RO help

[Sharpey999]

I've recently gone over to using ro water to help the plant growth and for the benefit if my shrimp

However every time I water change I keep losing fish

I remineralise with tap water to 150 tds and the temperature is the same 22degrees
I get wild ph swings afterwards and ammonia has been present

Can someone please advise where I going wrong thank you
Craig

 

[darren636]

What's the tank tds before water change?

 

[Sharpey999]

Before waterchange around 200 and reduces to 180 once complete

After the week creeps back up again though

 

[G H Nelson]

How much water are you changing?

 

[Iain Sutherland]

I get wild ph swings afterwards and ammonia has been present

do you have active substrate or hardscape that is causing the PH swings?
are you dechlorinating the tap water you are cutting the RO with? your tap water may also contain ammonia....

if the tank isnt huge then remineralising with something like beeshrimp GH+ is more controllable and not too costly.

 

[Sharpey999]

Ok sorry for the limited info

Tank is juwel vision 180l and have had it running for 3 years

November 1st I changed the substrate to to Ada Amazonia and run the tank fish less for 7 weeks while the plants established doing 50 % water changes

I have kept up the water changes and slowly introduced stock of 15 rummy nose and 20 galaxy rasbora 10 cherry shrimp 5 Armano shrimp and 5 ottocinclus which was all fine until the shrimp started dying one by one

I decided to start using ro water slowly and done 10% daily for 10 days
Then for the next two weeks 50%
But each time lost a few fish and shrimp

I'm at a real quandary now as have just two fish left and want to re stock but don't know what I am doing wrong

Before RO although my plants didn't grow overly healthy my fish were all fine and bred regular and the plants looked ok

 

[Sacha]

How are you getting your RO? Do you have your own unit or are you buying from the LFS? What is the TDS of the RO water you are using?

If the membrane in the RO unit is wasted, ammonia might be present in the product water. LFS are typical for never changing their RO membranes or even checking the TDS of the water.