Leaderboard

Sorry to say it, but, no. You cannot maintain a heavy dosing regime of fertilisers while keeping TDS at levels required for shrimp. The only way to maintain low TDS is to swap the plants for low light plants, and reduce or stop fertilisers all together. My shrimp tanks are all mosses, subwassertangs, ferns and Anubis.

Yeah you can feel them picking too Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

Can't go wrong with cherry shrimp (red, orange and choc). Other cherry variants can be a little more stubborn. Some of the natives including DRS and DAS are good for beginners too.

Hi, Thankyou for the welcome. Admittedly I'm here to learn more about shrimp keeping as my daughter is very keen to set up a tank. Personally I've been keeping tropical freshwater fish since 1999. Regards GF

@viridisornatus @NoGi I'm pretty sure the shrimps we keep have the bulk of their exoskeletons made up of calcium carbonates. Although some structures in crustaceans are made up of a calcium phosphate and carbonate mix. The possible use of the two forms of calcium on different parts of their body is for hardness and elasticity. For example, their mandibles need to be harder, so you'd find more phosphates there. While carbonates are more elastic for easier moulting. Shrimps, like fish, can absorb calcium from the water. If calcium is abundant enough in the water, the shrimps will obtain the majority of their calcium through their gills. Calcium in diet makes up the remaining source. It doesn't matter if the calcium is in the form of sulphate, chloride, nitrate or phosphate. The key is a balance with Magnesium. Magnesium keeps the calcium in a dissolved state. Magnesium also converts Vitamin D into its active form so that it can help calcium absorption.