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ph dropping is part of the nitrogen cycle. That means the bacteria is doing it's thing. A water change with higher pH water is necessary now to avoid the cycle stalling. The prawn growing fur is also normal, as it is decomposing, and fungi are starting to break it down. Let the biofilm grow as that will be part of the shrimp's diet once you add some in. If it's hindering your view, scrape it off the front glass only, but don't syphon it out. The dislodged biofilm from the front glass will settle somewhere else in the tank.

As you are aiming for TDS150 and the tank is near that now at 147 you just make the new water up to near as you can TDS150 and if you keep topping up with pure RO water between changes this would be the normal routine from now. Getting a new TDS meter was the right thing to do as they are cheap enough and hopefully it will be more accurate? As someone said before, you can get a rough idea of whether the TDS reading is right by doing a GH test as using RO water and remineraliser those figures should be related. Probably best to test some mineralised water before you put it in the tank though! Good that you haven't lost any more shrimps, hopefully that continues and all should be straight forward now. Simon

Okay so I haven't done a water change in weeks because I thought the TDS needed to get closer to 150 before changing and my TDS meter continually kept reading 108 to 114. Sho I went and bought a new TDS meter and it's different from my old one. The new one vs my old one: my water in tank 147 vs 103, water using the correct salty shrimp mix to RO water 88 vs 66. So I'm going with the reading on my new TDS meter. So it's time for a water change. Should I replace the water with the 88 TDS or put some more mix in until it's above 100 (since CRS parameters should be 100-200)? Thanks again everyone

i had a significant drop in PH as well, so i think thats accurate. I havent however checked my readings yet and will do that later today but i have NEVER had Amonia (NH4) readings in either of my tanks. my Prawn is also growing fur and my tank is growing a healthy layer of biofilm that i want to clean off but think is a bad idea? I think adding the items from the other tank have helped things along with regards to the Biofilm. I've just done my normal maintenance except on the large tank as the TDS kept creeping up to 265 so i did several extra water changes at 0TDS to get the tank down down to 230 and added BB.

Thank you both so much! I have struggled. I will change out the substrate. Thank you again!

Those are some healthy discus, I used to breed them about 18 years ago, I had ultra high body and high fin, but those a really rare these days if you are after some good quality ones.

I just got onto this forum as I'm just looking to start keeping Cherries... You have just blown my brain! Just... WoW. o.O