Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Over the summer we had a record-setting heatwave in Minnesota. Despite my best attempts, the temperature in my tank rose to 90 degress for several days in a row.

Remarkably, most of the residents of the tank seemed unphased by the hight temps. My amanos and other (unknown) caridina sp. did fine, and the cherry reds had a bit of a baby boom -- in fact, I wound up turning the tank heater up to 82 permanantly as a result.

The lone bumblebee shrimp in the tank, however, perished as soon as the water warmed up. No suprise there, I guess.

So, I'm wondering -- given the risk of another hot summer, what species of shrimp can I safely keep? For 350 days out of the year I can keep a tank at a steady 76... but I'm guessing that if I had e.g. crystal reds they would be living on borrowed time, and immediately die come the dog days.

What experiences do the rest of you have with shrimp surviving (or not surviving) temporary periods of high temperature? Could I keep green shrimp? Or tigers?

Hi Eraserbones, I've pondered your same thoughts too and have stuck to the more tolerant to heat species so far. I too have those two weeks or so out of the year where it gets too hot. Though not quite 90! Using fans, I've managed to keep my tanks at the most, 82 and under.

What I've done is looked at the shrimp varieties page and looked at the upper ranges for them. Whenever there's a species that says "will not tolerate temperatures that are too high," a red light goes on for me, as much as I'd like to have that species. I've actually pondered a chiller, but those are pretty expensive.

Wish I could tell you but I really couldn't say if Green shrimp or Tigers could survive a temporary 90 degrees. That sounds like pretty rough going for those poor guys, and for most shrimp, I would think.

-GB