Substrate maintenance

[daveron]

Hello, 

 

I'm currently having one basic shrimp tank with cherries and neutral substrate and was thinking about something more advanced but the substrate topic does confuse me.

My tap water is very alkaline with PH around 8.0-8.2 so I will need to get that down significantly. But while reading about the substrates that will help me achieve that goal and be good for shrimps I have found information that those substrates need to be changed, as they loose their parameters over time, and can even become harmful. Is that correct ?

If yes then...how do you do that without dismantling the whole tank ?  I always assumed that the substrate you choose for your tank is a permanent choice. I am however a complete novice, as I started my shrimp tank because the tank itself was a gift. So did I got something wrong, or is this really the case and if yes... how does it work ?

 

 

 

[Squiggle]

This is correct, it's like with any active product(air freshener, car tyres, candles, etc) they eventually run out(some more obviously than others). The substance in your soil that buffers the pH down will eventually loose it's ability to do this effectively &, unfortunately, relacement is the last option. You can extend the life of your soil dramatically by using RO water & minerals, like Salty Shrimp, to remineralise the water to where you want it so the soil doesn't have to work so hard to buffer the water, or you can add products like Benibachi Fulvic Grains to help bring the pH back down to where you want it when it is exhausted & starts to rise, but ultimately you will need to replace the soil in the end.

This is where it is most often better to pay a little more for a quality soil that will keep its buffering for longer than the cheaper ones.

[daveron]

Thank you very much for your reply.

Now I assume that using those special substrates with RO water is required because RO water has no buffering ability, and those substrates supplement that. But is it possible to use a neutral substrate with RO water and increase it's buffering ability in other ways to keep the pH stable ? 

 

And the second question obviously be : how long approx. would a good quality substrate last on an avarage tap water ? 

 

My aim is obviously not to get the costs so high as I don't want to keep Panda Shrimps all of sudden. 

[Squiggle]

This is true, but the problem with keeping higher grade Caridina Spp. is the KH, ideally, should be between 0-2dKH & it's hard to stabilise pH with such a low KH. Now I'm sure there is a way to do this but I'm not a chemistry genius, I just know a about the products I use. Maybe one of the other members can chime in here with a method(I'm looking at you Shrimpy Daddy, lol)

I have seen people strip good soil in 3-4months using tap water, but it all depends on how bad your tap water is, some places in Aus have very hard water. I've heard that Europe has fairly good tap water compared.

If you just want to keep Neocaridina Spp. then using inert gravel & tap water is more possible.

[daveron]

Thanks. I really dislike the idea of having to change my tank every couple of months. So I guess I need to do research on how to create a proper buffer in a tank with inert gravel and RO water in it, and what kind of remineralising products to use. If anyone has some experience on what kind of products one would have to use I would really appreciate the assistance.  

[wot_fan]

I am cycling my first shrimp tank now, so I am no expert but from the research I have done Salty Shrimp GH+ or GH/KH+ seem to be what most people use.  I went with an active substrate (ADA AS) so I can't help in regards to buffering for a specific PH.

 

By the way, my understanding is if you use re-mineralized RO water with an active substrate, it will last a lot longer than a couple months.  The soil has only so much capacity and the harder it has to work to change the water you're adding the shorter the life span is going to be.  I think a couple of months is close to a worst case scenario.

 

Good luck and please let us know what you decide to do.

[Squiggle]

Salty Shrimp GH/KH+ is the righ minerals for cherry shrimp & inert gravel, GH+ & an active substrate is the right one for Caridina Spp. & using RO with Salty Shriimp will extend the life of the substrate to about 2+years, as I mentioned, 3-4months is definitely the worst case scenario with really hard tap water.