# Why does a water change encourage moulting?



## OverStocked (May 26, 2007)

Temp change, change in TDS, change in levels of hormones in water, etc. 

Same reason it promotes breeding in most cichlids.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I read a good analogy somewhere that pertains to this. You can consider the shrimp skeletons as a "fur coat". If a shrimp comes from a different tank setup in order to adapt to your tank parameters it must shed the "coat" and grow a new one that is tailor made for your tank (a reason why you ship young shrimp as they weren't wearing the same "coat" for majority of their lives). When you do the water changes it affects the parameters a little which would trigger the shrimp to shed this "coat". What would otherwise take a few more days to occur you will just be speeding up with a water change.


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## kevshouse (Oct 15, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> I read a good analogy somewhere that pertains to this. You can consider the shrimp skeletons as a "fur coat". If a shrimp comes from a different tank setup in order to adapt to your tank parameters it must shed the "coat" and grow a new one that is tailor made for your tank (a reason why you ship young shrimp as they weren't wearing the same "coat" for majority of their lives). When you do the water changes it affects the parameters a little which would trigger the shrimp to shed this "coat". What would otherwise take a few more days to occur you will just be speeding up with a water change.


Great analogy diwu13, I like it. A lot!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I found where I read it from! http://www.planetinverts.com/Why Ship Young Shrimp.html (This is a great site by the way. Totally killed like 5 hours by reading through almost all of it)


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

So does the 50% EI WC encourage molting every week? That sounds pretty stressful. Or do they become accustomed to it?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

They won't molt every single time. I am pretty sure they need some time before their exoskeleton fully hardens and they won't repeatedly molt during a water change. I have ~50 shrimp in each tank and will always see three or so molts after my twice weekly 10% water changes.

I am also pretty sure the water change doesn't FORCE molting, just encourages it.


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

Good, wouldn't want to stress the little guys any more than necessary. I haven't any signs of molting in the RCS tank but it is heavily planted.


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## GeToChKn (Apr 15, 2011)

Rainer said:


> Good, wouldn't want to stress the little guys any more than necessary. I haven't any signs of molting in the RCS tank but it is heavily planted.


They also eat their molts and when you have a big tank with lots of shrimp, molts don't last long. Even dead shrimp don't last long, as soon as a shrimp dies, the other shrimp, snails, etc will start to eat it and it will be gone in not time.


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## Alpha Pro Breeders (Jan 26, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> I found where I read it from! http://www.planetinverts.com/Why Ship Young Shrimp.html (This is a great site by the way. Totally killed like 5 hours by reading through almost all of it)


Thanks, there is a lot of information at Planet Inverts. We will be working on some updates as soon as we get moved into our new facility.


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