I have just done the planned weekly maintenance and 10% water change and everything 'seems' to be going very well, I saw 12 blue and 9 panda shrimps so am very happy about that as there are always some hiding (and they are small) so there must be more than that at this point. Early days yet (especially with the off parameters) with the blues only been in the tank for a week and the pandas for 2 weeks. Not seen any dead ones yet and the shrimp seem happy enough and beautiful colour and pattern, all small so must be young!
Parameters were TDS 159, GH 7-8, KH 1-2, PH 7 yesterday so still a bit off the usual ideal! Hopefully these figures come down slowly in time, I used pure RO water for the water change so Tds should drop 10. I will get a different PH test kit with a narrower range/increments as the one I have measures in .5 increments over a wide range which is probably a bit much. I bought these shrimp because the sellers parameters (PH 6.8) were the closest to mine so hopefully it will work out long term. I changed my zerowater filter as well, as the old one was measuring TDS 6 so passed its best.
I will definitely overnight drip acclimate shrimp in the future, not that I plan any more in the forseeable future.
I will add/edit photo when available, hopefully later today.