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Best Substrate For RCS?

Cheers Mark, Next time I go up there, I will ask for some RO water, test it, then test it 3/4 weeks like you said and see what I get.

Cheers for letting me know your routine about the prime and RO.

Also that's exactly what I thought regarding water changes, as 50% with hard water is going to bring bigger changes than the 10-20%, the good news is I did some tests today, its like the water change never happened.
TDS back down to 175, was 170 before water change. PH is 7, GH 7, KH 2-3. Nothing has hardly moved. So with in 24 hours, its all back to how it was. The TDS only increased by 20 anyway after the water change. So I guess the changes were minimal with all parameters. When the Ebi Gold does stop buffering I also hope the increases there will be slow as well, so fingers crossed all around.

Yeah I just got confused as Dane said I don't need test both, I did some looking into this as It sounded familiar when he mentioned that, I looked in my bookmarks and found this from plantedtank which someone posted:

TDS is a total of all things dissolved into the water. IE, fertilizers, trace minerals and salts. That includes your GH and KH. If you were to test just GH and KH, they're 17.9 ppm per degree. So 179 GH and 0 KH would be 10 GH

So if you know your GH and KH, just multiply by 17.9.

So if you know your GH is 10, and KH is 0, and your TDS is 250, you know that only 180 TDS of that is GH, the other 70 TDS is other things in your water such as nitrates, potassium, phosphate, etc.

I did the maths.... GH 7 x 17.9 = 125TDS KH 3 x 17.9 = 53TDS put them together I got 178, My TDS is lower than 178 so the method above has to be incorrect and also considering there's minerals and salts to take into account etc. So I presume one cant just use TDS to tell there GH etc. Unless you ignore KH and just use GH as I also read GH does include KH as-well, so 125 TDS is my GH, and the remaining 50 is trace minerals, salts, nitrate, organic waste etc.

Thanks again for helping.
 
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lol no worries I presumed that, as you also mentioned remineralizing my RO water, which I'm not using.
 
Just a update:

We ordered 20 Fire Red Cherry Shrimp, they should be arriving tomorrow. I have my air line all ready for the drip method.
I plan to do it for around 2-3 hours, and will wait till TDS matches with the tank. I am going to gentle pour them into a bucket, then drip, and once ready net one at a time.
I don't want to risk fiddling around dripping into a bag etc, but will see how large the bag they come in is, and then take it from there. I'm sure I'm on the right track anyway so hopefully however I do it, it should be good enough.

I guess this is it now, and the time has come for the shrimp. The tank looks good, did about 20% water change yesterday, TDS is nearly back to where I keep it.. the 175 mark is my lowest point. Its 179 at the moment.

The one cherry shrimp we had from the start has been doing fine over the last couple of weeks as-well, so lets just hope he don't get to exited tomorrow.
 
Thanks Lindy,

I am still acclimatising the shrimp, its been two and half hours. They arrived in a tiny bag, with a tiny amount of water, so the bag idea was straight out the window and the bucket was as well.
I found a small bowl, cut the bag open and gentle poured them in, I have been dripping into the bowl quite slowly, the TDS they arrived at was 292.

One hour later TDS was 218, another hour later 203, and at the moment its 197. So nearly there, I've also just started removing some of the water, so basically doing a water change, this way by the time I'm finished it should be all my tanks water, well most of it. Then I'm going to just let them swim out from the bowl.

I tested all my water today and all seems fine, my nitrate is around 30-40, I've not spoke much about Nitrates in this post, and being taught by Clive, I know there inaccurate and a pretty useless test as there is just no way of knowing, I've never had a API test kit show anything other than red, only once. That's including my pond, my main tank, my tap. and the fluval ebi.

I think I've once tested the Ebi in the past and got a reading of about 20ppm but like I say these kits are inaccurate, I'm not sure if people on the shrimp section would agree with me or Clive, I see you all talk about Nitrates still, so unless there is a accurate kit out there, then let me know. But I'm sure the accurate ones are like £3000.

