Leaderboard

Your parameters and tap water are probably ok for cherry shrimp . They are super easy compared to crystal/Taiwan bee (and therefore much cheaper to keep), but if you have crystals left alive I would probably try adjusting the water and see how it goes especially if you have a convenient shop where you can get RO water (if they still all die then you can empty the old water and completely start a fresh with remineralised RO water if you want to try crystals/Taiwan Bee again, or just go back to tap water and get cherry shrimp etc), if it goes well with the crystals you may get it to the point where they breed and you are all set. It should be fairly easy with that small size of tank whichever route you choose? Good luck with whatever you choose, me personally, and I have lost a lot whilst learning, hadn't found this forum then, there is more satisfaction from doing something more difficult, I rarely even look at the shrimps in my cherry shrimp tank, plus of coarse crystals/taiwan bee are more colourful and varied. Simon

My tank always shows Nitrates of 10 (but that may be because the strips I use look that colour before I dip them anyway so I wouldn't worry about a reading of 10 personally. Small tanks are more difficult to keep but I started with a 15 litre with a sponge filter and once I started with the zerowater I got over 100 shrimps in 6 months.................... I wouldn't do anything drastic, and just accept you MAY lose a few more shrimps until it is all sorted (We have all been there unfortunately). I would remove the filter rings first, then decide what water you want to use that is convenient. If you can get RO from somewhere locally, or whether to buy a zerowater filter jug (Brita won't work). You will need to get the GH+ or other remineralisers as well. In order to reduce your current tank parameters of coarse you will need to mix the new water with the parameters lower (maybe around TDS 100, GH4) than that you want in the end until you reach the parameters you want, and when doing top ups from evaporation you use pure RO/zerowater with no minerals. With that size tank I did a 2 litre water change each week to rinse the sponges in etc and that seemed to work well. If you start doing that with the new water it should adjust the parameters slowly as it dilutes the tank water a bit each time, especially if you drip the new water in to the tank slowly as I did/still do, so hopefully the shrimp will adapt to it without any more losses. The products that are made specifically for shrimp obviously have the right balance of everything they need and as such a preset balance between GH and TDS, I think the one I use is APPROX 1GH/25(ish)TDS/per drop per litre), so starting with RO/zerowater you can't really go wrong? Some remineralisers also add KH (it will clearly state that though on the front of the container) and you don't want those ones. Just ask if you need any clarification etc. Simon

I don't know anything about singapore tap water but if you watch the video I linked he says 'caridina shrimp may live a few months in tap water but then they will die off', this is what happened to me for several years when I used tap water so I know he is right. Since using the equivalent of RO water (zerowater filtered then remineralised) 100% success. Even if you get the 'on paper' parameters right if you don't know what is in the water to make those parameters it may not be suitable. My tap water had perfect parameters but as mentioned, didn't work more than a few months at a time. If it is easy to get RO water I would start using that (remineralised) every time you do water changes (only small changes each time), or as you have such a small tank I would use the zerowater filter jug (my first post on here) for your tap water and add back the correctly balanced shrimp minerals from one of the many special products, I use dennerle shrimp king mineral fluid double as it is a liquid so easy to use. I also only use sponge in my filters NOTHING ELSE in the filter system, so as per JayC I wouldn't use those! You said that the GH of your tap water was 0 but what about the TDS? If that isn't also 0 as well then there is something else in the water that isn't what the GH test picks up so would seem to confirm the above? https://skfaquatics.com/forum/topic/14025-tap-water-taiwan-bee-uk-zerowater/ Sorry the original video I attached and the above article are so long, hope you have enough time/interest. Simon

It's probably better to control GH yourself than to rely on those filter rings. Those filter rings don't know when to stop releasing minerals, which sends your GH sky high. Either remove it or use much less than before.

On a practical note, what the guys are saying is lower GH and KH. See if you can get it down to 6 GH and 1 KH with some RO or rain water in the next few water changes. Singapore is hot, so 24 is not bad considering. Don't let it get any higher. Keep an eye on Nitrates. It should come down if you are make the changes above. But don't let it get any higher than 25. Apart from that, feed them more frozen bloodworms. That will give them more protein and strength for the next moult. Feed bloodworms once every 3-4 feeds of your other food.