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I have finally got around to setting up my old Taiwan Bee shrimp tank (30L) which was shut down when I moved just over a year ago. I am using Tetra Active Substrate (clay based granules) this time, which doesn't buffer the PH but I will be using remineralised RO water once fully set/sorted. Eventually I hope to keep the Taiwan bee shrimps again but won't be rushing anything at this stage, I will see if I can get the water parameters right and try a batch of 10 (cheap) crystal red shrimp in a couple of months and see how they do for 3-6 months? I will keep the tank simpler this time with a lot less plants. The substrate is obviously releasing nutrients into the tank at this point. I added 50% RO water and 50% tap water (only using part tap water for the start up, will always use RO from this point) and next day parameters were, TDS 232 (200 the day before), GH 9, KH 6, PH 7.5 so is way off at this point but I will do a 50% RO water change in a week and hopefully it will be going in the right direction, not rushing? Tap water here is dreadfull, PH 8 TDS 300...........etc I do still have a new bag of the JBL substrate in the cupboard but decided it needs a bit too much prep for me for the moment. If it doesn't work out for the shrimps then I will get a killifish and dwarf Rasboras as I did before (or other fish that suit the parameters if they are off), but I will be taking it very slow with this tank this time. In reality it is unlikely I will have Taiwan bee shrimps before autumn even if everything goes well but hopefully there will be crystal red shrimp for the summer? I will keep testing for the 'cycle' but as the PH is likely to drop a fair bit and as discussed with beanbag on here before, that may not be as straight forward as with a 'constant parameter' tank, but anyway, no rush.

Good luck in your new tank. My only suggestion is to NEVER use tap water and always use RO + remineralizer. Many long-running tanks can suddenly get nuked due to something in the pipes. (In particular, I'm thinking of that youtube guy Foo the Flowerhorn)

One was a hospital tank that I could not be bothered maintaining any longer. The other was a fry grow out tank, which had Longfin White Cloud Mountain Minnow - Tanichthys Albonubes, that have now grown up enough to be moved into my main fish tank. I have not settled on any specific ideas yet. Maybe an Australian native tank with one variety of Blue Eye Rainbow fish. Maybe a Killifish tank.