Sentral said:
You only need these shrimp specific substrates if you're using RO water as they'll buffer the PH and give you a good GH. If you're using tap water they'll stop buffering within a few weeks rendering it pointless spending all that money! Akadama is real cheap and inert, so you could control PH by using other methods such as alder cones or cattapa leaves etc if needed.
It's a good point and one that i missed the point of completely when i was new to shrimping. I put ADA Amazonia into my tanks purely because i was told to use an active substrate in my shrimp tanks.......at the time i didn't realise quite why I was adding this expensive gravel!!
I think now, as i understand water parameters a little more that i could have probably managed with a bog standard inert gravel i was fortunate enough to have water out of the tap very close to where it needed to be for the shrimp i wanted to keep.
So, my new crs shrimp tanks will be set up using standard gravel and not active substrates.........watch this space!
