# Summer vacation trips and shrimp care



## RONY11 (Jan 6, 2011)

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Summer vacations are nearing and many families got out for holidays from 3 days to a month.

I hope hobbyists share their tips and experiences about shrimp tank care and maintainence before they leave for holidays.

I make a water change of 20-30 percent a day before I leave. 
I check the fans are working and reduce the light hours and move them to late evening. 
I add an automatic water adder and a bucket of 10-12 litres of water for a week. 
If its two weeks I fill a bucket of 20 litres. 

Chiller is gr8 but many hobbyists do not have chiller use only fans during summer.

One can leave their air-conditioning on a timer so it cools the house during the hottest hours of the day.

I feed the shrimps well for a week before I travel so there are enough micro organizms in the tanks.
I do not feed during this period with a fish feeder to avoid extra food which will rot make a mess in the tank. 
I add atleast 2 new catappa leaves to the tank a week before my trip date.

Please add your valuable tips.


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

I left my shrimps in my daughter's capable hands with instructions on feeding schedule/water top ups, temp checks etc.

I also do water changes, temp checks (air conditioning set at 72F to keep rooms cool) make sure there's lots of biofilm in tanks for shrimps to pick on ie: katappa leaves, alder cones, oak leaves, peat moss in a bag hung in tank, they seem to like to pick at this, or just hang out on it.

Most shrimps will survive quite well on whatever is in the tank for a week or more, not like fish which will need vacation blocks or someone to come feed them every other day etc.

Most times I have not had any problems or major losses, *however,* this time I had to cut my vacation short because of an infected back tooth which needed emergency extraction (yeah that wasn't fun ) so I was back from Europe in 10 days instead of 21.

I checked my tanks and all seemed well except for a few missing shrimps  Lost was the following:

1 x Ruby Red
2 x Red Wine Pandas
1 x Black King Kong 2 bar
1 x Large Comet Goldfish ( " Blackie") who decided to jump out of the tank and ended up on the floor.......had him for 5 years, this was a great loss to me, more so than the shrimps.

Don't know what happened to the shrimps, they could have had problems molting etc....it wasn't anything my daughter did or didn't do, just shit happens and we have to move on !

On a good note I did get 2 Red Tigers berried, so not all was bad.


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

bettaforu said:


> I checked my tanks and all seemed well except for a few missing shrimps  Lost was the following:
> 
> 1 x Ruby Red
> 2 x Red Wine Pandas
> ...


Ouch, if I know where you live you might be suspecting I went in and stole these shrimps from you. Sorry for your loss.


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## RONY11 (Jan 6, 2011)

I returned today after 8 days vacation in Northern Italy...and the the damages were as follows
1.I attached an automatic water replenisher and filled 2 buckets with RO 10 litres each for 2 shrimp aquariums found them empty.
2.Attached 2 extra fans before I left I presume were working most of the time, coz when I arrrived home the aquarium temperature was 27.8 degrees.
3. Losses (deaths): 3 male CRS grade A-S, one snow white (heavily pregnant when I left), 2 female SSS grade one of them was heavily pregnant, 2 male CRS grade SSS. I have small bridgesi apple snails in the aquarium they act as cleaners so may be when the shrimps died the snails ate them.
4. Births and new prenancies : Saw 2-3 young babies seem to be a week old A-SS grades (may be there are more not sure). 
Saw a CRS grade SSS and two CBS (grade A and S)females berried. 

Rest of the shrimps (Rili, Fire and Sakura) seem to be fine but may be there were deaths there too but not sure coz its very difficult to count them.

Returned home made a 10% water change fed the babies, berried and rest of the shrimps. 
The AC is running for 4hrs got the temp.down to around 25 degrees. 
Keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best.


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## Symplicity (Oct 14, 2011)

Hope you had a great trip! Italy is awesome


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## MananaP (Jul 6, 2012)

I was away for 1 month and 1 week a few months ago as i went back to Asia and got married. I had my sisters friend over once or twice a week as i told him just to do top offs and feed the shrimps in my surprise some of the tanks actually had many babies. Hard to monitor how many shrimps i lost though because of the numbers i have in each tanks. Now the tanks are recovering nicely and i was pretty happy with the result of just feeding 1-2 times a week and no water change for over a month.

MP


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