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First time crystals

guys, I have another question; when you have your RO drums, do you remineralise the whole drum, or do it individual to water containers you are replacing with? I'm guessing it makes more sense to do the latter from a safety perspective
 
I use 5l water bottles. Easy to lift and shoogle to mix salty shrimp etc

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Another shrimp question guys, thanks for all the replies so far!

In my open top nano, I'm finding that I need to top up the water; do you guys top up with pure RO, or do you top up with RO remineralised? Don't want to give my shrimp osmotic shock or anything...

I'm perhaps getting mixed up in the 'marine' way of thinking, that the salts are already in the tank therefore top ups are simple RO, however, with TDS is this different?
 
Topping up due to evaporation is done with pure RO otherwise the TDS will climb. Never seen an issue topping up with pure RO, even with a few degrees temp variation between the tank and top up water. To be on the safe side I always top up by pouring over the sponge filter to help the RO diffuse more quickly (definitely so if I'm topping up larger amounts in hot weather) it also helps to prevent the influx disturbing the substrate which is really easy to do in a nano tank even with an egg cups worth of top up water.
 
X3NiTH said:
Topping up due to evaporation is done with pure RO otherwise the TDS will climb. Never seen an issue topping up with pure RO, even with a few degrees temp variation between the tank and top up water. To be on the safe side I always top up by pouring over the sponge filter to help the RO diffuse more quickly (definitely so if I'm topping up larger amounts in hot weather) it also helps to prevent the influx disturbing the substrate which is really easy to do in a nano tank even with an egg cups worth of top up water.
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Cheers. I also noted tonight that the water I topped up with, had a tds of 065, the tank itself had 165. So I went ahead and did a 10% water change, which brought the tds to 155ish.

I'm assuming it's best to pick a tds level, and try to adjust accordingly? If so, I'd probably try to stick around 150 I reckon...
 
Sorry I should have been more specific, I forget that it's too easy to assume all RO water is a low TDS of less than 10. My top up water is actually RO/DI which has a TDS of 0. The tap water its drawn from is at TDS 35 most days which is way less than the TDS of your RO.

You did it the right way though doing a balanced water change using RO water with a TDS that high to keep the tank in range. Stable TDS is what your after. Putting a lid on the tank will help cut down the evap, I know it looks great without the lid, but for a nano the constant evap top up eventually gets annoying, also prevents migration over the tank sides if the water line is near the tank rim as CRS like to explore.
 
X3NiTH said:
Sorry I should have been more specific, I forget that it's too easy to assume all RO water is a low TDS of less than 10. My top up water is actually RO/DI which has a TDS of 0. The tap water its drawn from is at TDS 35 most days which is way less than the TDS of your RO.

You did it the right way though doing a balanced water change using RO water with a TDS that high to keep the tank in range. Stable TDS is what your after. Putting a lid on the tank will help cut down the evap, I know it looks great without the lid, but for a nano the constant evap top up eventually gets annoying, also prevents migration over the tank sides if the water line is near the tank rim as CRS like to explore.
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that's a good point, i was thinking of getting some plastic plexi lids made to fit; more on this to come lol
 
Lindy said:
I wouldn't recommend keeping crs with such a high tds.


Sorry haven't been online...Yes top up with unmineralised ro but you need to ask your lfs why the tds is so high?
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Yeah, I will do; wanted to use rainwater, but do you never worry a bird will crap in it if it's outside? :/
 
no doubt the occassional bird poo has got in along with the occassional fly and spider but it has never caused problems. I don't use the water if it looks dirty. At the moment I'm only using a 25l beer brewing tub to collect rain so would have to be pretty unlucky to get poo in it. I used to collect from the corrigated plastic roof of my wood shed into a covered 200l container. Every few weeks I would give the roof a clean and also tip out the container to get out any muck at the bottom.
 
Cherries or other shrimp from the neo family

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Well I know to use rain water put through carbon will help reduce it however would normal water sat for a week or so work?

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Normal water sat for a week won't have any less tds than before.

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