If your cherry shrimp can’t molt properly, then they could end up dying.
To see how you can get your pet shrimps to molt without issues, you take a look at troubleshooting article from Aquarium Blueprints.
Quick Summary
In order to help your Cherry Shrimps molt without dying, we recommend that you avoid doing big water changes. In fact, you shouldn’t do any water changes at all as long as there isn’t any ammonia and nitrites in your tank while the nitrate level remains below 20 ppm.
If you do need to do a water change, make sure you drip feed new water back into your tank.
Furthermore, you should make sure that the GH and KH levels are within an acceptable range.
We also suggest that you feed your shrimps a balanced diet of food made specifically for the inverts.
Finally, you should try to provide a stress-free environment for your Cherry Shrimps by giving them plenty of hiding spots as well as suitable tank mates.
How to prevent Cherry Shrimps molting issues
In order to prevent molting issues for your Cherry Shrimps, we recommend that you try doing the following:
1. A big water change may cause your shrimps to molt prematurely.
Thus, we recommend that you do small water changes of no more than 20% at a time.
When adding new water back into the aquarium, we recommend drip feeding it by using an airline tubing so similar mechanism. By doing so, you will slowly change the water parameters in your tank, giving your shrimps enough time to slowly adjust. As a result, they are less likely to prematurely molt.
2. You should also avoid changing water, if possible, in order to minimize the risk of bad molts.
If you have a shrimp only tank, then you don’t need to change water frequently. To make sure, we suggest using a test kit. Ideally, the tank water should have 0 ppm of ammonia, 0 ppm of nitrites and 0 ppm of nitrates.
If your tank water parameteres appears to be healthy, then there you don’t need to perform a water change.
3. Your cherry shrimp’s diet is also very important to their molting process.
We recommend that you feed specialized food made just for shrimps. These products contain proteins and minerals (like calcium) that should lead to healthy molts.
If you need specific recommendations, then we have great success feeding our Cherry Shrimps a combination of Shrimp King Complete and Bacter AE.
4. You should also make sure that you have just enough GH and KH in your shrimp tank as softer water will lead to molting problems.
In general, the GH level should be within a range of 7 to 15. For KH, the recommended range is from 2 to 8 for a shrimp tank.
5. We also recommend that you provide a stress-free environment for your cherry shrimps. Otherwise, being stressed could cause a bad molt.
If possible, we suggest that you keep a shrimp only tank. Otherwise, fish could end up attacking, eating and chasing your inverts. You should be able to safely keep snails with shrimps as the snails are slow and docile enough that they shouldn’t bother its tank mates.
You should also provide plenty of hiding spots to make them feel comfortable.
Lastly, make sure that the water flow in your aquarium isn’t too strong. If you see your shrimps having a hard time swimming from one spot to the next, then you should turn down the water flow of your tank filter and/or the air flow of your air stone.