# To what extremes do people think Cherry Shrimps can survive in?



## jiang604

Wondering what are the extremes in terms of Temperature , pH , hardness and salinity people have had experience in with cherries.

I'll share mines in a week or two of replies.:bigsmile:


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## 2wheelsx2

I left mine in a 20 gallon tank after draining 95% of the water as I thought I had caught everything. Unheated. Muddy Florabase in the tank. No plants, no light, for 2 weeks. Then I thought I would clean it out to use as a quarantine tank and lo and behold, the shrimps were still breeding in there and to this day I still have the same colony in the same tank with the same Florabase except I also have breeding BNPs and L10a in there now. Tough buggers.


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## bigfry

A few years back, I had a two gallon java moss and algae growing tank sitting on a window sill. I put eight red cherry shrimps in it, with no filtration and heating, to see how long they would survive. They did not breed and took one and a half year before they all disappeared.


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## davej

I keep mine in my L134 breeding tank at 84 F with no ill effect.


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## qyrus

I've got a thriving PFR community in an EI/Excel dosed tank...probably not that impressive compared to the rest of you :lol:


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## neven

my colonies have all died on me. Longest i had was 6-8 months in a 29G, heated, co2, EI dosed tank with phantom tetras and cardinals, no breeding though so it slowly died away. After that i hadn't been able to keep a colony past 30 days. I doubt im high enough up for the altitude change to affect the shrimpies (only 950 ft above sea level). I think my latest colony die offs were due to me referencing my EI dosing off a bad nitrate test kit, so i ended up with over 50 ppm of nitrates. My latter colonies i've attempted have all been in cycled shrimp only tanks


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## 2wheelsx2

neven said:


> my colonies have all died on me. Longest i had was 6-8 months in a 29G, heated, co2, EI dosed tank with phantom tetras and cardinals, no breeding though so it slowly died away. After that i hadn't been able to keep a colony past 30 days. I doubt im high enough up for the altitude change to affect the shrimpies (only 950 ft above sea level). I think my latest colony die offs were due to me referencing my EI dosing off a bad nitrate test kit, so i ended up with over 50 ppm of nitrates. My latter colonies i've attempted have all been in cycled shrimp only tanks


I think your first ones weren't breeding due to the threat from the Phantom tetras. When I first got Cherries they wouldn't breed (and were eventually eaten) because I had Bosemani Rainbows.

I also concur that it's not your altitude since 950 ft is nothing

I don't know about the nitrates as I've personally had my nitrates over 40 (my kits don't really read well up that high) and I think Tom Barr said he's experimented with dosing nitrates up to 100 ppm somewhere, and the shrimps still lived but didn't breed as prolifically. His assertion was that if the nitrates are inorganic then it shouldn't matter. Only if it was organic nitrate. So when you measured up to 50 if a large component was organic that might have been it.


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## spit.fire

I had them survive and grow in a fluval Ebi with 1/2" of water in my spare bedroom and no food or light for a couple months


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## Shiyuu

This just happened to me last night when I was top up the water (about 15%), I was trying to add little bit of acid buffer into new water so I can lower the PH just a little.
(Tank water = 7.6, new water = 6.0 or lower.... light yellow)

About 10 min after I pour the new water in, shrimps acting weird...
so I test the water, bascially that 15% of new water just drop the whole tank to PH 6.0... 
Did 50% water change (with Prime) x 2, brought the PH up to 6.6-ish, and at the end, I "only" killed 2 shrimps, 1 of them is a fully berried shrimp... 

The rest of the shrimp (less than 10), snails, they are all fine.....
I quickly DIY a egg tumbler and moved the eggs in it~
And as of today, I think 1/5 of the green eggs looks whiter(?)....


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## jiang604

Here are my experiences and results:
pH 5.5 can survive but will die after molting
pH 6.0 i know for sure cherry can survive and breed but not prolific for me. 
pH 9.0 survive and bred in sulawesi water.

Temperature highest outdoor temperature + sunlight because tank was on sun deck around 35C survived so long as water evaporated
Lowest temperature. survived outdoors THIS WINTER with all the ice (but pond is 4-5 feet deep with 3 feet below ground)

highest TDS around 900
lowest TDS straight tap 11

highest ammonia level 1


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## 2wheelsx2

900 TDS? Wow! How did the TDS get to 900 ppm?


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## jiang604

that was in the 90 gallon sulawesi tank that i did long before. It was mainly raised by minerals. Even crystal shrimp survived in that param for awhile. Did not breed but was able to molt.


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## 2wheelsx2

Cool. Thanks Frank, these parameters are useful information to have.


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