Since publishing our article going over if peppermint shrimp are reef safe, we have noticed a number of questions from the community about correctly acclimating a peppermint shrimp to an aquarium so we have decided to publish this article to try and help as many of our readers who keep peppermint shrimp as possible.
Just like many other species of shrimp, peppermint shrimp are sensitive to changes in their environment and it is common for people new to keeping them to have problems correctly acclimating them to their tanks.
The best way to correctly acclimate a peppermint shrimp to your aquarium is to use a basic dripping technique to slowly adjust the water parameters of the water in the bag of your peppermint shrimp to the parameters of your tank.
Although this process can be slow, it has the highest success rate by far and there are a number of ways you can make your own dripper for the water including an old bottle with a small hole in it to slowly drip water into the bag your peppermint shrimp is in.
Although putting a small hole in an old bottle is probably the cheapest way to set up a drip system for acclimating your peppermint shrimp, the margin for error due to an unpredictable drip rate is huge.
This is why we always recommend that our readers go with a cheap aquarium acclimating dripper if possible.
They usually only retail for around $20 and make the acclimatization process much easier and safe due to being able to accurately set the drip rate of the water for your new peppermint shirmp.
Do You Need To Acclimate Peppermint Shrimp To Your Tank?
It is highly recommended that you take the time to acclimate any new peppermint shrimp in your tank as the species are sensitive to changes in their water parameters and can have a high fatality rate when being moved to new tanks.
Even if you are switching your peppermint shrimp between your own tanks with similar water parameters, we would still highly recommend that you take the time to acclimate them if possible.
This is due to peppermint shrimp being sensitive to their water parameters, their water temperature, and in some situations, their lighting conditions in their tank.
Putting the shrimp through a basic drip acclimatization process can usually reduce the chances of any problems occurring when adding a peppermint shrimp to a new tank as it allows the shrimp to slowly get used to the new water parameters.
We have touched on this before in other articles but it is common for people new to the fish keeping hobby to have problems due to using a cheap $5 water test kit that leads them to believe that their water parameters are the same between the water in their tank and the water in the bag that their peppermint shrimp comes with.
The cheaper water test kits don’t test all water parameters and can give false positives for some results so upgrading to a better water test kit as soon as possible is highly recommended.
How Do You Acclimate A Peppermint Shrimp?
The easiest way to acclimate peppermint shrimp to a new tank is to reduce the water in the bag that they came in until it is only half full and then set up an acclimatization dripper or a drip line to slowly feed the water from your tank into the bag.
Depending on how different the water parameters are between the water in your tank and the water in the bag, you may be able to set a drip rate fast enough to refill the bag’s water content in as little as an hour to fully acclimate the peppermint shrimp.
We tend to recommend that you go with a cheap aquarium acclimating dripper over a drip line if possible due to the increased accuracy of an actual dripper allowing you to adjust your drip rate as required.
The vast majority of people should also dip the bag that their peppermint shrimp came in into the water of their tank to allow the water temperatures to normalize during the dripping process too.
As we mentioned earlier in the article, some people will take a plastic bottle and add a small hole to it to make their own DIY acclimating dripper for their peppermint shrimp and this method can work in some situations.
Another method that we have seen some people use is to take a whisky shot glass and set a timer up to alert them every 15 minutes and then to scoop a shot of tank water into their peppermint shrimps bag each time the timer goes off.
How You Can Increase The Survival Rate of Your Peppermint Shrimp During Acclimatisation!
You are able to increase the survival rate of your peppermint shrimp by sticking to the mantra of slow and steady wins the race and being sure not to rush any part of the acclimatization procedure.
This means that temperature acclimatization and the water drip phases are both given plenty of time with any harsh aquarium lighting being dimmed and then slowly ramped back up over the course of a 24 hour period.
The majority of the time, this will not cause any serious issues for the other inhabitants of your tank but it can drastically increase the survival rate of your peppermint shrimp due to them being so sensitive.
We understand that you are excited to get your new tank inhabitant into your aquarium, especially if you are new to keeping peppermint shrimp but rushing the process does increase the chances of having a fatality with your shrimp.
Please also keep in mind that the larger bags that multiple peppermint shrimp come in will take longer for the acclimatization process to complete than the smaller bags that a single shrimp comes in too.
The easiest way to gauge the time is to half the water in the bag and then leave your dripper to slowly fill it back up. If the water parameters between your tank and the water in the bag are vastly different then halfing the water in the bag again after the initial drip re-fill and letting your dripper fill the bag again is recommended.
Conclusion
That concludes our article going over acclimating peppermint shrimp to your aquarium to increase their survival rates. Although it may seem like a long and drawn-out process, as far as fish keeping goes, it is generally a speedy process and can usually be done in an hour or two once you have some experience with setting your dripper up correctly to get it dripping water right away with the process increasing the survival rate of your peppermint shrimp making it worth the time and effort.
