Leaderboard

Could we see a photo of the tank? And the parameters? (Other than tds of course. I mean GH, KH, pH, and anything else you can measure.) I would say use a low powered heater for safety. Get a popular and well known one though, because there’s no point in getting something for safety if it malfunctions and kills all your shrimp! There have been studies that have shown neo shrimp to survive when kept below freezing, but it’s not ideal. I keep mine at 25° Celsius (sorry I’m Aussie, that’s 76-78 f I think??), but they’re with fish. You could just keep your temperature at a little above 65° if you want to save on power. I just reread and you said it’s getting below 30... but is the tank in your house? What temperature will the tank be getting to? If it’s below 55 I recommend a heater. Also if you want them to breed, a heater is pretty much necessary in a colder climate. Sorry if that’s all too much. I have a problem with long posts ?

New setup, now just waiting on my GH+/KH+

I wouldn't change the KH that quickly? If you can cope with it (it is a large tank) I would get the GH/KH+ and change 20% each week for a month (then check where you are etc, tank should be APPROX Gh4.8 after 4 weeks by my maths-roughly .3 each change), mixing the new water to the same TDS but putting the new water in gradually/slowly (dripper or similar fine tubing, if you have it). This would just be to alter the KH as such a large tank with so few shrimp you probably don't need to do any water change/maintenance at this stage? Shrimp have a low bioload anyway. Hopefully by a month you may even have baby shrimps? If you want to reduce the TDS to 150 do the same and the GH/KH will reduce a bit quicker but all this is slow enough that I wouldn't bother testing the tank too often, maybe after 2 weeks if you really want to? Just measure the TDS of the new water and the remineraliser is already BALANCED for PH/KH/GH! It doesn't make a lot of sense to get GH+ and then get KH+, you might as well buy the GH/KH+? When up to normal you can probably do a water change once a month of 20% and even that may be unnecessary in reality but probably a good idea to do anyway. Unless you get a lot of evaporation the TDS in such a big tank is unlikely to fluctuate much! Top up between should just be RO water! Simon

Ok great, I thought it would be more difficult than that. I’ll buy the remineralizer and I’ll test all my tank parameters as well. I’ve heard KH is one of the most important parameters for shrimp so I will have to change it slowly. How slowly would I change the KH down, I heard 1-2 KH per week max? I have a TDS pen and I get reverse osmosis water for 27 cents a gallon from Walmart. If I have all my parameters set and the water is at 150 TDS when do I do a water change if my nitrates stay at 0? I have a lot of the Frogbit plant and I believe my bioload is low enough for the plant to process it. I believe I would change the water when the TDS gets to a certain number correct? Thanks for the help

I thought your shrimp may have problems moulting but if they aren't and all is going well don't rush into anything. From the above I would just carry on with doing your planned normal maintenance/water changes regime. Use RO water plus GH/KH+ and remineralise to 200ish from here onwards for the new water as that is the same as the tank (as JayC states). What you will in affect be doing is removing water of KH6 and putting water of KH 3 or 4 in the tank so it will gradually go down. You could speed up the process by buying just GH+ (as per Crabby) which will mean you remove KH6 and replace with KH0 but that will mean buying that product as well which will be a bit of a waste long term as GH/KH+ is the one for cherry shrimp with RO water, and if everything is going well and you have no problems at present then adjusting too quick or too large/often may actually cause a problem! Topping up from evaporation should be RO water only. The commercial products for GH/KH+ will all be balanced to produce GH and KH to a ratio of 2:1 so using these products you only need to mix it with RO water to a desired TDS and forget the other tests when mixing the new water. The GH+ obviously doesn't have any KH in it but will be balanced for TDS and GH suitable for bee shrimps using RO water. Both also help get the desired PH for the shrimp they are designed for. I'm not sure how you are getting RO water but in USA there is a ZEROWATER filter jug (I use it here in UK) available everywhere (Walmart and probably direct via a website etc) as it is an american product? The filters may not last very long with such hard water and such a large tank but it is certainly the easiest (and in USA probably cheap) way to get RO water from tap water! Often it comes with a TDS pen. Other makes of filter jugs don't remove everything! Also as mentioned by others, dried leaves are good, especially Indian Almond leaves. Simon

It changes the water very, very slowly. KH will rise eventually. But GH will shoot up as any loose dust on the coral will dissolve immediately to add calcium into the water. A GH test kit will pick that up. KH will alter slowly however. So if you want to get pH KH and GH down, try removing as much as possible.

You have crushed coral in there? That is the thing that is raising GH and KH, and thus pH. People use crushed coral for Tanganyika cichlids that love high pH and hard water.

