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A few days ago I stocked my new but fully cycled 9 gallon planted tank. I purchased Bloody Mary variety from a "local" seller (about an hour away). They use local tap water, which is very hard but I opted to go with RODI since I have copper pipes. I remineralize with salty shrimp GH/KH to the recommended level of 6 dGH and 3 dKH and currently around 212 TDS. After looking at various sources online, this was within spec of keeping neocaridina shrimp. I slowly drip acclimated them to my tank and they seem to be doing ok, one has molted already. I did have a concern about one of my shrimp so I contacted the breeder. I let them know my water parameters and now they tell me from their experience, they won't breed successfully unless it's at least 10 dGH. I am not sure what to do at this point. Do I slowly try to raise the GH by buying Bee Shrimp mineral (GH) only and mix it with the Salty Shrimp with RODI and drip acclimate it in during the water change? I am assuming this is going to take weeks to months. Or do I just wait and see what happens? I purchased 10 (+2) shrimp from them and wanted to grow my own colony. Preferably sooner than later.

Ok, thanks. I will do this. I haven't heard about this before until I've seen it in the store. This is what I purchased. Supposedly the bag label says they are from China. The store page doesn't show you exactly what the rock looks like though. https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/imagitarium-turtle-terrain-tiger-stripe-rocks They look like this. https://www.myaquariumclub.com/i-bought-some-tiger-rock-from-dollar-tree-and-wanted-to-know-if-they-where-...-725499.html How they look like in my tank, before I let it grow and age. https://imgur.com/hbzmmRo

What is a Tiger Stone? I've never heard of that before.

You should be fine as the shrimp came from higher parameter water anyway, just stick with mixing new water to about TDS 200 and drip it into the tank and it should settle. As you say, there may be some deposits left from the tap water that the substrate is releasing. At this point, try not to test too much and get into a regular water change and maintenance routine! You only need to mix the RO and minerals using the TDS figure, and test the GH and KH once a month, or if it looks like there is a problem. Neocaridina shrimp are fairly robust but keep changing water parameters will be a problem, just let it run as you planned and if there aren't any/many deaths, that should be enough for now? Maybe 10% water change each week, dripping in the new water should be sufficient?

I did a water test today and it looks like my parameters are changing on it's own in the tank.. not quite sure what is causing it. The TDS goes up, which is natural but my GH is now 7 and my KH is now 4.. PH might be a little higher, think it was 7.7 yesterday and 7.9 today. I just hope it doesn't keep rising on it's own, I struggled to mix salty shrimp over the 6 GH and 3KH. I originally setup the tank with my local tap water but then decided to swap to RODI during cycling. I use Seachem's Flourite black sand and read that it is considered inert but can leach back into the water column. Otherwise I have tiger stones (should be inert), spiderwood, cholla wood and a few alder cones. The water reports here aren't great, I was hoping to at least see how much calcium and magnesium was in the water but they don't even have that in the water quality report. I still have to do my first water change. I have a plan but I'm just antsy since they are considered delicate and sensitive.