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@valpre welcome to SKFA. If you are setting this tank up for shrimp, I would not change the parameters. But you don't say what the tank is going to be for. They look ideal right now if you are keeping Caridina. But as you said, the tank is still cycling. Parameters could change after it is cycled, so test again and reassess the situation. KH is linked to pH. So you can't alter KH without also altering pH. But you don't need KH in a shrimp tank, even for Neo Caridina. They do fine with low KH. All my shrimp tanks are between the 0-1 KH range. The Neos also do fine with 3-4KH. I just find it easier maintaining all my tanks the same irrespective of Neo Caridina or Caridina. However, if you really need to, GH can be raised with Calcium sulphate and Magnesium sulphate (at 4:1 ratio) without altering pH. This is where the shrimp remineralising mixes are used by many to raise the GH and TDS of rain or RO water. And judging by your TDS of 47, it looks like you could use some remineralising products to increase GH and TDS a little. Note: you can get remineraliser products for Neo Caridina that also raise KH. So unless that is what you are after (for Neo Caridina), than be sure to pick the right product. If you can find some Montmorillonite clay, that could also be used for a slower increase to GH over time. But this is just an alternative, I'd just get a remineraliser mix to adjust the water parameters.

(Edit): Forgot to mention what I'm keeping lol. I'm looking at starting a colony of neocaridina shrimp, sakura/fire red to be more specific and am in desperate need of assistance when it comes to water parameters. I have a 60L (15 gallon) tank set up at the moment, its bare bottomed with 3 pieces of driftwood, all with moss attached to them as well as an Indian almond leaf. The water parameters for the tank are; pH: 6.8 kH: 0-1 gH: 3 TDS: 47 I haven't listed ammonia, nitrite or nitrate as the tank is newly set up and currently cycling. I've been doing a lot of research and everywhere says that both my gH and kH need to be a bit higher. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions as to what is the best way to increase both the gH and kH without raising the pH too much.

I'm not sure where you are based and it looks like JayC has you well covered! As JayC says don't mess about with the parameters too much until the tank has finished cycling, then you can get on with altering the parameters. Your water is quite good (hopefully no chlorine etc though) so I would think you can just raise the parameters using your water and adding some standard GH/KH+ shrimp mineraliser. I add gh/kh+ to dechlorinated tap water for my Betta tank! IF that doesn't work (but I am sure it should work fine) you can just buy a zerowater water filter jug to get RO equivalent water. That filter in the jug should last you very well as it is only removing 40ish TDS from your water. NeoCaridina ideal parameters, PH 6.5-7.5, TDS 150-250, GH 6-8, KH 1-4 and I think this should be attainable with your water plus gh/kh+, but these figures are ideal and a guide! The gh/kh+ is pre-set to produce these ideal figures/proportions when used with RO water.

My apologies @jayc I completely forgot! I've edited the original post now but I was planning on keeping neocaridina's, sakura/fire red specifically. Thanks for all the advice, I've been looking at getting the shrimp salts to increase the gH and kH but nobody had mentioned adding it to tap water, only RO or distilled so I wasn't sure if it was even an option. Thanks again!

As far as I can tell, yes, it's just aesthetic. Not much you can do to improve on their condition. I'd recommend culling them. And replace them from a different breeder. Thereby improving on your gene pool. Or move them to another tank, to avoid them breeding and passing the defect on. If you want to keep them, just treat them normally.

ah i see, this is all making sense now. so this is mostly an aesthetic issue? i’m glad i wasn’t the cause of this cause i’ve been very sad about the news. i’m just going to let them live their best lives in the tank , i won’t be spreading this around . if i can i will try and separate the ones with open skirt, if not that’s fine too. is there anything at all that i can do for them? and does this affect breeding at all? in terms of slowing it down or maybe even not allowing it? thank you so much for clearing things up.

so when i look at it in person, it does not just look like a “clear shell” , but looks like somethings exposed , i originally though the shell was becoming “clear” but no , it’s definitely an exposed gills or organs. when i first got them there was 0 sign of any defect but as a new shrimp keeper , i wouldn’t have known what to look for . but as they get older, i have 2 out of 20 that i bought , where i can clearly see the open skirt defect. i bought most of them as juvies all before breeding age. they haven’t started breeding. unfortunarely i think on some of them smaller ones, i’m seeing a thin white line developing where the carapace meets the tail section. it’s hard for me to believe that the breeder who said he’s been breeding for years and imported these from germany, did not know of these defects. like i said, i hope they will not suffer at all and live a relatively normal life. from what i’m seeing this is mostly an aesthetic issue unless it gets worse? i’m not too sure as i couldn’t find much literature on it. could anyone shine more light on this?