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Best Substrate For RCS?

So today was the first day in testing the tank with the GH/KH as TDS has stopped decreasing, I waited for that to happen as I thought that would let me know when its a bit more stable, so I can now begin testing its stability every 48 hours or more.

So the results are with the new Ebi Gold: TDS=173, PH=7, GH=7, KH=3

Old substrate, Fluval Stratum: TDS=252 PH=8 GH=12 KH=9

I also should add I'm having a real hard time knowing the PH, I've never measured real low PH, all the colours on the API chart are nearly the same, IMO its a dark blueish, so I say 7 instead of 7.4 and its not got a green tinge as of yet, but will keep measuring each day as it could still be buffering, along with GH/KH they may still be buffering also. The KH I also must admit to my surprise was yellow just after the first drop, but very light, some would say it was still clear, so KH could even be as low as 1-2, but 3 was a clearer yellow looking from the top, Ebi gold says PH will buffter between 6 - 6.5 so hopefully my PH will come down a bit more, but already its such a improvement so it should be fine even at 7! GH it mentions 4-5 so that may also come down lower, but once again I'm pleased with the results, I can presume these and more than ideal for Cherry shrimp, not sure the same can be said about other shrimp. But its not bad results considering we ain't using RO as of yet.

I've also checked some videos out today of the drip method, most people said 2-3 hours with it, I remember someone saying 6 hours is best! 6 hours? the water would be cold? and half the day be gone lol, so what's the best time for this, most videos I watched and articles just say until the water 2x or 3x the amount it was, and cherries should be fine even at 40 mins to an hour or 2.

I also need to lower temp to 21c but kept it 25 for now to hopefully speed the growth of beneficial bacteria.
 
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I usually drip them in for 3 to 4 hrs and put a warm hot water bottle near if it is really cold but it will be warm water coming from the tank and houses are generally warm (just not mine) but this is for crystals so cherries may need less. I usually have a drip a second.
 
3 to 4 hours is what I do too. If the room is cold I put a tub of water with a small spare heater below the tank and float the bag and drip into that. Also 1 drip a second or so. Towards the end I speed that up and waterchange several times, so that by the end the water in the bag is pretty much water from the tank anyway. I let the difference in TDS between the bag water and tank water guide me as to how long it should take. When there is a wide difference you should take longer and keep measuring until the bag water TDS is near enough the same.

Its true cherry shrimp are less demanding when it comes to acclimatising but it still might be this that is tripping you up and they can hang on for weeks before they go so its hard to know what caused their demise. Lack of slow acclimatising is very often blamed.
 
Cheers for the replies, I will probably aim for 3 hours as-well then, I don't have a spare heater I'm afraid, the good news is my house is like a sauna, my parents keep the heating way to high, my radiator is turned off most the year. :hilarious:

So anyway my plan was to receive them from there shipping experience, empty the shrimp and water from the bag into a bucket gentle, have about 1 drip a second, and see how that goes. I was just worried as if the tank is 21c and the bucket drops to say 19c but prehaps maybe I should check the thermostat downstairs, Is 2-3c difference a big deal for shrimp? anyway hopefully I'm just looking into it to much.

I'm just waiting to receive some mosses today and some round pellia, I hope it can grow in a low tech tank 😀 apart from that its just a waiting game now. Hopefully when I've took more readings each 2 days I get an idea on the tanks stability, and 2 weeks or so my girlfriend can make the most important purchase! 😀 I feel more confident this time around, but I'm sure if things do go bad, people here will help me once again! , but hopefully It will be a success story, and the thread can end with a final picture of shrimplets in months to come lol!
 
float the bag in the bucket to do the dripping, clothes peg it to the side, when your done then float the bag in the tank to equalize the temp
 
Ok that sound's better, obviously when I looked this all up, youtube etc, many people netted the shrimp out of the bag then into the tank, as they didn't want the water from the other persons tank, while I do this every-time with fish just as a precaution, do you recommend I do the same? or just empty the whole bag into the tank once its equalized. If I take the net approach, how many days should I leave it until I top up the litres I lost from the drip method, this tank is about 30 litres, so a few litres loss is quite a lot when looking visually at the tank.

