Shrimp Fell Into Tap Water

[eggplantparrot]

Hi all, I was at my LFS and finally found a shrimp I've wanted for a while. Anton Bruuni shrimp.

The owner nearby asked an inexperienced employee to bag it for me, and the shrimp unfortunately dropped into a small tub in the sink, the water of which was then also dumped into the small bag. I didn't recall seeing the employee put saltwater into the tub, but thought maybe I looked away for a second when he did. I did speak up about it after bagging, but I was too timid to be forceful about it.

I immediately tested the salinity when I got home about 30 min later, and it returned 1.022. It looks like the tub indeed did not have full salinity, and was likely straight tap.

I freaked out a bit, and after not being able to find a quick answer online, I figured sitting in hypo longer would do a lot more damage, so I skipped the usual drip acclimation and dumped him in.

Is there any chance he could make it? Should I have dripped to 1.026?

 

[JayM]

It’s not terribly unusual for LFS to run salinity that low. It’s too late to do anything but observe at this point, but you could always call and ask where they keep their salinity for future reference.

 

[eggplantparrot]

It’s not terribly unusual for LFS to run salinity that low. It’s too late to do anything but observe at this point, but you could always call and ask where they keep their salinity for future reference.

For fish that is normal, however everything I've read says invertebrates cannot tolerate hypo at all.

This is a very reputable store so I assume they know not to run hypo in their invert/macro dedicated tank

His body is starting go a bit hazy, not a good sign

 

[Stomatopods17]

I'm confused, 1.022 is considered low?

Normally LFS keep salinity at 1.019 IME.

1.022 is actually pretty normal for tanks, anything 1.021 - 1.026 I'd consider a comfort zone (to give wiggle room when either water evaporates and it raises a few ppm, or you overshot filling and it drops a few.)

Reef tanks tend to aim 1.024-1.026 since the trace elements in the mix are also higher. Inverts don't care unless that extra .004 worth of salt means more iodine to them. You panic'd too soon, give it time it was either shocked being dumped in so fast (mostly concerning the PH and Temperature here) or just acclimating.

Remember tide pools have water trapped, evaporating, and mixed back with the ocean all the time and a lot of inverts find ways to even exit the water to get to new ones, most of our livestock are surprisingly resilient to varying specific grativities, we just may not want to keep them for very long periods of time on the extreme ends (I've accidentally kept my harlequin shrimp in the 1.030s for days at a time with no ill effects, this is why 2 gallons are tough to keep up with). The difference between that and our tanks is temperatures will vary, PH will vary since our 'tide pool' is made of glass instead of the same rock that helps stabilize it, and of course lighting as well.

 

[eggplantparrot]

I'm confused, 1.022 is considered low?

Normally LFS keep salinity at 1.019 IME.

1.022 is actually pretty normal for tanks, anything 1.021 - 1.026 I'd consider a comfort zone (to give wiggle room when either water evaporates and it raises a few ppm, or you overshot filling and it drops a few.)

Reef tanks tend to aim 1.024-1.026 since the trace elements in the mix are also higher. Inverts don't care unless that extra .004 worth of salt means more iodine to them. You panic'd too soon, give it time it was either shocked being dumped in so fast (mostly concerning the PH and Temperature here) or just acclimating.

Remember tide pools have water trapped, evaporating, and mixed back with the ocean all the time and a lot of inverts find ways to even exit the water to get to new ones, most of our livestock are surprisingly resilient to varying specific grativities, we just may not want to keep them for very long periods of time on the extreme ends (I've accidentally kept my harlequin shrimp in the 1.030s for days at a time with no ill effects, this is why 2 gallons are tough to keep up with). The difference between that and our tanks is temperatures will vary, PH will vary since our 'tide pool' is made of glass instead of the same rock that helps stabilize it, and of course lighting as well.

Yea a bit embarassing today when I thought about it more, I'd always heard inverts can't do hypo so reading less than 1.026 did not do my heart good

I guess I was freaking out more about the possibility of it being dropped into cold tap water in the tub. It also took the employee 4-5 times to just dump the shrimp out of the tub.

This is a very fragile slow moving shrimp so I wince at all the trauma this little guy was put through.

He was on the sand bed wiggling fairly normally this morning, hope he's still ok when I get back from work.