Tap water is great for cycling the tank. Wait until you are certain the tank is cycled and can process ammonia into Nitrates. Then change out 99% of the tank with RO water remineralised to TDS 140-150. All your parameters like GH, KH and pH will fall in line as well. Correct. And RO water + remineralise + TDS pen is the correct way of doing it. Match TDS measurement. Aim for 140 - 150, that will suit almost all shrimps, unless you are keeping Sulawesi type of shrimps.

Reverse Osmosis water, rain water, a mature filter will naturally lower pH as well. Lots of driftwood, dried leaves (eg dried Indian Almod Leaves or Katappa leaves, Oak). Anything organic like wood and leaves will reduce KH and pH. As Crabby mentioned, you want something that buffers GH only. Something like Salty Shrimp GH+, Shrimp King Bee Salt GH+ GlasGarten Liquid Mineral GH+ Borneo Wild GH+ They are pretty much all the same. But these are specific to shrimp, you can get stuff like Seachem Equilibrium, which isn't designed for shrimps, as it lacks the appropriate Calcium content. When you get confident enough, I have a DIY recipe for making your own RO remineraliser in the "Water Parameters" section of this forum. If you can get the ingredients, it will save you some money. A TDS pen !! Measure your change water, add enough of the remineraliser as required to bring it to the ideal TDS level for your type of shrimp. KH impacts pH. GH measures how much Calcium and Magnesium is in your water. So KH affects pH more. All very good questions, and should be asked by anyone new and starting out in shrimp keeping. This can be a complex question to answer, and there are multiple ways of answering this, and multiple correct answers. The easiest way to influence all these parameters so that you get it in the ideal range for your shrimp is to use RO or rain water and remineralise it. It's like starting from a clean sheet of paper to write a letter. RO water will reset all these parameters, and remineralisers will bring it back to the right level with the aid of a TDS pen. Remineralisers only put back what is needed for a living creature to survive in pure water. So TDS, GH, KH and pH will be at the ideal range. If RO water or rain water is not an option, than lowering KH first is key, as it brings down pH. GH is a close second. The catch is how you lower these parameters ... you still need RO or rain water. Keep up with the questions. We are here to help. SKFA are a bunch of helpful people from all around the world. Hope that helps.

Good to hear that you are getting a TDS pen. Crabby has given you some good advice. The aim a stable environment. That means keeping all your parameters as constant as possible. 21C or 70F is a good target to aim for with shrimp.

I was using all tap during cycling, before I got my shrimp a few days ago I drained maybe 35% and filled with reverse osmosis to get my tds down to 200, I’ve had 2 successful molts. I’ve heard stable parameters are the most important but if I can control all the parameters using reverse osmosis water then I would love to do it that way as long as I can keep it stable. I just don’t know that route as in chemicals, which parameter to match first ect

Wow! That is some seriously hard water! Was the tank filled up with tap or RO to begin with? In terms of TDS I have no idea. I dose ferts, and that will come up in a tds test so I just don’t bother measuring that. Inaccurate data is nearly as bad as no data. The mods can probably help you with that one. Another way you could do your water changes is 25% dechlorinated tap, and 75% RO remineralised with GH only. That should get you a good mix going into the tank. Not sure how much it’ll help for dropping it immediately though. As Simon always says, if it’s working, don’t change it! There’s no use chasing the perfect parameters if your shrimp are doing fine. Stable but slightly off parameters are still better than constantly changing ones.

If I do a water change with the reverse osmosis and use the GH increase, how would I control the TDS? My tap water is 12 GH 10 KH 390 TDS

Well if you are doing water changes with RO water then simply remineralise with a GH increaser only. That should make it naturally drop. Be aware that dropping KH will also cause your pH to drop. If you want to use a chemical to reduce KH, I’ve heard seachem acid buffer works. Otherwise simply use some Indian almond leaves, which you should do anyway for food, and your driftwood slowly degrading should soften the KH a bit.

Beautiful shrimp!

Hi Guys, new to the forum, I came to see if someone could help me with their expertise on water chemistry as something is confusing me. I recently set up a new tank intended to keep bee shrimp, 60l, aqua el mini pat filter modded with double sponge filter, shirakura red bee sand. I'm using tap water as the water is rather pure in my area, parameters are ph 6.7 at most, kh0, gh 0-1, average tds 35. I remineralize this to increase my GH to the appropriate level. I noticed that the substrate decreases my PH below 6, and I was wondering why as it should buffer at around 6.5? Claims it does have acidic and alkaline reagents to do so. I'm confused and wondering if I have to switch to another substrate to complement the low KH bees need and avoid ph crashes. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Hello, I would like to try Shrimp Keeping and from everythingi have read and YouTube videos I have everything I need. I have a 10 gallon dennerele shrimp tank. A few years ago I had tried it but wasn’t successful. Does anyone here sell shrimp? I live in CT USA . I’m interested in cherry reds, yellow, blue, green etc.. to start and they seem to be the hardiest shrimp. My teen granddaughter really likes all the colorful shrimp and she is interested in learning how to keep shrimp and I would love to teach her. This is my first time posting here do I hope I posted in the correct category. Thank you all got your help![emoji4] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Another successful molt today ? I saw a male and a female there earlier today, but she is not berried. Not sure if the male molted or if the female is still forming her eggs. Today was the first day that I saw shrimp swimming around my tank, so maybe the female did molt but is still premature Thank you ? Picture of the female I saw earlier where the molt occurred

That looks really nice!