I could A) do a 10% water change before we order the shrimp, and top up the tank with a extra litre or 2, still leaving enough room for gas exchange even though I have an air pump in there.
or B) a day or two later slowly top up the tank with the litres I lost, what's my best approach here? Its a bit weird looking at a tank that's going to be missing 3-5 litres.

How can a drip method be so complicated your probably thinking lol, but because the tanks capacity is so low, I'm just wondering empty whole bag in, or net shrimp, then slowly top up over a period of days, even if I do a w/c the day before I could keep the old tank water for then doing the top up.
 
I think topping up as far as you can before you start is a good idea. If you waterchange out the bag water and replace with mainly tank water I don't see what's wrong with putting the bag in the water at the end and just let the shrimp escape in their own time. No need for netting that way.

These days I use drip method just for standard waterchanges into my shrimp tank. The bucket goes on the windowsill and takes all day! Any changes need to be slow as possible.
 
I always use a large plastic bowl as shrimp generally don't come with much water.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
 
Lindy you confused me lol, do you mean you pour the shrimp from the shipping bag into a plastic bowl then do the drip method? then net them in? or float the bowl? That reply confused me lol.

Cheers Fishy Did, I'm not sure how I can water change a bag, I would need to remove all the water from the bag just to remove the old owners water, and that would be quite hard and stressful for the shrimp, unless I have got confused again, I'm quite confused this morning lol.

Anyway at the moment I plan to put some water in a bucket and let it reach room temperature, when they arrive I can float the bag in the bucket and pin it to the side with a peg or something like mentioned above, do the drip method, once done, I can put the bag in the tank and just hold it there for a while to equalise, then I was going to slowly net one out at a time, or just empty the shrimp and water in the bucket and do the same method, maybe turn the tank heater off and then I could always switch it on later? I'm sure the tank heater heats the water over a long period of time before it reaches its target.

Maybe I'm just being to paranoid about the owners tap water? its not the same as fish tanks is it? could the water have shrimp parasites?

I'm sure It will all go good, what ever I do, as long as I drip them for 3 hours, and treat them with real care and do everything slow and gentle.

Also I see some topics on here people talking about ferts, co2, I am not going down that route with my girlfriends tank especially because of the shrimp I don't want to risk anything, but will her Java fern, Xmas moss and round pellia be ok with out CO2, ferts? I read they should be fine, but I've no experience with them. We didn't really want them to die, they wasn't exactly that cheap either. I've also got to take GH/KH readings again later today so will be interesting to see the results!
 
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I empty the shrimp from their bag into a bowl. Drip into bowl. Then its up to you whether you net them or put the lot in. I think I put the lot in but I only buy from private sellers and their shrimp tanks are excellent.
Your plants should be fine with no ferts or co2.
 
Just an update and a few problems/questions.

I'm not sure if I'm looking into this to much, but I want to get things right, no point the shrimp dying then talking about it after to then learn it could of been prevented.

So the readings are still pretty the same, Ph: 6.8-7, GH 8, KH, 2-3, TDS, 170
GH increased by 1, I read its impossible for it to increase when TDS has gone down, so may of just been the uniformity of the drops, but will test again soon.

So the problems I run into today, were the water change. Normally I would have used 6 litres left from one of my buckets on Sunday that I use on my own tank. I would fill the bucket (16 litres) add 5ml Nutrafin Aqua Plus to treat 20 litres. But today I tried to do her water change more specifically, mainly to try keep TDS lower as Nutrafin does bring it up a little. I filled the bucket with 5 litres, added 1.25ml to treat the water, hardly anything come out the syringe, I didn't trust it was enough to dechlor the water so in the end I added more to be sure, so that was a fail already.

