I changed out the substrate in one of my shrimp tanks on Sunday with the Proscape Shrimp, I'm assuming like the two types of Fluval Stratum the only difference between JBL Shrimp and Plant is the particle size. The substrate in this tank before change out was Dennerle Black Sand and Marina Polished Black Gravel, what prompted the change was the pH in the tank had climbed and was sitting around 7.4ish which is less than ideal for CRS, when I did the change I also removed a huge amount of detritus from below the substrate, set up a canister filter to really clean up the water, got right down to glass bottom so no residual substrate was left (shrimp were in the tank when I did this, they all went and hid in the Anubia wall). With the tank water all polished up and the shrimp still hiding I opened the bag and poured in a few cups of substrate and levelled it out.
First impressions of the JBL Proscape Shrimp soil is that it's a denser medium than Fluval Stratum, it appeared much better at holding plants (used Lillaeopsis) than the Fluval which is a pain to plant as its so light it just moves out the way when planting shallow and doesn't come back in enough on the roots to hold the plant firmly, the Proscape held onto the roots and moved back in on itself when I removed the tweezers. What was also quite nice about the product was that I didn't rinse it first and it produced very little to no dust when I poured it into the water, that may change in future now the bag has been opened and the remainder has an opportunity to dry out a little more before it gets fully used, I cable tied the bag back up so hopefully it doesn't dry out and turn to dust.
The Tank water TDS before the change out was 167 and the pH 7.4ish, as expected I watched the pH drop over the last couple of days to around 6.2ish, what I didn't expect was the monumental TDS rise to 270. How much I can attribute the TDS rise to the new substrate or me doing a large gut I don't know but what I can say without measuring directly is that the KH has moved downwards (tank water is remineralised RO/DI, so it should be ultra low already) evidenced by numerous CRS moults being noticed today one of them from my breeding female, I have also lost a male crystal blue hybrid this evening, noticed before I checked the TDS, whether he lost out in a breeding fight or the substrate is leeching Ammonia I don't know, but I dosed API Ammolock just in case and performed 80% water change, I've not read that it leeches ammonia but the instructions do state to do a water change every couple of days for a couple of weeks. I'm back down at a TDS of 170 now, I'll check tomorrow and see if it goes up again, if it does I'll do a test for ammonia and post the results.