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Yeah, Texas! I stopped using tap water and I'm now using distilled water and remineralizing with shrimp king gh/kh when necessary (not now since my parameters are high)

Each degree of GH is worth 18 ppm, so it's not possible to have GH 14 TDS 162

Hi everyone, I set up a new tank for some shrimp about two months ago. The plants are establishing themselves and things looked good. Then I got the bright idea to get a cup of pond water from my outdoor pond and add it to the tank. I thought it would add infusoria. The last two weeks I’ve started seeing lots of life forms swimming about the tank. Is this good or have a made a terrible decision?

Nematodes. Harmless, but unsightly if they multiply. LOL ? great excuse. I might use that one too. Oh wait, I already bought a 2 footer recently.

Thank you guys for the quick response and thank you Simon for the article which is very helpful. What I did was so dumb! At the time I was just thinking more life forms; but who knows what I’ve added. There are some worms that are clear and swim in a figure eight motion. The rest of the creatures I see are very tiny, nearly microscopic. If it turns out there are parasites or disease then I will have the fun of tearing the tank down and quarantining the plants. If that happens I think I will need to buy a bigger tank as a gift to cheer myself up. Thanks again for your help.

Correct. You cannot equate GH to TDS like that. GH test kits measure Calcium and Magnesium primarily. But it's reading can be influenced by other minerals. TDS measures a lot more than dissolved Calcium and Magnesium.

Hi guys, I'm guessing phosphates are bad for shrimp?? I'm keen to learn so any more info you can give me about this would be great! Yes Simon, I've got my fingers crossed too. I'm tentatively hopeful and I will certainly let you know what happens. Thanks for your input, it's always appreciated, and it's great to know that there are people out there who can and do help when we have problems. That goes for you too Jayc. Cheers guys

It depends. Some people don't mind the daphnia and seed shrimp that might be introduced into the tank, but some people think it is an eye sore. especially if the tank is over run by them. Some people consider these lifeforms as a sign of a healthy tank, and can use them as an indicator of poor water quality. However not all pond creatures are harmless. If you have dragonfly larvae, they can hunt and eat shrimps, even small fish. Planaria is also not desireable. Do you know what you have in the tank?

I have my fingers crossed you are now sorted. You may lose an odd one now and again until everything settles down so don't panic too much if that happens! Please keep us updated. Simon

Interesting, i didn't think about that. Either my tds meter is off or I messed up in my api gh test kit. My tds meter does read zero for my zero water filter so I think it's just me reading the color change incorrectly. I did some water changes and added more distilled water and my gh is now 9, kh 6 so it's getting there. Can too much gravel or my slate also cause high gh?

carbon products can release phosphates

No, not really. They were pretty much all around the tank, not in one particular place. Yes, there was a cycle. When first set up the pH was around 6. I watched the ammonia go up, then drop as the nitrite went up. Then it dropped and the nitrate went up and dropped. I then did 50% water changes every 2nd day until nitrate was around 5ppm. Had a little ammonia rise when I put a tiny bit more substrate in but other than that, it's been stable. I agree Jayc, the colour looks weird in the photo. Any thoughts on that? In the past 3 days since first posting this thread, I haven't lost any shrimp so perhaps it was the charcoal bamboo! If any more die though I'll do the 80% water change. Perhaps it was the charcoal bamboo!? Cheers

Maybe at about 7-8 months old. Your shrimp look really young. When they are new to a tank, they usually hide. But they should be exploring soon. If they continue hiding, then there might be something wrong with the environment. Just make sure that the tank has been properly cycled. This tank looks very new, have you cycled the tank? RO for drinking removes all dissolved solids, but add Alkalinity back in because humans should not be drinking acidic water that has 0 minerals. You can use this RO system, IF you remove the Alkaline filter. Otherwise this is the wrong water to be used.

I would mix the new RO water to TDS 160 (you don't need to do the GH test everytime as the product you are using will mean that the GH is fine)! The KH alixir I use does add someTDS but as I would be aiming for tank TDS of 180 (roughly, it doesn't need to be spot on, 10 either way is fine) ultimately then the extra TDS that the KH adds should be covered! From your figures above you can see that the GH+ at the level you used creates 1 GH at TDS of 20, thats usual! Simon