Anyway I did a 10% water change, well not really, as the 2 litres I'm planning to add, is now how much condensation happens in a week. So at the end of week I have to put 2 litres in just to bring the tank back to its level, so how is this going to work in the future? do I then remove an additional 2 litres and add 2? so all in all I've added 4 litres' which would be nearly a 20% w/c but I wanted to achieve a 10% w/c

To do the water change I just slowly poured the water in with a measuring jug nothing special, as I've not got the shrimp yet, but when I do get them I'm thinking maybe I should do the drip method as-well for the water change? obviously I cant get the bucket higher than the tank, so maybe a 2 litre bottle would work? I could put it on a shelf higher than the tank, and then let that drip in if I do some DIY on it. Or is this all over the top, I want to treat these Cherry shrimp like everyone on here treats there CRS.

TDS climbed to 191 after all 4 litres from 170, not sure with GH.KH,PH? should I test? I know they will rise a bit, but that's why I have the ebi gold to buffer my water changes, so is this a concern?
If my water change is making them increase a little bit, it makes sense to aim for 2 litres so the changes aren't as much, but if I've lost 2 litres to condensation, its not really a water change is it. Does anyone else get condensation? do you add the top up into your water change?

I've also added anubias petite today on a small piece of bog wood, that may rise TDS a tad, but will see. I've also added one medium catappa leaf, x2 small elder cones. Is this enough? or can/should I add more. Can you add to much? I also have a banana leaf which is a tad large, so left it out for now.

I know there amateur questions, but any help would be great, I don't want to change much water, to less, or just pour it in etc. I want the tank and the maintenance to be the best it can be with what I have, as you know I sadly don't have a RO unit, and would only buy one in the future if I am to help my girlfriend onto harder shrimp.

Also to add how do you remove the water from your shrimp tanks? siphon, measuring jug? do you drip it out?

Thanks in advance.
 
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Well I'm lucky in this respect as I have to add stuff to water to get the tds and gh UP so i just use dechlorinated water for topping up through the week. At wc time I can then take exactly 5litres out of the tank and replace with 5litres of water at the right tds and gh. Hopefully someone with hard water will reply...
 
Your being overly cautious. Water changes do not need to be an exact science, just change enough to keep it fresh and control nitrates. Could be 10% one week, 15% the next, all depends how much you feed, how many shrimp and how fast your nitrates climb. The idea of little and often (10% weekly) is so that your not changing so much that it induces a moult. If your tank is planted with the odd catappa leaf in there then you don't need to feed the shrimp, this will keep nitrates down. Then you can just do one larger water change each months instead, 40-60%. Shrimp usually moult once a month anyway so doing it this way will not cause any harm.

You don't need to measure TDS and GH, one of the other is fine. What are you re-mineralising with? If your TDS is climbing rapidly without adding something then there could be something in your tank already that won't allow it to stay stable. What hardscape do you have?

Ebi Gold, like all shrimp soils, are designed for use with re-mineralised RO water. If your using tap water with a high ph it will have an effect but won't work to its full capacity. The soil is also going to expire after 3-6 months where it is working so hard.

Regarding acclimatising the shrimp; the idea is too match the water they arrive in to the water in your aquarium. Just drip it in until the water (test TDS) matches, could take 30 mins, could take 3 hours. All depends how different the water is from what you have in your tank.

Don't over think everything and worry. Put some Ebi gold in your tank (3-4cm) Fill with remineralised RO water (use salty shrimp GH+, TDS 150-200), add some plants and a couple catappa leaves and leave the tank for a couple weeks for a layer of biofilm to build up on the leaves, plants etc. Put your shrimp in, don't feed them and do a 50% water change once a month, continue like this. This time of year your start seeing babies within a month or two.

Don't complicate things and avoid all the 'magic' potions.
 
Cheers Dane & Lindy,

So it does not matter to much how I remove the water and how I add it regarding water changes? just nice and gently, aka using a measuring jug of 1 litre.

Also why don't we need to measure TDS & GH together?

