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Usually you should use pure RO water (TDS 000) for topping up evaporation as otherwise there will be an increase in the TDS and other parameters as evaporation is pure water leaving everything else in the remaining tank water so it builds up! As your wtap water is very good and low TDS you could probably get away with using it and then when you do water changes/maintenance try using purely tap water to top up, ie if you remove 1 gallon from the tank at TDS 150, and add 1 gallon at TDS 060 from the tank that would reduce the tank TDS overall dependant on the volume of water On changing 4 gallons in a 20 gallon the new TDS afterwards would be 132 for example). I do this with my tanks also to adjust the TDS each time. It is a little fiddly to get your head around to start with but soon becomes habitual! If you want me to do you a spreadsheet just let me know, I will need to know, Litres/gallons (volume) of water in the tank, planned volume of regular water changes. Simon

What Simon said above. You have good tap water, but RO is better. Use your tap water if you have no RO water.

Yeah your always going to need to dilute that tap water. If it was a 5 gallon I might say no to an RO machine but a 20 may be thirsty. You can do the math to figure out whether it's a budget expense or not. I see a lot of like new used machines about.

I suspect Dsetz has pinpointed the issue here. My favourite substrate is very high with minerals etc and when new they advise 50% water changes every 2-3 days for the first 2 weeks to avoid a build up of minerals when first used, so this may be what has happened here. Adding fertilizers will obviously add to this as well? The neocaridina shrimp should be fine as long as you make any changes slowly, but they probably won't be too happy until it gets nearer their usual accepted ideal parameters. Just keep changing the water with RO/distilled water to slowly bring it down and the soil should deplete of the excess minerals with time. I wouldn't expect that you need the fertilisers at this point either with new substrate, or maybe even at all depending on the flora you have in the tank as the substrate should have that covered? It may be worth getting an RO unit long term as even when you get to the correct level your tap water is too high so you will either want to mix 50/50 tap/RO, or 100% RO plus remineraliser? Simon

Should i just invest in a R/O unit? ?