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No not illegal to keep. But illegal to import new shrimp. The shrimp we have in Aus was imported BEFORE the ban. We can keep any shrimp that we already have in Aus, but we cannot expand it with new shrimp from overseas. So our gene pool here is very, very small. We have native shrimp in some of our rivers, they are beautiful in there own manner with their wild colours. But they are not super colourful. The whole idea behind the ban on importing foreign species into Australia is to keep the native fauna here from being wiped out either through predication or disease. I get why they ban imports, but I'm also sad we miss out on a lot of cool shrimp varieties coming out of Taiwan, Japan or Germany.

Now you see why we suggested "shrimp" specific products rather than suggesting equilibrium in our earlier replies?

I recently made the switch from sand and SS GH/KH to SL-Aqua substrate and GH only minerals (from same company - liquid form). When I switched everything over, I didn't even acclimate the shrimp. Knock on wood, I haven't seen a loss yet! It's only been a few days. Everything in the tank is the same except for the substrate and water. Also cleaned the sides and front of tank while I had it taken down. It's a 10g tank, so I remineralized two 5g buckets of water, one of which I slightly over-remineralized. Figured it would work it out as I had tossed in some water that wasn't remineralized to the right parameters just to keep the plants in there wet. One bucket had been sitting around for a while with just RO water and the other only a few days before adding minerals. After everything has settled, it all worked out to about 7.5/8 GH which is about what I was aiming for. I can't say I'll continue getting the liquid remineralizer right now, but we'll see with how this one does. Powders will always be more bang for your buck with how much water you can remineralize with it, but the liquids are supposed to contain more nutrients in them that are beneficial for shrimp. Tank has Caridina (YKK and ???) and Neocaridina (Bloody Mary) in it.

Thanks, Simon. I am a shrimpnewb after all. My tank has pretty much zero evaporation - it's weird, but it seems to have something to do with not running a heater and the water temperature being the same as the room. I'm just planning to switch over to the shrimp focused mineralizer with water changes over time. I'll update the TDS differences I assume will be there.

This has got rather long and involved, interesting though! Just wanted to remind you that topping up tanks from evaporation will still need pure RO water (not mineralised) though so you will need to keep some Pure RO water aside for that. Simon

So... because my LFS carries Sera products, I acquired some of their Shrimp Mineral Salt. Haven't measured anything yet, but put enough to raise 5.3 gallons of water to Gh 6.5 and it dissolved instantly leaving a solution that looks like clear water. Given that I've been using Seachem Equilibrium, which doesn't want to seem to dissolve much and makes a brown cloud in concentrated form, I am encouraged. Will update with numbers once I make the water change.

Nope, shrimp import is banned in Australia. Absolutely banned.