I think I am in pickle...

I have a 10 gallon tank with 4 platys and I thought 3 red cherry shrimp... well one of my platys changed gender and set off the male female ratios and the largest female got stressed and came down with ICH... I planned to turn up the temp and do water changes to get them healthy again. But come to find out my heater has a max of 80 degrees. Well I was all set to go get a 3.5 gallon tank I found on sale at petsmart on pay day this week so I could move my 3 shrimp and do a treatment on the main tank. It is cheaper than getting a new heater. But I start doing a good looking at my tank today trying to get a feel for how bad the ICH is on all my fish and I glance at one of my plants and see 3 baby RCS hiding and the female looks like she will have more.. so here are my options:

-get the 3.5 gallon tank and move my RCS and their babies and transfer some water and plants from my 10 gallon and then treat the ICH with meds. And then start a small Shrimp tank.. I am thinking planted would be fun. And once I have an established set of shrimp move some back to the main tank.

-get a new heater and blast it up to 86* and call it a day and let the babies fend for themselves.

-get the 3.5 gallon tank and move the shrimp just for the duration of the treatment of the main tank and then use the 3.5 for a betta tank (which I am all about having a pretty betta tank since the main tank is a kids tank)


I am up for other suggestions.. normally I would be excited about having new baby shrimp in the tank.. but seriously this timing is just not working for me..lol

 

It is incredibly hard to get all the RCS out of a tank. They are great at hiding so if you see 3 babies, there could be a dozen more that you don't know about.

I think a heater would be good. Don't just blast it to 86 though, you wana slowly raise your temp. You could always take the heater back when your done and say it stopped working or something... hehe

 

It is incredibly hard to get all the RCS out of a tank. They are great at hiding so if you see 3 babies, there could be a dozen more that you don't know about.

I think a heater would be good. Don't just blast it to 86 though, you wana slowly raise your temp. You could always take the heater back when your done and say it stopped working or something... hehe

And my luck I will have 30 more by morning! lol I like that idea.. but I could always use a back up heater. I am thinking of picking up a fluval heater.

 

My one platy is starting to get really bad and here is a thought.. what If I were to take the fish out of the main tank and quarantine them and treat them with the hard core meds... moving water from the main tank over to a new tank with the fish for an instant cycle and keeping just the shrimp in the main tank and giving the main tank regular vacuums for the duration of the treatment?

 

Your beneficial bacteria that makes the cycle go round, is not in the water. It is in your filter media. So grabbing water from your established tank won't do much. QT tanks are a great idea though. Shrimp are especially susceptible to copper. it kills them fast, so be careful.