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Red Cherry Shrimp Water Help


macjeff

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I have had a 20 gallon RCS tank for 3 years now.  I have moss balls and some JAVA moss, drift wood, and mineral rocks.

Only RCS in the tank and some soft shell snails I have in there I breed for my fresh water puffer fish in another tank,.

My issue is that the shrimp live 1-2 years and they breed just fine but I never see babies.  I see plenty of eggs but never babies.  (Well 1 or 2 a month maybe but they disappear)

The adults keep going just fine until they die off of old age or something else.

I keep about 100 shrimp in the tank and have to replenish 50 every 6 months about.

Water Temp I keep about neutral. 

PH- 7- 7.2

I use distilled water or sometimes Reverse Osmosis water because our tap water goes through a water softener which puts a LOT of salt in it which makes TDS very high so I try not to use tap water at all.   

I feed every 2 days with Azoo or other good food and not much.  Its all gone by the time I feed again.

I do add some powder food for the babies and a shrimp bacteria powder (just started that about 6 months ago but has not helped or hurt)

Someone told me due to the distilled water my issue is LOW TDS.  So I bought TWO different meters.  I tested the distilled water and its about zero which is correct.  I then tested my water and its about 700.   I do top offs and just did a 20% water change last weekend with distilled water.

So is that the issue?  Should I pull out the mineral rocks?

I am thinking tonight to take about 8 gallons of water and drain the tank down about 40% and then fill with the distilled water.   I can repeat the process in a week and once I get the TDS under 150 I can add a little shrimp mineral to get it to the 200 range.   The reason I am saying that is the TDS could be bad TDS and not the minerals they needs.  I ordered some Salty Shrimp Mineral which I heard was good.

Should I just give up?

 

Jeff

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6 hours ago, macjeff said:

The adults keep going just fine until they die off of old age or something else.

I keep about 100 shrimp in the tank and have to replenish 50 every 6 months about.

What's old age ? Is that 6 months, 1 year, 2 years?

 

6 hours ago, macjeff said:

I tested the distilled water and its about zero which is correct.  I then tested my water and its about 700.   I do top offs and just did a 20% water change last weekend with distilled water.

So is that the issue?

If you don't remineralise distilled, RO (or rain water) at all with Calcium+Magnesium, then yes, that's the problem. Your water is devoid of life giving minerals. 

The problem with the TDS meter is that it doesn't tell you what dissolved solids you have in the water that makes up the 700ppm. It's is just telling you that the water is high in dissolved solids, and it's time for a water change. 700 is too high for shrimps. Bring it down to 300 +/- 50 for RCS.

That 700ppm reading can be composed of Nitrates, ammonia, metals, salts, etc. The problem now is that you have no idea what that 700ppm is composed of. The reason many shrimp keepers and aquarists use RO water (or distilled or rain water), is for the fact that it is filtered clean of all other impurities in the tap water. 

BUT ! Fish and shrimps cannot live in such pure water. The minerals in their body will seep out into the water as the minerals try to reach equilibrium by way of osmosis. 

So Calcium and Magnesium is required to be added back to such pure water in order to make it liveable for fish or shrimp. 

Now ... when you measure TDS of RO water fortified with Calcium and magnesium, ... whatever reading you get back is made up of Calcium + Magnesium only! Nothing else. No metals, no chlorine, no flouride, no pesticides, fertilisers, nitrates, etc...

 

So you have two primary problems.

1) TDS is too high for RCS

2) Distilled water used without remineralising with Ca/Mg.

 

6 hours ago, macjeff said:

Should I pull out the mineral rocks?

What mineral rocks? Please elaborate.

 

6 hours ago, macjeff said:

The reason I am saying that is the TDS could be bad TDS and not the minerals they needs.  I ordered some Salty Shrimp Mineral which I heard was good.

Should I just give up?

I wrote the above before reading this bit. 

Yep. I agree. That is what you need. 

Don't drop the TDS too quickly! The reason I mentioned above about loosing minerals due to osmosis just gets intensified. 

 

If you want to fix it quick, then use the drip method to reacclimate the shrimp to the new low TDS, remineralised water. 

 

Also check out my DIY remineralising mix in Water Parameters, if you can source your own Calcium Sulfate and Magnesium sulfate (Epsom salts).

Edited by jayc
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first THANK YOU for answering.  OK now your points

 

1. These are the mineral rocks I have in now.   https://www.amazon.com/SunGrow-Mineral-Provide-Magnesium-enhances/dp/B00KMJFCFM/ref=pd_lpo_vtph_199_bs_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&refRID=RWT0BDG3CB0Z9P7MT9CG&dpID=51hBY9liPOL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=detail&th=1

I also ordered some of these......  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y2NKRKY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

and these    https://www.amazon.com/Salty-Shrimp-Mineral-GH-200g/dp/B00HZLUGSI

 

2.  as far as lowering the TDS.    Its a 20 gallong tank.   Take out 5 gallons (25%) and replace with distilled water?   Then how many days before I do it again.

3. As far as minerals.  The Salty Shrimp Minerals wont be in until next week but as I said I have the Shirakura White Mineral Rocks already in there and the Mironekuton Stone I can put in tomorrow.   I was thinking of bringing the TDS down lower than I want and then adding some water with The Salty Shrimp Mineral in it until its around 200ppm.   Does that sound like a plan?

4. For best breeding what Temp do you recommend for the water?

5. Do you recommend a feeding tube and bowl or scatter food.  I have always scattered.

 

Again thanks a lot!!!

 

Jeff

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58 minutes ago, macjeff said:

1. These are the mineral rocks I have in now.

Gotcha. Mironekuton is good and I use them myself. It's meant to release Ca slowly. 

Smash a small piece up with a mortar & pestle, and ground to a powder for faster effects. 

