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Yes. I live in Texas. When I'm away freon the house I'll have only one of my AC units running so the cats don't die. The mold was caused by some food the shrimp didn't eat. I did a temp check with my other probe and it was almost 2 degrees higher. I guess I'll leave the fans on when I leave now

I came home from being away for 2 days and there was another adolescent shrimp dead. I saw the water temp was 83. I know they like to have 70 to 78. Would 83 kill some shrimp? Also I first started doing water changes again and I had to do a little extra a few days later because there was a little mold I had to siphon out. Not sure if that's the reason either. Also my water TDS stayed between 142-147 this whole time.

When I do the TDS readiing I swoosh it through the water rather than just putting it in one place and that should help mix the water and clear any dirt from the prongs! I would aim for the TDS of about 150 but don't wait for it to go up to 200 now. Assuming the earlier readings of 200ish were incorrect so can be ignored now, I would just get back to your regular weekly maintenance/water change and mix the new water to about 140-150 and you should be all set. Simon

Just been going through similar with CurlyJones. You will get closer and closer to the 200 but it will be painfully slow. I would do as recommended to him that you make the new water around TDS 100 when you do a water change, so after the next that should reduce the TDS to about 225 afterwards. The important thing though is to add the new water gradually, I know a dripper isn't practical with your large tank so maybe add 1 gallon every hour or something (only necessary as you are changing the TDS by a noticeable amount). Keep water change water to the TDS 100 until you get to the figure you want to get too! You should ALWAYS top up between water changes using pure RO water with no mineralisers! You should be able to use the spreadsheet I attached to CurlyJones even though it is in litres but it should still work the same as it is the proportion that is more important I think anyway. I attach a copy changed for 60 gallons and 10% water as it makes calculating the new water TDS requirement much easier? TDS Calculator.xlsx It won't be 100% though unless you know the correct figures to input, ie my 35L tank actually has 28L of water, the size of the tank would only be 35L if it were filled to the very top and had nothing else in it! Hope that makes sense? Hope you haven't had any more shrimp deaths. Simon

214TDS is not ideal. The intention here is to let the shrimp settle into the new tank parameters without a water change for a while. As long as the TDS does not exceed 300, it should be okay for a week or two. After that time, start water changes to bring TDS back to ideal Crystal parameters. The short time frame where TDS is between 200- 300 won't harm the shrimp (since they are already in water that is in this range). But the stability in parameters during this timeframe will do them good. Hope that makes sense.