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Also, if you are trying to reduce TDS, when you add minerals to the replacement water you are adding to the TDS in the tank. Best to replace with water that hasn't had minerals added, over a few water changes the TDS will lower.

Hey all, Using a new Aquamanta TH 300, 300w Titanium heater with electric thermostat. Brilliant accurate unit, but something that everyone should be aware of if using this unit, when it is switched off at the power point, it automatically resets itself to a temperature setting of 26 degrees. I found this out, by pure luck, when migrating my shrimps to the rack. Glad I did a last minute temperature check before leaving for night! Like I said, great unit, just be aware of default temp setting! Cheers

Depending your tap water. my tap water have 800+ tds. so i used Portable RO unit. but sometimes i mix with tap water very little ammount to raise my tds. But yes seachem prime is shrimp safe. im using for my tank

I always use it and never had a problem. I have checked Tap water TDS then tap water with added prime TDS and noticed little if not no change to the TDS.

Curious to know whether it raises TDS ? If it does, I wouldn't use it... I'm sure many use it, but whether it affects shrimps in the long run ? I'm not sure ...

Just add this aged water in slowly without adding minerals. Don't need to wait for two days. An hour is enough for the Dechlorinator to work. Unless you want to treat this water with peat to reduce ph. You can make your own blackwater extract. Boil your own using IAL, Peat Moss, autumn leaves like Oak, and Alder cones using dechlorinated water. Boil it for a while till the water looks like tea. Let it cool and strain it of debris. Use this as your water change. Stop when you reach 6.6 - 6.7 ph.

Over the years fishkeeping and breeding I have used 1micron pre filter and .4micron carbon filter fitted to my tap for water changes cost about $80 to set up and $20/$30 for filters every 3 months on about 7000lts of tanks.I do 30% water change weekly and will emty and refill 30% of a 100l tank in about 10mins.As others stated tds is a bit high but not to the point I think its the problem.Shrimp and fish are the same as both like stability of water peramaters and when adjusting them done gradually.Personally I don't use chemicals or additives often not saying they don't have their place but I tend to use other methods to achieve results where possible.Sounds like a moulting problem but it could be just a matter of to much change to fast.I use blackwater and IAL to acidify and soften small amount of shellgrit or coral sand to help with calcium for moulting.Hope this helps a bit.

Newbreed, I got the idea for aging water from everything I've read on keeping shrimp. Being such a noob and wanting to learn as mush as I can, I spend at least an hour a day going through everything I can find on the net about them, and ask lfs or other Shrimpkeepers when I can. Everything I've read and been told points out how important the quality of the water being added to their tanks is and that fresh tap water is not good to use, even if it's been treated to remove the nasties. A lot swear by ro water, others use rainwater, and we can't do either. Melbourne waters pretty good and I've read and also had suggested to me a quite a few times by other people that do it, that it would lessen the chance of shrimp dying, to age the water first by leaving the bucket of water, treated with water conditioner to remove the nasties in tap water, for at least a week with a large air stone bubbling away and to add some boiled peat moss to lower the ph. Also nitrite in both tank & bucket is 0 and nitrate barely registered.

If you have low Calcium and Magnesium levels, all the shrimps will look fine ... until they try moulting the next time.

It's unfortunate that RO water or even rain water is not an option. Cause the most obvious (and immediate) action to take is to reduce that TDS level down to around 150. If your only option is to use tap water, then please run some tests of the tap water for us - pH, and TDS. Without any added pH Down or water conditioner. Since your TDS is so high already, my recommendation is to forgo adding fluval shrimp minerals (which raises TDS). Drip in the change water slowly over several hours. You can go faster than 8.5L over 10 hours. 8.5L in a 100L tank is nothing - 1 hour is sufficient. I'd be changing 20L of water at a time. Drip new aged water in over 5 hours. That should be much faster water changes. The other issue seems to be pH, or rather the instability of the pH reading. It's rising. you're countering it with pH down chems. It rises again as the chems wear off. You need to find the cause of the pH rise. Could possibly be the pH of the water out of your tap is already high. Or something in your tank is buffering it higher - rocks, cheap ceramic ring filter media, old carbon media are some possibilities. You can test them in some clean water out of the tank/filter. Check pH before adding the suspect item. Then test again after 24 hours. Also, how old is the tank since it was setup? I truly believe (not physically tested yet) that most tanks will run low on Calcium and Magnesium after 3 months. Even if you add a little back in each water change using Salty Shrimp or whatever re-mineralising water treatment. More Ca and Mg needs to be added or it will be depleted in that time frame causing moulting issues. If Calcium : Magnesium is low, take up Newbreeds offer immediately. If you need more Ca and Mg, our sponsors Aquotix AOS sells it fairly cheap for the amount you get. Next time it rains, put lots of buckets out. But if your aged tap water has these readings "TDS 31, ph 6.7, ammonia 0, gh 0, kh 0", then you have very good tap water for fish/shrimp. But I doubt tap water pH is that low out of the tap. Is this 6.7pH with pH down? Hope that helps, you now have a few ideas to act on immediately.

Mate, I love this rack design!! Brilliant! My two cents worth, I would stick to the same substrate throughout if running through a sump.

Sorry to hear of this dilemma. You are right about getting the TDS down and ph needs to drop too. Gh 5 is ideal. The TDS will come down with a series of water changes. The Water change will assist if there is a nitrate issue too. Changing 8.5litres in a 100litre tank should not be an issue. There may be an issue with moulting, which can be inspired with water changes. If the dead shrimp is soft to the touch this would usually be the problem. I am not certain on the make up of the Fluval Shrimp Minerals, but Benibachi Mineral Powder assists with fixing moulting issues. Is there a particular reason you let the water sit for 8-10 days before adding. To me this seems like a long time, do others see this may be an issue? I hope others have more to suggest to remedy this for you. If you like, shoot me a pm. I will be down in Glen Waverley tomorrow night and may be able to give you some spare Mineral powder (assuming you are in Vermont, Victoria). Cheers.

I hope someone can give you the help you need. There are so many knowledgeable people on this forum (I'm not one of them).

This is above my level of shrimp skill. I am sorry to hear about your frustrating losses, it must be so disheartening. Please keep us posted on your progress, and I look forward to seeing you succeed in tackling the problem.

Anemones have settled and looking amazing....still formulating a feeding/maintenance schedule to ensure phosphates are kept >0.02.... Can't wait for my marine lights to arrive, and get the anemones to really colour up under the blue lights.....delighted with the progress to date :-)

Hehe thanks guys. Some more: I tried to capture both my bright ruby reds and my deep coloured ruby reds. Worked on one section of my tank today, will be working on line breeding a few TB's soon. Let me know what you guys think! Kristy ^_^