Today we will dive in on the discussion a lot of shrimp keepers are having these days. Are water changes necessary for your shrimp tank. Many people these days are saying that water changes are not necessary, and that your shrimp will thrive without them. This blog post will be based on my own personal experience, and how I maintain my ~60 aquarium shrimp tanks.

The concept of a no water change environment makes sense when you think of the basic aquarium cycle. Your biological filtration will convert ammonia>nitrite>nitrate, all of which are a consumable product for your plants. If you have a balanced and planted aquarium, you should be able to manage these with your plants alone.

But what if we dig a little deeper? Are your plants consuming all the nutrients at the same rate? Probably not, so you will be dealing with a buildup of some nutrients, which eventually you will have an imbalance, causing algae. What about chelated iron? Iron is an essential nutrient your plants need for photosynthesis. If you're doing the no water change method, you must dose iron once in a while. If you don't have any plants in your tank, you will need to change water on a regular basis, since there isn't much to consume your excess nutrients.

Now let's touch on evaporation, and what we do about that. Unless you're topping up with RODI (0 tds) water, you will be raising the hardness of the water every time you top off with tap water. Eventually you will run into what some people call Old Tank Syndrome. Old Tank Syndrome is the buildup of nutrients and hardness in your water. Eventually you reach a tipping point, where adding new livestock will not adapt well, and vice versa; if you're raising livestock in your tank (say baby shrimp born in that water) when they go to someone who has less minerals in their tank, it's going to take A LOT more acclimation for those shrimp to adjust to the new water parameters. 

For me, I found a balance in smaller, scheduled water changes. For a while I was doing large water changes, and I was coming up with problems with both the shrimp and my plants. When I added fertilizer dosing at water change day, my plants started to turn around, but some tanks of shrimp seemed a little lethargic still. Baby survival rate decreased with some of the larger water changes. Now days, I am doing 20-30% water change every 2 weeks (give or take) and adding 1ml of APT Complete once a week. You are not looking for 0 nitrates because your plants need that to survive, and so do your shrimp. If you bottom out on nutrients, your plants will die and cause a spike in waste from the plant matter breaking down. Smaller, less frequent water changes have benefited my shrimp tanks, creating balance and a healthy environment free of nutrient and mineral build up, yet still holding on to some nutrients so your plants and microfauna can survive. 

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