I know my nitrates from my water report suggest 50mgl / 50ppm, and I read back on this post and Dane mentions how the 10% water change etc is to help with nitrates rising to bring then down, should I just do 10% water change once every two weeks, or just stick to 10% a week, either way 10% is so small, I can't see it being a problem, even if its adding or decreasing nitrates, as like I said I just have no clue what they are.
 
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Shrimp are now all in the tank.

This is kind of crazy what's happening, so I hope this is normal. I will start from the beginning.

When TDS matched my tank, I started to recycle the water rather throwing it away, I was using a 25ml cup to take water out. I poured the cup into the tank, so my tank would not get much lower with water. My male shrimp in the tank went absolutely mental. He has been in his bamboo shelter all morning, but when that bit of water went in, he was darting around, swimming around non stop around all areas of the tank, every time I put a bit of water back in he would do this, as if there was a scent from the other shrimp, which I read when a female moults she lets of a scent telling the males she is ready to mate. Well I guess that might of been happening.

Anyway 4 hours I did the drip method for, I put the shrimp gentle in the tank, and when I sat down to have a look, every single shrimp nearly had white eyes, I was like they should be black??, not all them have white but lets say around 70%, a quick google says that means there going to moult in the next 48 hours, should I be worried? I also have noticed quite a few moults around, about 4-5. I then noticed one adult shrimp on its back trapped in a moult, I know I lost a couple to this before, but not till weeks later... I watched for a couple of minutes and nothing, he was not moving at all, his leg was just moving a tad as if he was slowly dying. I put my net in and managed to pin the moult to the glass, I then slowly nudged the shrimp, and the moult came off and the shrimp dropped down, he then grabbed on to another shrimp and wouldn't let go, so now is mating with a female I guess. Its all happening in there, I never seen all this behaviour, all though last time we only purchased 10 and they were all tiny, we have about 27 in there, and only about 3 tiny one's and the others are quite small/average size with a few adults.
 
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If the shrimp are having trouble moulting It would be because of water conditions where they were kept previously. It doesn't sound like it has affected him at all though🙂
 
How can I bring nitrate down, when we cant even measure nitrate? I know its 50ppm from my water report. The plants will use some so lets say it falls to 40-45ppm, filter produces a certain amount but I have no idea how much?, so can I ever bring it down to 0?

It seems like the pattern of my nitrate might be around 40-50ppm most of the time, and I can't use floating plants as the surface agitation and condensation is to much.

But then again the plants might be using it much more and I could have 10ppm, how do you test your nitrate Dane?

Should I just do 10% every two weeks to give the plants a chance to use more nitrate or will the filer be producing it faster than the uptake rate.
 
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Ok Cheers,

I'm not that experienced with RO, never used it in my life. My LFS said its £3.75 for 25 litres, and it can be stored for up to a week.
However when doing research last night a lot of people said RO water can be stored indefinitely in a air tight container.
If I purchased a 25 litre jerry can got this filled, then took out 2 litres each week, I hope it would be air tight enough to keep it safe for at least a month.
Obviously I don't want to be driving to my LFS each week as its not just down the road. All I can do is take Marks advice and test it after a month.
Like I said I know nothing about RO, I presume the PH will be a set PH, I presume the way to tell if the RO is safe, is to test the TDS? and hope it remains 0 at the end of the month?
I guess I could also smell it if it went stale, also if the TDS went from 0 to say 10 at the end of the month? is this classed as unsafe? 10 is such a small amount surely its safer than what tap water is.

Not sure why the guy said it can be stored for just a week, they probably want to make more money which I can understand.

So if I do go down the RO route, if it can be stored for a while. Do I just get 2 litres of RO out from the jerry can, work out the grams I need of "SALTY SHRIMP GH+" to get my TDS around 150-200?
I also presume RO water PH is around 6.6-7, so how much will this increase PH? I also presume it put my KH around what 2-3? I have no clue... I guess I just keep adding salty shrimp to get the Gh-Kh I want...?

If its that easy then It cant be that hard.... I guess the hardiest part is measuring the grams needed for 2 litres lol, not sure I would want to pre-treat the Jerry can, might not be a good idea.

If I do go down this route, I already have RCS in the tank now, so how would I make the adjustment, just keep doing 10% water changes with the re mineralised RO? till the tank gets to where I want it.

