SoCal Shrimp keepers

[knee]

Just wondering if you use heaters for your shrimp tanks? I know it doesn’t really get too cold in SoCal so I was wondering if I can setup a tank without a heater for shrimp. 
 

I have one unheated tank with hundreds of ramshorn and pond snails that has been running for almost a year now. When we hit the coldest temp the tank stayed at 60f 

I already have some shrimp in my 40 breeder but they’re always hiding in the roots. I wanna setup a dedicated shrimp tank because I enjoy watching them eat and walk all over the tank. 
 

 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

@nabokovfan87

[nabokovfan87]

On 3/15/2024 at 1:34 PM, knee said:

Just wondering if you use heaters for your shrimp tanks? I know it doesn’t really get too cold in SoCal so I was wondering if I can setup a tank without a heater for shrimp. 

If you have a tank that the ambient temp isn't ridiculously cold. yes you can.  Studies show that the lowest you really want to go is about 68 degrees.  I run a heater in mine because ambient temp is ~55 degrees during winter.  The tank gets really cold and the heater struggles to keep the tank at ~70 on some days.  For most of the year I do pull heaters on all of my tanks.

On 3/15/2024 at 1:34 PM, knee said:

I have one unheated tank with hundreds of ramshorn and pond snails that has been running for almost a year now. When we hit the coldest temp the tank stayed at 60f 

60 should be fine.  When shrimp get too cold they basically have muscle failure.

[Flipper]

Yesterday we had a 7 hour power outage.  Our house got down to 72 degrees.  I covered my tank with towels to hold the warmth inside.  I aerated the water by hand every 20 minutes.  I poured water over the filter to try and keep good bacteria alive.  I worked so hard but lost several of my yellow cherry shrimp. 

It could have been the temp but most likely it was lack of oxygen and too much carbon dioxide build up.

@nabokovfan87 I would love your opinion.  I worked so hard to save my tank.  At least my fish and pleco made it OK. 

[JettsPapa]

On 3/19/2024 at 12:48 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

If you have a tank that the ambient temp isn't ridiculously cold. yes you can.  Studies show that the lowest you really want to go is about 68 degrees.  I run a heater in mine because ambient temp is ~55 degrees during winter.  The tank gets really cold and the heater struggles to keep the tank at ~70 on some days.  For most of the year I do pull heaters on all of my tanks.

60 should be fine.  When shrimp get too cold they basically have muscle failure.

I don't know where you got that information, but I keep neocaridina shrimp in tubs outside year-round in southeast Texas.  This past winter the temperature got down into the upper teens, and the top of the tubs were iced over for several days.  The shrimp were fine when it thawed, and they're still thriving.

Maybe that's referring to caridinas?

[nabokovfan87]

On 3/19/2024 at 9:39 AM, Flipper said:

Yesterday we had a 7 hour power outage.  Our house got down to 72 degrees.  I covered my tank with towels to hold the warmth inside.  I aerated the water by hand every 20 minutes.  I poured water over the filter to try and keep good bacteria alive.  I worked so hard but lost several of my yellow cherry shrimp. 

It could have been the temp but most likely it was lack of oxygen and too much carbon dioxide build up.

@nabokovfan87 I would love your opinion.  I worked so hard to save my tank.  At least my fish and pleco made it OK. 

That's an interesting one, tough to say.  A lot of people keep their tanks with no filters and very little aeration. Something like soap residue on a cup could've caused a contamination issue with the shrimp.  Even with the temperature drop, I would fully expect the shrimp to be fine, if not just try to escape out of the tank.  I'm not sure why you would have losses like that in that scenario.

On 3/19/2024 at 10:49 AM, JettsPapa said:

I don't know where you got that information, but I keep neocaridina shrimp in tubs outside year-round in southeast Texas.  This past winter the temperature got down into the upper teens, and the top of the tubs were iced over for several days.  The shrimp were fine when it thawed, and they're still thriving.

Maybe that's referring to caridinas?

I have no doubts about this! They definitely can go cold, but it's just a situation where the recommendation is to keep them at that temp as a floor.  There's two things that happen as temps drop, talking neocaridina here, they can have muscle death and necrosis and the gender of new shrimp will turn towards more females being hatched as a means to try to sustain the colony.

I can point to the studies and you can review the information if you'd like.  One of the more interesting ones was studies of neocaridina released in the wild and doing population studies up in Canada or Germany where they shouldn't survive due to temperatures and the impact that has on native species.

There's other studies where they take the same shrimp, keep them at varying temperatures and see how well the colony grows over a period of time.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0119468

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ramazan-Serezli/publication/322007591_To_what_extent_does_temperature_affect_sex_ratio_in_red_cherry_shrimp_neocaridina_davidi_The_scenario_global_warming_to_offspring_sex_ratio/links/5a3d1f23aca272d29442f957/To-what-extent-does-temperature-affect-sex-ratio-in-red-cherry-shrimp-neocaridina-davidi-The-scenario-global-warming-to-offspring-sex-ratio.pdf

Here's a study on how cold they can go.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331090439_Occurrence_of_non-native_red_cherry_shrimp_in_European_temperate_waterbodies_a_case_study_from_Hungary

Edited March 19 by nabokovfan87

[Flipper]

I was asking for help with my power outage, not asking you two to debate proper temps for shrimp. I added warm, conditioned water so the temp never fell below about 74.  I covered the tank with towels and perhaps that prevented gas exchange.  Today, I have slight ammonia and think maybe my cycle crashed a little.  I added FritzZyme although it expired in Dec 23. 

I have ordered an air pump battery backup to handle a future power outage.  Now, you boys be nice.  😉

 

@JettsPapa  @nabokovfan87