Oh sorry that’s my bad, I didn’t understand what you meant by that. If you have a spare airline tube, maybe just drip from a bucket into the tank for that. If you want to do it slowly. Maybe try to space it out over half an hour to an hour, and do some other stuff while it’s filling up.

That sounds like a good plan. You can use a bucket and if you have some airline or similar and just let the water flow through to the tank from the bucket which would be easy to set up IF you can put the bucket on top of the tank? Simon

Hi thanks for all the information! I have purchased shrimp from Rob at flipaquatics and I will definitely purchase shrimp from him in the future. I have to wait until spring to have shrimp shipped because it is too cold here. I was hoping to find someone local to get a few shrimp from in the mean time. I watch his YouTube videos which are very informative, he is very kind and really cares about shrimp. I totally trust him and recommend shrimp keepers in the US to get their shrimp from him. I have the dennerele shrimp tank and I will definitely post pictures when I’m done with my aquascape. Thank you all! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I got some additonal things like mineral stones composed of montmorillonite clay to help absorb toxins as I thought the cycle doesn't really work in low PH (also helps with a constant mineral content release as the water here is so soft). They don't seem to increase my TDS I set with remineralizing so I guess they are fine. Shrimps dont have a massive amount of bioload, so incorrect feeding habits may have a heavier load on it than shrimps .. (I'm not sure though...) Got some moss too but didn't want to get over the top with the tank to make sure the parameters would stay as stable as possible. I started to get nitrites even in these "dire" conditions... so may try and actually cycle it, I presume its just going to take a lot longer. I got a PH test pen off amazon that measures between 0 and 14 (same kind as a TDS pen) so that might do the trick? The storm was kind of scary looking in the morning but didn't last for too long. Hope you'll pull through ?

A lot if the drop kits are rubbish for clarity. I use the tetra PH one (probably tried them all) as at least the different colours are clear, the only down side is it goes 5,6,6.5,7,7.5 etc so there is a big gap between 5 and 6. I bought one of these this week which may be a good idea, it only lasts about 6 months but seems perfect to use at the beginning even if you don't replace it later but revert to droplet kits (which is probably what I will do), https://www.pro-shrimp.co.uk/seachem/3059-seachem-ph-alert-000116002004.html I expect postage would be free as it is a small light item? I get all my stuff from the above supplier. Glad to hear you are getting everything sorted BEFORE you get the shrimps, that's rare. The PH question is one that everyone seems to have different views on. I don't see the point of raising the PH to a level that it won't regularly be running myself and when I did it caused disaster so I wouldn't do that again, HOWEVER I understand the reasoning behind people recommending that you keep the PH high and would 100% agree with that if the tank is normally going to run at around or over 7. Is there much point breeding bacteria at PH7 if it dies again when the PH drops?But if the tank is always going to run at a PH of 5.5 anyway to me it makes more sense to 'cycle' it at that level. Some even say a tank at that low PH may never 'cycle', but most bee shrimp experts kept at 5.5 permanently. There is also a point of PH at which ammonia becomes less toxic ammonium and maybe that causes a different 'cycle'? I am sure many will disagree so watch this space??? Lucky you if you didn't get the storm, it is soooo bloody tiring with the curtains closed and 80(mph ish) wind ALL day...................... Simon

Ok thanks, I purchased the GH/KH+ which should arrive by Feb. 14th. I tested my water parameters and they are GH 8 KH 7 PH 8 Nitrate 0 TDS 204 Today I will drain 10% and refill with only RO and then when the KH/GH+ comes in I will match the TDS and change out 20% per week correct? Instead of using the dripper method can I put in maybe 2 gallons per hour at a time in a 3 hour period? Thanks

Just realised how straight to the point I may came across - haha! Apologies. Hey Simon, The sun is shining up here at the moment, all good it seems. Question though - is there a nice PH test that goes below 6? Mine only measure from 6 so I can't tell the exact number (API and NT Labs)

You could certainly try both as the parameters are better for Crystals but they are more sensitive and the cherry are more versatile and would probably adapt just fine with a bit longer acclimating? It is unlikely to work as even if the fish don't ear the adults they WILL eat the babies, but maybe that's a lesson you need to learn the hard way, or it may work out, only one way to be 100% sure? Simon