 

Salty Shrimp GH+ is for water changes. 

 

58 minutes ago, macjeff said:

2.  as far as lowering the TDS.    Its a 20 gallong tank.   Take out 5 gallons (25%) and replace with distilled water?   Then how many days before I do it again.

 

58 minutes ago, macjeff said:

3. As far as minerals.  The Salty Shrimp Minerals wont be in until next week but as I said I have the Shirakura White Mineral Rocks already in there and the Mironekuton Stone I can put in tomorrow.   I was thinking of bringing the TDS down lower than I want and then adding some water with The Salty Shrimp Mineral in it until its around 200ppm.   Does that sound like a plan?

For points 2 & 3 - unless you haven't changed water in a while, I would leave it alone until the SS GH+ arrives. Altering the water parameters so much in a short timeframe stresses out the shrimp. 

If you have to, change only 10%.

Once SS GH+ arrives, you can change water in two ways.

1) Big bang - change all the water at once and drip the new treated water back in slowly.

You can either take the shrimp out. Or leave them in the tank. However, you need to think about how you keep the filter and filter media going with aerated tank water during this time (ie. keeping the beneficial bacteria alive).

When I say treated water, I mean change water that is roughly the same temp, TDS adjusted to your desired TDS, and dechlorinated if needed (distilled , RO and rain water does not need to be dechlorinated). 

I assume you are familiar with how to implement the "drip method" and have the necessary items to do it. If not, Google "Drip acclimating"

 

 

2) Change 25% every 3 days over the length of time needed to reach your target TDS. This is safe and the least stressful for the shrimp, but can/will take weeks.

 

<edit> - I suppose I should give you my personal preference. I'm an impatient person. So I would go with #1 big bang theory.  But my reasoning is that ... if I thought the shrimp were suffering healthwise, then I'd like to correct it as quickly as possible. The big bang and drip method will take a while to fill a 20 gal., but it will be much quicker than the 2nd method of changing 25% every 3 days. #1 would still be faster if you changed 25% everyday.

 

58 minutes ago, macjeff said:

4. For best breeding what Temp do you recommend for the water?

22-24deg C (72 - 75deg F)

So yeah, on the cool side. Which shouldn't be a problem right now for N. America.

 

58 minutes ago, macjeff said:

5. Do you recommend a feeding tube and bowl or scatter food.  I have always scattered.

There are benefits to both. So no real preference.

I use a glass feed bowl. But that is only to minimise food dropping into the substrate. Then again, the shrimp will drag food out of the feed bowl to horde it. The little hoarders!  The other benefit of a feed bowl is to draw out the shrimp from their hiding spots. 

But I also scatter powdered food for shrimplets occasionally. Shrimplets get most of their foods from biofilm, so not sure if they benefit from scattered powder foods. So I don't scatter too often.

Edited by jayc
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If I get distilled water in gallon jugs how much Salty GH+ would you use?   Looks like its 1 spoon for 10L so a little less than 1/2 spoon per gallon?

Do you recommend Alder Cones?  

Mulberry Leaves?

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So I did the 25% method and for now just using Distilled or RO water.

Done a change every 2.5 days and went from 750 or so to about 300 now.

I will do another change sunday which should get it down to about 200.

Then starting Monday (When the Salty Shrimp should arrive) I will add that to the water and do another 25% change.

I spoke to the company that makes Salty Shrimp.  I use 1 gallon jugs (milk jugs but from Distilled Water) to mix the salty shrimp.   They said to make the first batch and add a little at a time until it gets to 200-225 ppm.   Then in the future I will know how much to add.   

Since the water is already at 200ish at that point and I do a 25% water change with 200ish Salty Shrimp Water it should remain the same.

Then I will go back to 20% weekly with the salty shrimp and over time any other TDS that is in the initial 200 ppm should come out and what is left will be 200 ppm of salty shrimp and RO water.

Sound like a plan?

 

Anything else I need to add.   I asked About Alder Cones.    And for food I usually do Pellets made for RCH from Shikara or something like that and I alternate with Azoo Max Growth, Max Breed, and Bio Balls.  And then I have some baby shrimp powder I add about once a week (just a pinch).

Thanks again!!

 

Jeff

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On 7 February 2018 at 3:36 PM, macjeff said:

Do you recommend Alder Cones?  

Mulberry Leaves?

Alder cones are used to reduce pH. Very effectively too but stains the water.

Mulberry leaves for feeding is highly recommended.

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52 minutes ago, macjeff said:

Did my latest post with plans to complete water changes sound like a plan?

Oh yes, sorry, forgot to comment on that part. 

Yes, sounds like a good plan.

When you reach you TDS goal, go to a 10% weekly water change, rather than 20%. 

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And 250-300 is the goal for red cherry shrimp right?

if it gets too low (it’s hard to estimate the amount of RO water to get it 250-300) so do I just add a little extra salty shrimp mineral to bring it up or leave it at under 250 and let it come up on its own?

 

and thanks again.  

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7 hours ago, macjeff said:

And 250-300 is the goal for red cherry shrimp right?

if it gets too low (it’s hard to estimate the amount of RO water to get it 250-300) so do I just add a little extra salty shrimp mineral to bring it up or leave it at under 250 and let it come up on its own?

Anywhere between 200-300 for RCS is fine. So don't need to stress too much if you don't hit that smaller target. 300 TDS is the upper limit, that's usually when I change water to bring TDS back down. Don't want to turn shrimp keeping into a chore.

 

If it gets too low, yes, add more SS to bring it back up, but you can wait till the next water change to do that (~ a week later). Don't need to do it straight away. Now that you are close to the ideal range, keeping your parameters constant now is more important that hitting the "bulls eye" TDS by changing parameters too regularly.

 

Edited by jayc
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