I cant do anything until I know RO can be stored for a long period, at least 3 weeks, other wise I'm have to carry on my current routine which at the moment is 10-20% water change every 2 weeks.
This Sunday I topped the tank up 1 litre due to condensation, and Sunday coming will remove about 2-3 litres, and replace. This way I hope the plants can take up more Nitrates, and every week plants are growing more dense. So I hope if I can get it to say 20-30ppm this should be fine for Cherry shrimp. Not sure what I need to be looking out for in regarding shrimp behaviour with high nitrates? I think I read one or two will die each month. So will have to wait and see.... so far no shrimp deaths, I think every shrimp in the tank has moulted now, and many females with yellow saddles, but none berried as of yet. At least there surviving for now and they all seem very happy!

I did read on plantedtank, many people with high nitrates, just don't do water changes, instead they put many floating plants in, such as elodea densa or other floating plants, they let the plants use all the nitrates, and then just top up the tank now and then, and every so often do a small water change to refresh the tank and nutrients. So that's another reason I am at the moment doing 10-20% once every two weeks but I guess I could go for longer, but will keep it every two weeks for now.

In the meantime I can buy some RO and store it for a month to see how it holds up, but hope someone can just answer couple of them questions for me regarding what I need to buy for the RO water.
 
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Hey everyone,

Its been over a couple of months now and I just want to update mine and my girlfriends progress, and hopefully get some more advice as I wouldn't of got this far without everyone's help at the beginning.

So over the period of about 3 months, I only ever found 2 dead shrimp, and that was in a space of 48 hours. I think it was because the filter had slowed down a lot, and needed a clean, but I didn't realize how clogged the spray bar its self had come, so probably my own mistake.

Anyway the main reason I created this thread was because we could never breed cherry shrimp, and they would all die off week after week, well the good news is we finally witnessed a berried cherry shrimp, and the weeks seemed to slow right down, we was watching her everyday to make sure she was ok, and then about 3-4 weeks later, the eggs had gone, just over a week later, I saw the most tiny shrimp ever, and then over the next week more and more appeared, and I think I counted about 12-15.

So at last we got a berried cherry shrimp!, but since then we have not had a berried shrimp, its been nearly a month now I would say if not longer.
I have not done much water testing since we received the shrimp, but I have been taking TDS readings every week, before and after the water change.

TDS at the start was 178, I think the female was berried around the 180 TDS mark, and now my TDS to date is 230.
Every week its been climbing about 5-10 TDS, all the shrimp seem fine, but like I say no more berried shrimp.

There are females in there, I know earlier in the thread we spoke about Nitrates, If anything I have even more plants in there now, and with a TDS increase of about 5-10 each week, I cant see that being Nitrates, so I guess that's more likely being the EBI Gold losing its buffering abilities, as the TDS does still decrease after each w/c just not as much.

I am feeding 2x a week, Wednesday, and Sunday after w/c

The tank readings on shrimp arrival were:
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 30-40
PH 7-7.2
GH 8
KH 2
TDS 178

TDS being 230, and increasing real slow each week, I guess the readings from above won't of changed to dramatically, but maybe enough to stop breeding conditions? Temp is 25c due to hot weather/room, but temp is set at 20c

Sadly I did not get around to Testing RO from my local fish shop for a month, I thought everything would be fine even if TDS reached 300, after all I reckon it was the Fluval Stratum that was killing the shrimp, but now there is no breeding I want to get the conditions right.

I decided to get some RO from my local fish shop, which I have had now for just over 2 weeks. The guy in the shop was adamant it would not last longer than a week. He said he has tried and he gets nitrates, and you need to keep the water moving etc just to get it to last a week.

Research told me you can keep it as long as you want, anyway If I remember correct he said there TDS of RO is 3 or 7 I can't remember lol, but them numbers are in my head.
I got home checked the TDS of the RO, it was 13TDS!

So either my TDS meter is a bit wrong, or they were wrong.
I tested there RO and got:
Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 5, PH 6, GH 0-1, KH 0-1

I put it into bottles, and week later TDS was 18. Second week TDS was still 18, it also don't smell or anything like that.
If I buy some salty shrimp gh+ and mix it with 3 litres and get the TDS to say 180. Will this put me back on track on getting breeding conditions again?