Cherry shrimp are quite hardy so you probably can get by without a heater. If you do get a heater don't get one too powerful, mine stuck on and cooked the whole lot................ I would get one but as Crabby says get a small/low power one? There is Flip Aquatics that sell shrimp through the post, I believe they are based in OHIO? Hopefully there may be someone on here that can help you with getting some shrimp? If you want to use tap water then you can get a ZEROWATER filter jug readily in USA as it is an American product, I know Walmart sell them? Mixing colours of cherry shrimp will cause wild/brown/boring coloured shrimp in a few generations so bare that in mind. Mind I have only ever had red cherry in mine and that still happened, it has taken some years though! Simon

Okay thanks, it was in a sand format so I think that's why the GH went up like crazy, 'cause every time I messed up my substrate I flung dust into the water. Gonna be more careful of that from now on. And will use crushed coral bones in future, I think. I did try to remove as much as I could, but it was thoroughly mixed through. As long as I leave the substrate alone will that stop it from skyrocketing again? It's buried under substrate as well now, which will keep it safe from the fish messing it up I guess. Thanks jayc!

The thing is I only used a couple handfuls to try to bring it up to neutral. Still too much? I can remove it, but it's in the sand form mixed in with my black substrate, so it might be difficult. Also as you say it's meant to increase kh, but mine hasn't shifted at all.

Did a water test on the tank this weekend, after doing a large water change last week and adding a fish to finish the cycling, and the pH and GH have risen way too much. Water params were pH 7, GH 6 and KH 3 after the water change last week, and are now pH 7.6 (maximum on my test kit), GH 10 and KH 3. The guppy I have in here for bacteria purposes is still doing fine, he was living in hard water for a while before I got him so I assume he's used to it. What might have made these increase so much? All I've done recently is top up the substrate over the crushed coral in there, and plant some plants in there. And I used some aquarium glue - meant for 'freshwater and saltwater aquariums', in particular for coral frags and rocks - to glue some plants, algae and moss to a couple of pieces of driftwood. It was made for aquariums though... Both times I tested, last week and this, the Ammonia Nitrite and Nitrate were barely there, so I doubt it's that. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Yes, the pair are, but I don’t have any room for more tanks than the two I have, and I just can’t bring myself to get rid of them. They’re my favourite fish (other than maybe the pair of pseudomugil luminatus I have in my other tank), and I love them too much to sell them. They actually haven’t been showing much predatory behaviour as of late, but the male probably could fit a shrimp in his mouth. That’s why I asked about natives, as the DAE and Darwin red nose are meant to get larger than normal dwarf shrimp. Also if I can get the shrimp to breed then I shouldn’t have much of a problem even if he does eat a couple on occasion. And I’m maybe not meant to mention it, but Blazepelt and I are setting up a little 200L breeding pond for shrimp and livebearers, so I could have that as my ‘safety net’ for restocking I guess, if I do lose some. Could I do a test with 5 cherries (dark blue or fire red) and 5 CRS/CBS, and see who does better, or if they all survive? Would both be able to do well in my current parameters? If so I may just test this out and see what happens.

What is a good way to lower KH? Would you recommend any products to buffer reverse osmosis water to get my desired KH and GH levels? And what would be an easy way to get my correct TDS? Also based off of my KH and GH I should have the correct PH right? Basically it’s hard for me to understand how to get TDS, PH, GH, KH all perfect. Which do I work on first or what is your process/products?

Yes I have, I’m just waiting in a tds pen. I have been keeping fish for many years so hopefully I can give shrimp keeping another try. Last time I used tap water, this time I am using distilled water with salty shrimp. The only thing I’m confused about is if I should use a heater in the shrimp tank or not. It is winter here in CT, USA and temps are in the 30’s and it can get colder than that. Some say no heater others say yes. Any help, suggestions are much appreciated. Thank you

Not much at all. One worm each should be enough. Feed twice a week. KH 6 is high for cherries, and it reflects in the high pH. Try to work towards getting this down. That's normal when there is plenty of biofilm and new food so Dee introduced. Just keep at it. Make sure you thaw the worm in tank water before feeding.

Welcome to SKFA. Hopefully one of our members in the USA that might be able to help you with where to buy good shrimp. Have you started setting up the tank yet in preparation for housing the shrimp? The tank needs to be completely "cycled"

My biggest shrimp is a male and he is way over 1 inch(2.5cm) I’m pretty sure my male is ready ☺️ I also purchased bloodworms today, the female was on the bloodworm for about 15 seconds then she left it alone and continued foraging on my substrate. Is that normal or is it bad quality bloodworms? I’ll post a pic of the brand I’ve purchased