Dane I went with the Ebi Gold, as our ph is around 8, which it is from the tap, we came to the conclusion that our last cherry shrimp may have been dying due to Fluval Ebi stratum, a lot of other people seem to have bad luck with the fluval stratum as-well. I decided to purchase the Ebi gold as we thought it may help bring the PH down a bit as-well as it was sitting at 8, which it has a lot, and also the added benefit is it's lowered our TDS, GH, KH.

I don't currently have a RO unit, my girlfriend and I would not purchase an RO unit currently, I did so much research for her before she purchased the Fluval Ebi, and cherry shrimp are meant to be hardy, and in a matter of speaking what I read was just add them to water and they will do the rest, there the easiest shrimp and the hardiest to kill even if you tried to kill them, not true from what I've experienced. But that's the reason I did all the research as we don't want to invest heavily until we are ready to go on to harder shrimp, regarding RO units etc.

So the Ebi gold will only last 3-6 months, dam, =\ I hope I've not made our life harder buy choosing Ebi Gold, maybe inert gravel/sand would of been the better choice after all 🙁

Sadly I don't remineralise etc, so not sure what to do now, after trying to achieve stable parameters its now just slowly going to keep increasing a tad each week until the ebi gold is hopeless, so now we're pretty stuck if we do buy shrimp as they would probably die from the changes of an unstable environment.
 
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Sorry i didn't read the thread properly. Didn't realise it was Cherry shrimp you were aiming for.

Yes the Ebi Gold with be working extra hard with the high ph and will not last long. Its the same with all shrimp substrates. You say you don't want to buy an RO unit, do you have a LFS near by? The sell RO at about £3 for 25l.

Leave the ebi gold and carry on as you are. It will stop buffering but it will happen gradually, then it will be just like an inert substrate so you can keep using it.

Removing/replacing water should be done steadily, measuring jug will be fine. I would do it weekly if your TDS etc keeps rising and your using tap water. Just scoop out a couple of jugs full and top it back up.

Cherry shrimp are not the hardy shrimp they once were. Nowadays most neocaridina shrimp (cherry etc) are imported from Asia where they are bred in ponds, they don't adapt well to aquariums at all. If you want some bog standard cherries then find a private breeder in the UK, you could ask in the for sale/wanted section on here. Alternatively you can aim for some high grade cherry shrimp (bloody mary) They are more costly and again bred in Asia but not in ponds. Nice and hardy like the cherry shrimp from the good old days.
 
Cheers Dane,

Well kind of annoying about the Ebi Gold, I really thought we was on to a winner, as in all the descriptions it says will "reduce tds" "reduce ph" "reduce kh" etc, rather than doing it all the other way around aka salty shrimp gh +. 12-18 months It says it lasts, in our case I was hoping to reach a year or so at least because I understood it would have to work harder. I didn't know the 12-18 months was only in context of using RO.

All we can do is carry on like you said and hope.

My TDS don't climb never has strangely. It always decreasing, before I had Ebi Gold, my TDS would decrease to 250, then after water change it would be 300. This was around a 20% water change.

Today I did probably a 16% water change, TDS went from 170 to 191, now it will probably decrease again.

I did do a post about RO water, in this thread on second page, post #37, if you could look at that and give me some answers from there, that would be really helpful as-well.

Sad to hear about the mass breeding of Cherry shrimp, still you wouldn't think it with some of the prices my LFS's sell them for at £2.70-£4 a cherry shrimp.

I will stick with my normal tap water for now, but if you could answer the questions for me on page 2 post 37 that would be of great help as its regarding RO, but we just want to get successful with cherries before we work our way up.

Can I also presume for example if my TDS is 170 on Monday, and 170 on Wednesday, does that mean my GH has not changed?
 
All the active substrates have a limited life it just depends how much you make them work as Dane said.The same was true about your old fluval substrate that also reduces parameters for a period of time( according to a lot of users very short time with hard tap water).
Looking at the post 37 about RO water.As i stated before i store RO for 2 weeks with no change in the waters parameters.If you want to store it for a long time why not buy some and test it over a longer period to see what happens?When the EBI starts to stop buffering(could be 6 months could be longer)you want to start matching the water your adding to the water in the tank thats when RO will be the good option.Otherwise the parameters will rise.
Cheers Mark.
 