Even if the TDS in the bottles went from 13 to 40? surely its still better to use that than my tap water? as my tap has 300 TDS of god knows what, where as a 30 TDS increase is either going to be good or bad stuff at such a minimal amount? it would not matter? but either way its not increased to much yet, so hopefully I can go down the RO route, and hopefully someone can put us back on track and who knows maybe we might be on our way to getting CRS sometime soon, but first... why are our shrimp not breeding?

Thanks in advance, I really hope someone can help. I don't think I've missed anything out.
Water changes are once a week mostly, but sometimes I do it every 2 weeks, as I'm trying to preserve the EBI gold, but 8/10 times I do 3 litres weekly, so 10%.

We use to feed Fluval Shrimp Granules but changed food to HIKARI Shrimp Cuisine, which we been feeding since the baby's appeared.
 
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I feel sorry for you mate.
They breed way too fast for my liking, definitely worse than snails. Started with 5 shrimp, now they are in 4 tanks everywhere, and one is a 5f tank.
For what it's worth experience wise I have some in a tank with no water changes for a year with a Gh of 7, ph 7.4, kh of 2 and TDS of 200-ish, heavily planted, doing great, no heater(stopped working last year) I've fed them daily small amounts because the tank is only 30l.
The rest 3 tanks are heated to around 24-26C depending on tank, get 50% water change weekly straight from the tap which has low ph due to gasses added but dissipates once in the tank. I temperature match the water using the hot tap. I dose Prime directly in the tank to about 1x, 2x dose for the full tank and just let the python fill it back up as fast as I want, not dripping it at all as I've got no patience. They do great with that routine as you can feed them well without water quality fears.

Stats vary between my tanks but the highest of these has a Gh 14, Kh 8, ph 7.4, this tank has had times with TDS of 500-ish so they do great in almost any water. My tap water is naturally hard.
2 are planted one is just with leaf litter but has a couple of immersed house plants. They do great in either setup. All my tanks are somewhat overfiltered and I feed quite often. Shrimp are like snails, if tank size/filtration and maintenance allow it, the more you feed, the faster they breed and grow.

My initial guess about your problems is something leaching from the substrate not agreeable to shrimp, or the tank was 2nd hand and someone had treated with copper previously(only clutching at straws) Now with the new substrate you should be fine. Don't fret over water changes. As I said I've done large ones, even with colder water and no issues at all. They are highly sensitive to copper. Make sure your dechlorinator removes heavy metals(most do anyway) as you never know how much is in your tap. Obviously never dose copper to the tank but store bought fertilisers are fine as they contain very low amount which actually shrimp still need to survive.

I might have missed it, but if it's happened in just one tank, then I'd blame something in the tank. If it's happened to two different tanks then I'd blame the tap water, but not the Ph or Gh or Kh because cherry shrimp don't care about this one bit. There could be some sort of heavy metals or chlorine, chloramines, copper, etc..for which you need higher doses of dechlorinator or a different brand of dechlorinator.

Good luck anyway, 6 months down the line you'll have a 50-100 of them and you'll be freaking out where to put them 🙂
 
Hey sciencefiction

The tank was purchased brand new just over a year ago, and I think most agreed it could of been the old Fluval Stratum substrate that was killing the shrimp as others have had similar experiences with it, god knows why, as its designed for shrimp. I guess there is no evidence to back that claim up so could be totally wrong.

Like you say the Ebi Gold substrate I am using now seems to be working great, just not sure why there is no breeding, maybe it is because I am only feeding 2x a week? I don't want to feed to much encase I do pollute the water giving them a bacteria disease etc, I'm sure Lindy ( ldcgroomer ) spoke about that could of been a possibility with my old set up as I did feed daily. Do you think If I fed 3x a week It could increase the speed of growth / breeding ?

