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Neocaridina temp raised too fast. Insight?


CalmedByFish
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I'm new to neocaridina, so I don't know if I have a problem.

The tank's been steady at 72, but the heater didn't shut itself off last night (we're all surprised, I know 🙄), and the temp wooshed from 72 to 80 in 15 hours.

The shrimp are young. Many females have been saddled for weeks, but I haven't seen any berried. 

I removed the heater, and took the lid off to let it cool. Is there anything else I should do? They appear to be acting fine, but I've heard this can cause a "premature molt." Is that a problem?

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My Neo rack of tanks swing depending on a few things, be it season and if my dehumidifier is running. I've had temp swings like you posted and have not had an issue. 80 is hot, but not deadly hot to them. Neo's are very resilient and you shouldn't have an issue. If your heater jumped them to 80 from 72 in less time, and I'm talking in less than 10 minutes, then there would be some concern.

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On 8/30/2021 at 12:13 PM, Tihshho said:

My Neo rack of tanks swing depending on a few things, be it season and if my dehumidifier is running. I've had temp swings like you posted and have not had an issue. 80 is hot, but not deadly hot to them. Neo's are very resilient and you shouldn't have an issue. If your heater jumped them to 80 from 72 in less time, and I'm talking in less than 10 minutes, then there would be some concern.

This is good info. Thank you!

Is "premature molting" even a thing? 

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On 8/30/2021 at 2:00 PM, CalmedByFish said:

Is "premature molting" even a thing? 

Sadly, yes. This can happen if you temp shock them with a water change. If you've got a fish room setup and have your clean 'feed water' going through a mixing valve set to tank temps you can do large water changes without this happening (unless your source water has high CO2 then you'll have to do other things to fix that), if you're doing the old school bucket method, you're going to have to make sure the clean water going in (even top off water) is at least within +/- 2-3 degrees. Making somewhat instant spikes causes the premature molt in terms of temp. The other shocking factor is if you do move the shrimp or shock them into a crazy change in pH. So if you're running your tank at either neutral/slightly acidic and do a change with 8.5 pH water, you can notice the premature molt.

I'm not gonna lie, I get them every so often with water changes, but it's mainly on shrimp that are new to me. Once you get the shrimp into a routine (at least Neos, wouldn't recommend this with Caridina or Sulawesi) you can do large water changes with some param swings without an issue. The issue people end up having with massive die offs from an early molt is because they either do too big of water changes less often; as in the shrimp have become acclimatized to never changing params. Or they are doing too big of water changes without considering what is going on with their temps compounded with pH and TDS fluctuations. 

Me personally, I do around 50% water changes weekly on my shrimp tanks which are all 20L's. Established colonies are water out, and then top off with my well water tap at a moderate fill rate. On new colonies for varieties new to me, it's water out and then trickle filling over a much longer period. Some people swear by trickling water in for all fills, and that's fine for some, even more so with a plumbed setup with overflows for somewhat auto water changing. For me, I use a python for filling and draining tanks that are not getting remineralized RO/DI. The best method I've found is to make sure that if I'm going to have a temp flux, it's that the water is on the cooler side by a few degrees so that over time the heater/room temp will normalize the tank slowly. Remember, naturally temp swings happen, more often it's a semi quick cool down with then ambient temps normalizing everything. Why do I say that? Well, rainy season is the biggest example. 

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