Cheers Dane, Mark...

I don't want this to become an essay for you guys, but collecting RO from the shop every 2 weeks will be kind of a pain, once a month, I could live with, all my LFS's are a fair drive.
Also to add I do not want to go down the RO route right this instant, so I hope I can breed cherry shrimp with what I am working with. I can only hope the slow increase in parameters is not going to kill them.
If I were to do RO lets just say 6 months from now, I have no idea what I'm measuring, how RO works, does it lower PH? does it need to be dechlorinated, I'm sure I've read different units give you different readings. I have no idea what or how good there RO water is, if I store it in a dark place for a month, what am I testing to see if it still safe to use? I have never come across or seen a RO unit in real life or RO water lol. I have never done research on it all as like I say we want to start with cherries, which I read can be kept in generally any water, in a wide range of different parameters as long as there stable.

If we were successful with cherries then I'm sure my girlfriend and I would purchase a top of the range RO unit when stepping up to harder shrimp, but I read they need to be plumbed in? Obviously my parents are not going to want that in there kitchen, so are they portable? how do I know when a part needs replacing? these are things I don't know, but I would do research before buying. But I hope you can understand why I fear something I do not yet understand or have never experienced. I always believed my tap water was ideal for cherries, apart from 8 PH, 7.8 is there maximum. But I did read PH 8 is still fine, obviously I've got it way lower now, so hopefully conditions are much better, and hopefully the deaths were because of the fluval stratum and not a PH of 8, either way the problem has been amended.


Dane said:
You don't need to measure TDS and GH, one of the other is fine.
Click to expand...

Can someone also tell me how this works? as I could save a lot of test kit solution if this is true.

I'm also not sure if going down the 40-50% water change route once a month is best. I will just stick with the 10-20% as my TDS increased by 20 after my water change, so the ebi gold has a lot less buffering to do, than if I were to add 50% tap water in one go, this may also cause my nitrates to rocket up as my tap water has 50mg/l. So I hope the 10-20% is the more stable approach.

Sorry If I'm being a pain, I really appreciate everyone's help, I'm just a step behind in the game, and while I know RO is the way to go, we have had so much bad luck, my girlfriend is like "this is the last cherry shrimp I'm buying, I've spent over £100 on cherry shrimp and all they do is die" etc, lol. I already have persuaded her to buy new substrate, loads of new plants, mosses etc and that's not including the new shrimp. Surely RO is not a necessity to achieve what we want. If this was a year ago... which sadly its not. I'm sure we would of just purchased a RO unit and took that approach. I'm trying my hardest for her, and my self, because like I said, secretly I like the shrimp more than her lol, and if we do get breeding, I will probably go out and buy another tank, so I can have a choice of shrimp I like, and yes buy a RO unit 😀
 
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Who said you have to go and buy it every 2 weeks?Good idea get some and test it over a longer period(TDS,PH,GH),say after 3/4 weeks.Then you compare the results to what the readings were when you bought it.If the readings are still ok then there is your answer🙂
When i get RO from LFS i stick in a small amount of Seachem Prime to dechlorinate(some people have told me i don't need to,i do it for peace of mind).It raises TDS slightly.
I would go with the 10/20% WC.That way the water parameters would not change as much.Even with 10/20% WC there will be a fair change with 50% WC using hard tap water the change between the water going in and water in the tank would be big.Think how your water parameters in the tank would be till the substrate was able to lower these values.Shrimp prefer stability.
If and when you go down the RO route why buy a unit when you need such a tiny amount of water,if you see RO will store 3weeks+ without changing parameters drasticaly?
Cheers Mark.
 
Regarding testing TDS or GH,i test both.But i test TDS far more often than GH.
If i were setting up a new tank i would constantly monitor TDS(daily) and monitor GH before water change and a few days after.
I would allways measure both when seeing livestock behaving oddly.
Cheers Mark
 
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