Thanks for updating us and I'm pleased it seems to be working better now. The tank looks fabulous as well and the shrimp will be very happy in there! Go carefully with the C02 though and I hope to see your taiwan bee shrimp soon? Simon

Hi  For those who read my last issues in this thread below, I have completely renewed the tank. Introduction of a spider wood of some sort polluted my tech soil definitely. So removed everything, changed the soil to a standard JBL Manado Dark soil, so I won't have to worry about changing it for a while. I kept the plants but threw away the soil & the woods I used to have. Plants were kept. After 6 weeks of running it empty I introduced last week CRS S to SSS type. They are doing fine. I use 100% RO water with salty shrimp for Caridinas. Parameters seem all perfect. CO2 to help plants grow. Just wanted to open a live topic to show you the evolution and breeding I will have when I will introduce this week some Taiwan Bees Pandas & Red Wines. The results should be interesting. I am not looking into breeding specific types, just want to see how thing goes with this breedings. Anyway here are a couple of pics.  

I would just test the KH of the tank and make sure it is still 3 and if it is leave it alone, that's the figure you want. I use a separate KH+ (elixir) for the one tank I want to add some KH and I already have the GH+ anyway. It is a bit more complicated than buying the GH/KH combined but not that much once you get used to it. You are aiming to keep it at 3-4, so aim for 3 as it is easier to increase than decrease. I think JayC probably knows of a cheap KH alternative cooking product or ingredient (if I remember correctly, I want to say bicarbonate of soda but don't rely on that, something similar?) rather than buying a special product which is obviously more expensive so see what he has to say later! If the first drop was pale yellow then it probably is 0, the reason it went darker will be down to the adding of more tester fluid. The GH+ usually has no KH so with RO water it is usually 0 but you can't test for zero as that requires adding zero drops, and therein you are starting down the road to insanity............. If you are that bothered (and you shouldn't be really) you can increase the volume of water, ie double (10ml) each drop is .5 KH, or 4 times the water (20ml) each drop is .25 KH and so on, however it will be so diluted you probably won't be able to se any colour anyway as it is difficult enough to see the colour in 5ml? Simon

Not that much of a problem if you got the GH+ instead of GH/KH+. All you need to do is add Bi Card Soda (not baking soda), which you might already have in the kitchen. Go slow. A bit of Bicarb goes a long way to increasing KH. I suggest dissolving 1/4 teaspoon in some tank water. Do this in a small container. Then drop a couple of drops of this into the tank. Any extra can be stored in an empty bottle for next time. Re-test KH. 

Hello, so i've done my first water change using RO water. Now, I used Salty Shrimp Bee Shrimp GH+ as it was the only one my lfs had. I realised this doesn't have KH like the Salty Shrimp GH/KH+, so my question is do I need to add anything else to the water for KH? So following the dosage on the product, I got a GH of 7 with a TDS of 140 and KH of 0-1 (maybe 2, it went a little yellow at the first drop, and solid yellow at the 2nd drop).  Cheers!