I currently use Nutrafin Aqua Plus which says it removes chlorine and chloramines, and neutralises heavy metals, I guess I could double dose this from now on? however that would also increase TDS a bit more, but I could give it a try if you think that may help.


sciencefiction said:
6 months down the line you'll have a 50-100
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We wish, its been over a year now, and I've lost count how much money and batches of shrimp we have purchased and lost, and with the help of this site have finally achieved one berried female lol. I am as confused as you are, as like you say there meant to be 1. Impossible to kill. 2. Breed like crazy! , and I've yet to witness this, so something ain't 100%.

I guess if I take the RO route, it can't do no more harm than using my tap water? I have never used RO before.
I presume I just purchase salty shrimp gh/kh+ and add the amount to get a TDS level I want.
Hopefully this will also eliminate my tap water being the problem, and also eliminate it being Nitrates.
I could then also have the possibility of adding some CRS to see how they do.

I am also from a hard water area, (South East Of England) in Kent, so maybe the water is just a bit to hard.

Thanks for your help and reply.
 
I feed mine daily, in a very well planted tanks with lots of shrimp. With a fewer shrimp you don't need to feed that much but you can still feed daily or every 2nd day and just put very small amounts. I give mine tiny pellets so even the tiniest of shrimp can "hold" them. You can use a small plastic plate and put the food inside too. The shrimp will come to it and gather in it to feed. Then remove whatever is left in the plate in a few hours or what they can't manage. It will give you an idea of how much is too much. They also eat all types of veggies: blanched zucchini, spinach, etc...
Do not worry about the TDS being increased from water conditioner. Do a double dose to be on the safe side. Is your tap water free of ammonia too as your conditioner doesn't seem neutralise it and if the water company doses chloramines from time to time, the conditioner will just break it down to ammonia but won't neutralise that.
I'd use Prime with shrimp if you can get it as it covers everything, even nitrites at higher dose. Do larger water changes at the end of the week too, 10% is not much if you are afraid of water quality. Once you see what works,, how much water changes, how much food, etc.., stick to it. If you can have bigger filtration, a 2nd filter, then even better although I understand in a small tank that's not very pleasing. If you don't have plants I'd recommend leaf litter, type of black water tank. They really breed fast in this as it provides infusoria from the leaves. And it looks nice.

I honestly think your tap water hardness is not the problem, not with cherry shrimp. Most important is to add water of similar TDS to the tank. With 50% water change weekly mine doesn't shift much at all between tank and tap for example.
With RO water people do re-mineralize it which is essential to the inhabitants and cherries prefer hard water in general so they definitely need that. But it's a bit more tricky, you need to be matching the TDS each time. The harder you make it for yourself, the less likely you can keep up with it.
 
Cheers for the reply,

God its so hard to pick which route to take, RO or Tap. 🙁

Its obvious when it comes to shrimp everyone has there own routine and I have altered mine many times, If I take the 50% w/c a week route, I will be losing the buffering ability of my EBI Gold even faster, where as the RO route would hopefully preserve it, and the tank might act more stable, and open the possibility's up for CRS which I know my girlfriend is interested in.

All these routines I have done in the past just to lose shrimp, so I guess I'm have to make up my mind on which path to take, if I go down the 50% tap route, maybe I should increase the w/c by 10% each week until I reach the 50% as the last thing I want is a massive TDS change, along with other water parameters.

I will also have a look at ordering some prime to use specifically for the shrimp tank, I also presumed Chloramine was Ammonia and Chlorine, so I would of thought the Nutrafin Aqua Plus means it removes the Ammonia?

Another reason its a hard choice is my water report says it contains 50mg/l of Nitrate if I remember correctly, so 50ppm I think, a 50% w/c might make that rise I don't know lol. We have had so much bad luck with shrimp, so the last thing I want to do is upset the balance to quickly.

I also see why it can become tricky to match TDS each time when re-mineralizing RO, so that would be the main challenge with the RO route. I've never re-mineralized RO so not sure how hard it is to get it accurate.
Does the TDS have to be 100% exact? or could one week it be 150TDS, then the next maybe 160TDS, so for example a difference of 10, surely that can't be life or death? as tap is most likely to change also.

Is leaf litter the same as almond leafs? I always leave one in the tank for the extra bio film, and its also planted quite heavily, mostly with moss, crypt, stems, and Elodea to suck up the Nitrates.
I have added a sponge filter to my air pump, as we also leave a air pump on 24-7 as I read most breeders keep there tanks well oxygenated.

