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Shy PRL


Dirk De Bakker

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Hi All 

New to PRL's however not very sucessful to date.  I had 6 to start with in a 50lt tank with RO re-mineralized water with a TDS 120 but raised it to 150, (self advice).  I initially used a pool filter sand substrate.  Parameters were as recommended by the seller.  I have no issues here with that advice at all.  I did request juveniles at the time and feel that might have been my error as I know PRL and CR are a little touchy with transport. 

Since setting up the tank which I seeded at the time I decided to change the substrate to ADA Amazonia V2 to get the PH stability bit and placed the 1 survivor into a holding tank complete with all the plants and wood and his sponge filter.  I used some of the sand substrate and 90% of the water for the holding tank.    To date he has been going well and seems to have grown but I haven't found any casting.   I am doing regular water changes at the same TDS.   

However I rarely find him out wandering around the tank and I usually do a head count daily and find him hiding under a particular piece of wood.  He gets well fed with a variety of foods, flake, shrimp specific pelets and algae wafer and fresh from my other tanks. 

My cherries are all out and about continiously scounting for food.  But this PRL is very very shy in this holding and was the same in the 50lt. 

Any advice would be appreciated.   Are they normally as shy or has he got to many hiding places.  Current water deadings are PH 6.8 to 7.0 (a bit high and waiting on peat ) nitrite 0, nitrate 0, TDS 150, KH 0, GH 7 dgh,  Temp. 24.4c   

Sorry for the long rambling question.   

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The pH seems a bit high even though your KH is close to 0.

I would try working on getting the pH down to 6.5 or thereabouts.

Try feeding the shrimps more "meaty" foods for protein. Like frozen blood worms.

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Welcome to the forum, I hope you enjoy being a part of it and you find lots of interesting/useful advice.

Is the PRL in a tank by themselves, or with the mentioned red cherry shrimps? Any shrimp by themselves won't be happy or brave enough to come out much! If he/she has grown then it has to have molted, so either did it somewhere hidden, or ate the discarded shell?

As regards your parameters, the PH and GH are a bit high, especially if you are using a buffering substrate like Amazonia fand RO water (try testing PH of pure RO water, should be 6 or even lower). Could there be something in the tank (like rock/stone) which is raising these. Some Indian Almond leaves would be a good idea, for any/all type of shrimp. If you are using a heater I would reduce the temperature, but if not using a heater that temperature will be ok, but (as with most creatures) the warmer the more sluggish they become, I aim for 22.

How long has the new tank and setup been running?

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Thanks Jayc, been reluctant to feed this little bloke anything other than flake or pellets due to uneaten food laying around as he is by himself with no other mates to help clean up.  With a feeder dish I can remove anything uneaten.   After xmas I'll be after some more for company.

SdlTBfanUK,  the PRL is alone now the sole survivor and I have been thinking it might be because of that why he is so shy.  Another thing came to mind last night was that this is a temporary home for the moment and the light I am using is a daylight fluro tube.  Maybe the light is a bit bright as its sitting directly on top of the holding tank and about 225mm above the bottom. 

I am using IAL and alder cones.   Straight out of the filer the RO is reading 0.  Haven't  tested the PH though.  That never occurred to me.  I'll do that this morning.  I need more water anyhow.   I have a couple of small pieces of bush timber as anchors for moss and one small piece of lava rock anchoring a bit of java fern the rest is all moss or floating plants.  I did a TDS test on a fair bit of lava rock in a bucket in pure RO for a week and got no appreciable increase from 0.  Ambient temp. is around 24c  at the moment and will go higher but have fans or a/con.   I'll  work on the PH to get it down with some peat when it arrives. 

The new tank is still cycling very veryslowly with high ammonia despite what Amazonia say.  Happy to wait it out but doing large water changes to bring it along.       

Thanks again to both of you and will get back later with results. 

Dirk    

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With straight RO water test the PH is around 6.8 to 7  that surprised me a bit as I expected it to be lower. 

As a matter of interest the KH was still 0 and the GH  lower at 2dgh.

Dirk     

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The RO water being  PH 6.8-7.0 would explain that same figure in the tank, I haven't heard of PH that high in RO before, mine is about 5-5.5. The soil should buffer it with a little time. If you are at the high Ammonia level with tha Amazonia then you are early days yet, that ammonia spike is normal with that substrate and the PH should slowly decrease. The GH  may also drop in time with the water changes you are doing, as it is early days yet, the substrate may be releasing nutrients/minerals etc. I don't see anything in the tank that would cause any detriment to the parameters.

