Leaderboard

Have a tip for you. This link goes to another calculator. It calculates nutrition and gh(ca and mg). The best thing is that it shows the ca:mg ratio. I really like the possibility to type in my tap waters ca and mg and the values I would like to have and it automatically calculates how much I should add. So the hole process of calculating ratios is done automatically. It can also calculate aquarium volume and how much substrate you'll need to your aquarium. It's only in Swedish but mostly abbreviations wich is the same all over the world. Google translate the few Swedish words and your good to go. https://eketjall.se/akvariekalkylatorn/

The other thing to take into consideration is you said you were on tank water with additives. What is the tank made of and do you know what additives are being added to the water. If the tank is metal and I would hazard a guess that they may be adding chlorine among other things then I would also be looking to add a nuetraliser to remove the heavy metals, chlorine and chloramines. Do you have any air stones, air filters or any oxygenation happening in the tank? The chlorine will dissipate over a few days anyway but if you do a water change it may be something to keep in mind. I slightly disagree with JayC in that that KH is not critical. The issue with this is that KH assists in keeping the ph at a stable level. Yes there are members who run shrimp tanks with no kh but they are experienced members who fully understand water parameters and the requirements to run these types of setups. The two main ingredients that control KH and help maintain stable ph levels are calcium and magnesium. The issue as I said especially for new people is that your ph could crash for any reason and drop significantly and quickly. It could be as simple as over feeding. The result of this is that the biological system goes into damage control and will automatically revert back to ammonia to try stable itself. So in other words the cycle starts again. The issue and again being inexperienced is that an ammonia spike could happen anytime and kill your shrimp. There are products available to help in this scenario and most experienced hobbyist with shrimp and fish usually keep a product like Prime, stabiliser or some water conditioners come with an ammonia nuetraliser. Cherries are very hardy as has been mentioned so I personally believe after testing myself that cherries will survive at the lower ph levels but increasing the ph even to around 6.6ph I have found that my cherry shrimp breed much more frequently and shrimplets survival has increased. The crs will still do well at this level and there are members I know of who have kept crystals with a ph well over 7 not that I am saying thats a good thing. The main thing with shrimp is stability. The more stable everything stays the better they do. Thats why you do small water changes and slowly refill. I use tap water treated with a conditioner and use a ph buffering soil. There are others who use RO water and add minerals so at the end of the day it is up to you what way you go. The other advise I will give you from experience is don't rush getting the shrimp into the tank or try to add different chemicals in an attempt to get it to fully cycle quicker. It can sometimes take up to a month for the tank to be fully cycled. There are a few things you can do to assist in getting the tank to cycle a little quicker. The other advice I would give you is that you may loose shrimp at the start for any number of reasons and it is disheartening but remember that we have all been through the same issues so start with a cheaper type of shrimp and build up your stock levels slowly. Good luck, welcome to the forum and feel free to ask as many questions as you need to. We are all here to assist you with tips and advise. The forum itself has a lot of stickys which are under each of the relevant threads, so if you want information then have a look under the relevant thread. There is a lot of useful information there.