My tap has a PH of 8, which is another reason we went for the EBI Gold substrate, to lower our PH. I honesty am not sure what is best to do.
I've also read people have had problems and they go out and buy a few extra cherries and all of a sudden they start breeding again, I purchased mine from Ebay, so not sure how many times these have been interbred.

I don't want to get things even more complicated but I know my tap water has around 320 TDS, another option could be 50% RO, 50% tap? that would half the TDS and put me around the 150 TDS mark.

Thanks for your help I do appreciate it, so sorry if it sounds like I am contradicting everything you say, but this was our last attempt at keeping shrimp, and its been over a year now. We ain't the most experienced, but I was hoping we would be looking after harder shrimp by now. We only picked cherries as there meant to be good for beginners and require hardly any effort or special water conditions like other shrimp and my girlfriend has spent over £100 on them to see nothing happen. Seems like we are failing miserably, but I don't want to give up, I feel like were so close, we can at least keep them alive now lol, but just cant get them breeding =\
 
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Jafooli said:
My tap has a PH of 8, which is another reason we went for the EBI Gold substrate, to lower our PH.
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My tap water has a TDS of around 300ppm. What are your other readings such as Kh and Gh out of the tap? If you want to use RO, I see no reason why not if you are intending to keep soft water shrimp. Just read a lot on what are the best remineralizing techniques because it's the minerals in the water that are important to them, not just some Ph reading. I am honestly not sure if cherries and soft water shrimp should be housed together as they have different requirements but some of mine do well in a Gh of 7 and Kh of 2, TDS 200-ish so I suppose it can be done. Though some shrimp need it even softer and the cherries might not like it that way.

Jafooli said:
Is leaf litter the same as almond leafs?
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Jafooli said:
Does the TDS have to be 100% exact? or could one week it be 150TDS, then the next maybe 160TDS, so for example a difference of 10, surely that can't be life or death? as tap is most likely to change also.
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Not really, a 10ppm difference won't matter that much because you are not doing 100% water changes so the actual difference that will happen during water change is very little.

Jafooli said:
I also presumed Chloramine was Ammonia and Chlorine, so I would of thought the Nutrafin Aqua Plus means it removes the Ammonia?
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No, some conditioners just break the bond between the two but don't neutralize ammonia afterwards so if your filters aren't fast coping or the ammonia released is too high you can have a problem. That's if your water is treated with chloramines but I hear in some places the water companies do use it from time to time and one never knows.[DOUBLEPOST=1401807766][/DOUBLEPOST]
Jafooli said:
Is leaf litter the same as almond leafs?
Click to expand...

Yes. I use oak leaves because they last longer and don't send flying bits in the water as I overfilter and tend to have quite a bit of flow.
Pic I took the other day:
DSCF6256_zps6399f5b9.jpg
 
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Cheers for the quick reply!

I cant be sure what my Kh, Gh, out of the tap is, I'm sure I wrote it somewhere but cant find it, so would need to test again.

Thanks for letting me know about the Chloramines, might have to switch to prime for my main tank also.
Dam you have loads of shrimp, I'm jealous lol!

I think I'm give the RO I've stored in bottles another 2 weeks, and if the TDS does not rise, and it don't smell etc. I might see how I get on with the re mineralising. I can then see how that goes for a good few months, and If I still get no berried females, I will then try the 50% w/c route. At least this way I get to try both ideas, and if the RO route does work, then we should have good enough water conditions for some CRS.
So fingers crossed!

Thanks for all your help, I really hope one day I can take a picture like the one above. 😀
 
Jafooli said:
Thanks for all your help, I really hope one day I can take a picture like the one above
Click to expand...

You will, it's only a matter of time 🙂[DOUBLEPOST=1401809242][/DOUBLEPOST]
Jafooli said:
Dam you have loads of shrimp, I'm jealous lol!
Click to expand...

That's just one tank. I have 2 more tanks with shimp as I emptied one the other day but I had 4 in total. You were just very unlucky, once the problem is sorted they'll breed no problem at all.
 
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