# red cherry shrimp, what nitrate level do you change water at?



## Mferko

i heard these things are pretty sensitive to nitrate, im just wondering at what levels you guys do water changes atm?
im sitting at about 2ppm atm i usually try to change around 5ppm, is that good? not enuff? too many changes? etc

thanks for your time and advice

my other question would be on growing xmass moss, is there a thing as too much light or too long of a photoperiod for this stuff? im tryin to make it grow faster cuz my tank looks pretty bare, i left the lights on overnight last night and dosed excel and took a couple of the little pellets out of a root tab and burried them in the sponge filter, anything else i can do?
i have 2x 13W bright white CFL's in there atm


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## Mferko

anyone? should i change the water now?


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## plantedinvertz

I change every 1 or 2 weeks which is pretty safe for everyone if the tank is not overstocked.


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## Mferko

ok i dont need to be changing nearly as much as i am then lol


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## neven

Many thing shrimp are a lot more fragile than people make them out to be. Some are, but cherries are far from fragile. Many tanks you see are co2 dosed with high light plants, meaning that fertilization needs to be kept up to keep the plants healthy, lush, and pearling. That being said, it means they have nitrates around 15-20 ppm in those tanks. Their shrimp still thrive under these conditions. an EI regime is the easiest method to keep fert levels even in a tank, and for you to not worry about test kits for a long long time.

You mentioned you are trying to grow out the plants. You definately are limiting the nitrates too much for the light you are giving imo. You can get decent growth with 10 ppm nitrates still, especially with EI dosing, let the plants tell you if there is another form of deficiency, they'll be deformed in certain ways if there is.


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## jkam

I've had random shrimp live in a tank that had 5cm of water for over 6 months after I emptied it. Never knew it was there until I was about to set it up the tank again.


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## tang daddy

You could get away with topping up water, as long as there is no rotting food to foul the water and you don't overfeed then topping up the evaporated water is fine. Shrimps prefer a more stable environment, I do 3 small wTer changes on my Crs tank a week. The only reason why I do this is so there is less flux in the small tank also Crs highgrades are more sensitive. My other Crs tanks get a 10-20% waterchange every 2 weeks.


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