Calcium

[Fishkeeper4]

Hey everyone 

Im new to shrimp keeping but I've been keeping/breeding African cichlids, rainbows and others for atleast 15years and decided to setup a small tank in my office. After doing alot of research my one question is regarding Calcium and I know its important for shrimp to have to molt and thrive. Is there certain amount of Calcium in the water where I dont need to add in like wonder shells etc? Or is wonder shells, shrimp king food or cutle bones something you should do once a month or something? I do know live plants use Calcium as well. 

Also im just getting the tank ready for shrimp I have live plants, dennerle nano substrate and have some cpd's for the tank where im going to let them live for a few months and then have the shrimp go in once there fish poop and bacteria for them to graze on

[jayc]

8 hours ago, Fishkeeper4 said:

Is there certain amount of Calcium in the water where I dont need to add in like wonder shells etc? Or is wonder shells, shrimp king food or cutle bones something you should do once a month or something

Hi Fishkeeper,

you wont need wonder shells nor cuttlefish bones.

But you will need a GH test kit and a TDS meter.

Let's measure what your water parameter is first before we meddle with it.

Meddling with water parameters we don't know about can lead to an opposite outcome.

What is your water source? Tap water?

And what sort of shrimp are you keeping?

 

In general, we want to keep your water parameters to 150 - 180 TDS and GH 4-6. That is considered healthy for shrimp. Calcium will be between 72pppm and 107ppm.

Lets deal with the remedy after you find out what your tank's parameters are.

[Fishkeeper4]

Looking to get red cherry shrimp or yellows not sure yet. Im using tap water currently waiting for a TDS meter but my GH is 5. PH is 7.4

[sdlTBfanUK]

You should be able to keep cherry shrimp with those parameters without any problems, just see wat the TDS is when you get the meter and take it from there.

Simon

[jayc]

As Simon said, those parameters are fine for neocaridina.

Let us know what the TDS is.

[Fishkeeper4]

So I finally got my TDS meter. The tank tds registered at 375. Also I know shrimp keepers focus on TDS but I've seen YouTube videos from well known hobbyist that have made hundreds of hundreds of Neo's such as reds, blues, and oranges with a TDS in the 40s have great success. So it seems like TDS doesn't have to be in the exact range.

 

Anyway at 375 do I need to add calcium? I keep/breed african cichlids and I add marine salt to the tanks to help give the fish minerals and calcium is in there. I was thinking about adding the same it would be a T-spoon or a little less then that every water change. 

[jayc]

23 hours ago, Fishkeeper4 said:

So it seems like TDS doesn't have to be in the exact range.

TDS is just one parameter. It is not the be all and end all of measuring a healthy tank. We use TDS along with pH, GH, KH and temps to get an idea of suitable parameters.

 

23 hours ago, Fishkeeper4 said:

Anyway at 375 do I need to add calcium? I keep/breed african cichlids and I add marine salt to the tanks to help give the fish minerals and calcium is in there. I was thinking about adding the same it would be a T-spoon or a little less then that every water change. 

I'm doing some shopping, so this will just be a quick reply for now.

Do NOT add additional salts to a tank with375 TDS for shrimps.

That TDS is already too high and adding salt will send it way over the top.

You can however, add marine salts to RO water to bring the TDS from 0 up to 150. 

Edited January 12, 2021 by jayc

[sdlTBfanUK]

You should have enough calcium if you have GH of 5. Using tapwater will probably confuse things as you don't know what the makes up the TDS in the water. Obviously using RO (zero TDS) water and shrimp remineraliser means the water will be perrfectly balanced for shrimp TDS/GH/KH/PH etc.

Try letting us have the TDS/GH and any other tests for water you have, straight from the tap. With cherry shrimp it is quite often possible (I've done it for many years) using just dechlorinated tap water, but we need to know where you sre starting for water. source If you have added stuff to the tank and that has vastly altered the TDS of the tank you plan to keep the srimp in, you can let it cycle as is for now and just do a mega water change a few weeks before getting the shrimps (I assume it is a small tank anyway)! Whether you will need to use extra calcium for this tank will become clear when we know your source water parameters, and take it from there, but as JayC states, TDS is well over the usual recommended range (150-250) for cherry shrimps.

Simon

[Fishkeeper4]

Hey everyone thabks for your help. After the tank has been running for a month I decided to grab some local red fire cherry shrimp and see how they do. After a week they are looking and doing great and I must have the calcium good I found 3 molts alrdy. Should I take them out or just leave them in the tank? Also found some baby shrimp alrdy. The owner of the fish store let's me catch my own fish so I grabbed 5 buried females and 4 others hoping a for male or 2. So far so good.

 

Also setup another 20gal im doing yellow fin white clouds and golden back shrimp once the tank has been running for a bit

[jayc]

Glad we could be of some help. Always good to see another new shrimpkeeper's success in this hobby.

[sdlTBfanUK]

Superb news and long may it continue.

You probably have a male in the mix, but even if not then there will be one amongg the babies, you would then just need to wait for itt to mature (about 3 months?)!

Simon