Geriatric Shrimp Help!

[woodward_tweet]

I have a 62 litre tank which has been running quite merrily for 12 years. I hold my hands up and admit that I was getting bored of maintaining it so had stopped stocking it and kind of decided when the last occupant popped its clogs i would ditch. Well my last occupant is a glass shrimp - he must be about 10 years old (which i didn't think was even possible - and certainly didnt plan on him being a long term relationship!) but hes still merrily toddling along... But I just hit a problem. My heater died some time ago but the house is pretty warm and he didn't seeem bothered so i didn't replace it... But now my filter has sputtered its last. This is obviously more of an issue, primarily because being a totally neglectful owner i have only just noticed... I changed a lot of water today because it stank. Im assuming the pump must have died some time ago. Bless him hes still merrily swimming about and doing shrimpy stuff ( i have witnessed stressed shrimp because in my early days i nearly poisoned them by putting new plants in..) he seems pretty happy... Ive ordered a new tank on next day delivery ( a tiddly fluval chi ) and will transfer him but not sure whether there is any salvagable bacteria in my current tank. It is well planted but obviously the broken pump means it hasnt been oxygenated recently... The smell would suggest im in touble as well. Whats the least stressful way to play this? I know its only one shrimp but ive had him a long time and a shrimp is for life and all that... I kind of think he deserves to die of old age and im quite cross with myself for being neglectful. Do i ditch everything out of the old tank or is any of it likely to be worth transfering?

 

[Baccus]

Keep up the water changes while you wait for the new tank to arrive (this will also improve the smell), and once the new tank arrives I would transfer as much substrate from the old tank to the new one that the new tank will comfortably hold. I would also transfer any live plants and ornaments or timber from the old tank into the new tank allowing of course for what will fit. If you put some media from your old filter (maybe best to give it a rinse first in some old tank water) and put it in the old tank for the time being you may be able to salvage some of the good filter bacteria, especially if you can supply some movement near the filter media via something as simple as an airstone bubbling away.
Once the new tank has arrived and it is in position I would do all the transferring around as suggested above and then put maybe 50% of the old tank water (provided you kept up the water change maintenance) and fill up the rest of the new tank with new dechlorinated water. Ensure everything is running fine and then transfer the shrimp. Because the water is still basically the same base water (ie your local supply and the shrimp is not new from a totally different water source) it should be simple to add the shrimp, may be just keeping an eye on water temp between the old tank and new tank.

 

[woodward_tweet]

Thank you for that. I wasn't sure whether there would be any healthy bacteria left on anything! The old pump I've had to ditch as it stinks but I think the smell was mainly from that because the water doesn't smell too bad. Will transfer what I can to the new tank - although I'm not sure much of it will fit. Shrimp seems perfectly happy still which is good.

 

[woodward_tweet]

Transferred - all good! Initially not impressed with me - made me feel like a Conservative imposing bedroom tax... Has settled now though. Would it be cruel to stick a betta in there? I always said I wouldn't put a fish in anything smaller than 62 litres... Last time I tried putting more shrimp in though she ate them... She's a big girl!

 

[Baccus]

A young fighter/ betta might never view the shrimp as food, but that is never certain.
If anything I would look at making the tank wholey and solely a shrimp tank, you could add almost any colour variation of red cherry shrimp that takes your fancy. But keep in mind do not mix the different colour morphs as they will all cross breed and the resulting offspring nine times out of ten will be undesirable wild colouration babies. Some of the wild colour types can be nice and interesting in their own right, BUT they are hard to get rid of unless you sell/ give them away as culls.
So far to date I know of these colour morphs in cherry shrimp
Red
Fire Red
Sakura
Blue
Black
Chocolate
Yellow
Orange or sunkist
Green
Rilli (my personal favourite since they are red on the head and clear in the middle and red on the tail)
Many of the above colours also are being developed with rilli pattern
 
Personally I would tend to avoid the non-red colour morphs since they often aren't as hardy as the reds because of all the line breeding that occurred to establish the new colour morph. Also some colour morphs can change quite a lot when put in new water different to tank water parameters that they where bred in.
Other shrimp that can be added to cherry shrimp and ghost shrimp would be
Bamboo/ flower shrimp
Amano shrimp
Red Nosed shrimp
 
you could also add crystal shrimp or tiger shrimp but these tend to have more exacting water requirements.
 
If you did want to add fish you could look into some of the micro fish like Dario dario, cross banded danio, rasbora maculate, even tiny moth catfish, even bumblebee gobies but they may see a shrimp as good t nip at and generally bumble gobies do best slightly brackish.
 
Another option not always considered are snails, oh sure everyone has heard of apple or mystery snails, but I am talking about the true stunners like Sulawasi, nerite and notopala species.

 

[woodward_tweet]

A shrimp tank is a good idea but I'm absolutely certain my current shrimp would munch anything smaller than her! Which shrimp are bad climbers? Because she escaped today... Took a bathe in the jacuzzi at the top...

 

[Baccus]

Almost any shrimp will wonder if for some reason they aren't happy or if they think the grass is greener else where. When I first got my riffle shrimp they kept climbing up the filter return and living the high life in the filter. Made for being a real pain when ever I needed to clean the filter because riffle shrimp unlike most other shrimp actually run when out of water rather than flip about the place.
Your shrimp may just be getting used to the new tank and set up, if the tank is now brighter than the old tank maybe she just needs a dark hidey hole, my cherry shrimp like getting inside a half cocoanut that is in their tank.
Bamboo/ flower shrimp get pretty big and real monsters that I wish I could get are Vampire shrimp.
 
With the list of cherry shrimp morphs I forgot to add Snowballs these are pure white shrimp even the eggs are white like little snowballs.