Shrimp Tank Crisis on 2nd day of CNY

Hi all

Like to share how I spent my Lunar New Year.

First of all let me wish all who read this thread a very Happy & Prosperous Lunar New Year.

I guess most of the people are suppose to be out visiting friends or relatives on the 2nd day collecting "Ang Pao" (red packet). But for my case I am running all over Singapore to look for LFS that open for business during the second day of the New Year (guess most of you will think that I am crazy, as who will open their shop during 2nd day of Chinese New year? Unless! The shop is owned by a non-Chinese group of people). However not if I know of any…. Maybe some of you might also wonder what the “Hxxx” I am doing that.

Well let me explain….

During the 2nd day of CNY morning when I was using the magic clean wipe to clean some of the dust that settles on the floor from the 1st day (base on Chinese custom, cleaning the floor on the 1st day of New Year means ---“sweeping away good luck”). When I wipe near my tank, suddenly I found the wipe wet and initially thought my son have spilt water on the floor and even ask him to be careful, however to my horror saw water dripping out of the base of my 2ft shrimp tank.

My first reaction is to check which area of the tank leak and was unable to locate the area. Hence only thing I can do is to use a cloth and put at the base of the corner that have water dripping out to absorb the water. The next thing that cross my mind was to go and get a replacement tank, so I search the web and too bad all bro & sis are all out, no one online hence decide to drive out to try my luck. But you guys should able to guess the outcome.

Lastly remember one of the LFS has some empty tank lying outside their shops, have check before with the owner that it is for sales. So decide to drive down to that LFS and took one back before paying (in my mind this is considering “Stealing” ) but I have no choice but to take and go and pay later (has since went to the LFS yesterday but still not open for business will make another trip tonight). Or else my shrimp will be dead by no time.

As usual has to setup my tank for circulation this is a slightly smaller tank (1.5 ft by 1ft tank), but found that I have another problem, no soil? So decided to suck some of the soil out from my current leaking tank wash and lay it on the bottom of the tank and also took some of the moss out and place it in the new tank (but found 3 casualties, 1 pregnant CRS & 2 fire red). Probably this is due to the ammonia spike but what to do? Sigh!

That is not the end, another problem arises, no spare pump on hand, however remember in my storage at IMM has few, so decided to drive all the way down to IMM and pick it up. Went home and start to cycle the tank.

All when fine after the first day of cycle until yesterday, more, water started dripping on the floor oh no! My new tank only cycle for 2 days…. Is it sufficient, will my shrimp die, some are pregnant… oh no all these questions start running all over my mind. (Rule of thumb should be 2 weeks to 1 month).

But I was leave with no choice again, if I don’t transfer them now, it will die eventually and will have a messy floor as well, hence decided to do it once and for all. Transfer the shrimp over to the new tank and pray for fewer casualties.

Firstly I took out all my water test kits and did all the measurements. These are the reading taken from my new tank KH 5 GH 5 Ammonia 0 Ph 6.5 temp 27.5.

Saw that ammonia and PH are similar with the old tank, have more confident to transfer the shrimp now. Here is the hardest part of all, to catch the shrimp and transfer them especially shrimplets. Spent nearly 2 hours doing all the shrimp transfer that was tiring indeed. Now than I realize there are so many shrimplets in my tank. (But not CRS)

Phew! That was closed finally job completed. This morning have check for casualties, so far no casualties, keep my finger cross….


This is how I spent my CNY……