheels to go under it for easy moving (I use this to get enough water for water changes warmed to room temp in the winter as well). I have a bucket that is big enough to put a sponge filter down in and I filled it with water (if they were going to be in the bucket for awhile I put the filter in). I used my cleaning python to siphon the water into the larger container and used a large fish net to move any moss in the tank. I figured this way any shrimp in the plants wouldn't be lost in the transfer. Then I use a smaller net to catch any other shrimp that were left in the tank. For the tiny babies I use a flashlight and a pipette that came with a test kit to transfer them. It can be pretty tedious, but I have successfully transfered tiny babies that I couldn't get in a net this way. If you aren't going to be leaving them in the bucket for very long I would put any babies in something smaller that would be easier to transfer them back into the main tank. I have a plastic kitchen storage container that is rectangular that works really good. It is the right width for the smaller net and is deep enough that the shrimp can easily swim out of the net.

There are probably as many ways to do this as there are people on the board. Maybe this will give you some ideas on what would work in your situation. Good luck getting your tank repaired.

I would suggest you get a new tank.

I have never siliconed at tank but but proper aquarium safe silicone has to cost a fair bit so it is not a much cheaper option. Secondly it will take time to cure before you can put water in perhaps even a couple of days which means you have to rehouse the shrimp properly for this time period.

Get some containers like 5 gallon buckets. Fill one with tank water, transfer live plants and any shrimp and fish you can catch to this bucket. Tranfer out the rst of the water to the other bucket, put gravel into new tank put in water from bucket 2 and in live plants and other decor, catch shrimp and fish add remaining water back in.

This way you preserve all of your good bacteria, livestock spend minimum amount of time out of a tank and if you use a gravel vac to remove water you should get most of any tiny shrimp you could not catch and remaining may sruvive the ride over in the gravel.

Then you can take your time resiliconing the other tank. Probably a skill we would all benefit from having. Best of all then you have another tank for......... MORE SHRIMPS.lol

I, too, would suggest just buying a brand new tank. A 10 gal tank (just tank, nothing else) should probably cost you under $20, I would think. A good tube of aquarium silicone sealant will probably cost half that, so in the end you are only spending an additional $10 or so, and for that price you avoid all the hassle of trying to drain & dry out the tank enough to put on the sealant, apply it properly, give it time to cure, and then (hope) everything worked out correctly. The fact that you cannot even pin down the exact location of the leak makes that whole process even more uncertain.

So buy a new tank, and then keep the old one and turn it into a terrarium or reptile house or something like that. Heck, if you advertise it on Craig's List or something like that as a "reptile home," you could probably sell it for $10 and thus buying a new tank will end up not costing you a penny more than trying to fix the old one.

(A local pet store near me actually occasionally has sales where they sell 10 gal tanks for $10.99, or 10 gal starter packages with a basic sponge filter and heater for $19.99. So deals are out there if you can find them!)

Thanks for everyone's advice on this topic.
I am very lucky as I found out that the leak should be at the top corner of the tank.
I noticed that if I put around 8-10mm underneath the black border, the side of the tank is completely dry.
Everythings looking good now, shrimps are fine, tanks is running clean with power head and box filter.

For you guy's information, I lost around 8 shrimps because of a water change.
The water was contaminated with I believed to be Planaria Worms.
Soon after the water change, shrimps kept dying one by one, but worms were still present.

Since I have no gravel, I decided to install my powerhead in my tank.
The increased water flow actually reduced to little to none worms in the tank.
The worms couldn't swim freely in the tank causing them to get trapped in my box filter.
The suction of powerhead is netted with a cloth to prevent shrimplets from getting sucked in and hurting them.
The shrimps seems to be enjoying the new strong currents too.

In the future if you set up any new(used) tanks, its a good idea to just fill the tank 1/4 to 1/2 inch of water level and see how level the tank is. Your problem seems to have happened becouse the tank was filled in a warped position or it had too much water in it when moved. If you need to raise a corner with a shim it's a lot easier to do with a shallow water level and easier to judge the "levelness". Your leak is still there from the sounds of it, and it's only going to get worse with time. I would plan ahead and get another container ready so you can properly fix the tank(easy and cheap to do). It will take about a week to cure before you can add water. The repair costs less than $10 where I live, maybe around $5, and in the end you still have enough silicone to repair MANY other tanks. PM me if you would like to know how to go about fixing your tank as I'd be glad help you out.(been there myself)