It may be a good idea to reduce the light for the shrimp either by switching it off, reducing time on during the day or just floating something on the top of the holding tank to produce a shaded area! 

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With straight RO water test the PH is around 6.8 to 7  that surprised me a bit as I expected it to be lower. 

As a matter of interest the KH was still 0 and the GH  lower at 2dgh.

Dirk     

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Still getting used to this site, sorry for the duplicate above.

I would be very happy if the PH got into the low 6's.  Hopefully picking up the peat today so then can slowly add to bring it down. 

I'll  add a few cull shrimp to his tank to see if that gives him some company and Will add something over the light to shade it a bit.  I really need the light for a plant tank adjoining this set up.      

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With pure RO water the GH should be 0 as well, but you should be able to work with those starting figures. Of course the shrimp minerals are made to be added to RO water with a 0 so that explains why your figure is so high, shrimp minerals to tds 150 would give you GH 6, plus the 2 you are starting with. You can just aim for tds 120 and that will bring the GH down 1(ish).

A cheap and easy alternative would be to get a zerowater filter jug and run the bought water through that to reduce PH and irradicate GH, or even better just use the jug with tap water and that saves you having to buy RO water from a supplier as it gives you pure water.

 

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Thanks again for the input.  I have a 4 stage RO filter that I am using for this tank.  The previous RO readings mentioned were from that RO filter water.   We have moderately hard water here to start with with lots of calcium going on the scale build up on tank walls from splashes on filter outlets etc.   So I am gathering you are suggesting drop the GH.  Will that help to bring down the PH or is that effected by KH only.  I am using AZoo KH+ re-mineralizer.  Doesn't  seem to take much solution to alter the TDS readings.  Pretty potent stuff.        

I just added the peat moss yesterday so hopefully that might help.  I'll  take some more readings this morning.  

Dirk 

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PH is effected by KH

1 hour ago, Dirk De Bakker said:

I am using AZoo KH+ re-mineralizer.

Cut down on this ^^ 

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That AZoo mentioned above should have read GH+,   NOT KH+ Sorry about the confusion there. 

Are you not recommending this particular remineralizer?.    New to this stuff.  

Salty Shrimp says it increases the KH and PH.   Shrimp King pretty much says the same from memory.   Others apparantly use aged tap water after a few days sitting without lids on. 

 

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As far as I can see that GHplus remineraliser should be ok, it mentions shrimps etc, not heard of it before. I think you probably threw JayC off track by saying it was KH+?

Generally there are 2 different types of remineralisers, one for neocaridina shrimp (GH/KH+) and one for Caradina shrimp (GH+). The GH/KH+ does usually increease the PH also. Both the brands you mention make both so you have to get the correct one for the shrimp you are keeping! I think letting water stand is usually to get rid of chlorine from tap water, but I don't know how effective that actually is????

Putting cull shrimp (neocaridina) may work but the water parameters of the 2 different tanks will be quite different so it would be best to drip acclimate the culls for the best results. I have just dumped neocaridina culls into caridina tanks before and they have survived ok though!

I think at this early stage you should just carry onn with the tank cycling. Given some time the substrate may drop the PH, that is what it is supposed to do after all, and the added Indian Almond leaves should also help.

When mixing the remineraliser to the RO water try mixing some to GH 5, then test the TDS, then (if the TDS is within the correct range) you will know the TDS figure to aim for in the future when mixing remineraliser to RO water. You then won't need to check GH each time but just the TDS which is quicker and simpler! In order to get the tank to better parameters you can just do a water change of maybe 20-25% with pure RO water and that will bring TDS and GH down, retest those figures and go from there. It will be easier to do this now as there aren't any shrimps in situ?

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8 hours ago, Dirk De Bakker said:

That AZoo mentioned above should have read GH+,   NOT KH+ Sorry about the confusion there. 

Yep. that confused me a bit.

It's fine to use Azoo GH+.

 

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Sorry for the confusion JayC.  Story of my life.....

SdlTBfanUK, that's great information there never thought of going with the RO mixing to 5 GH then testing the TDS.   This RO and Cardina stuff is a whole new ball game for me but I am enjoying learning and its a new challenge. 

The peat in the PRL holding tank is working and very happy about that.  The PH is down to 6.4 - 6.6 and GH now at 5*    Even the culls seem happy enough in there and feeding. 

  

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