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Water Parameters for RCS

aaron.c

Member
Joined
27 Mar 2013
Messages
355
Location
Manchester, United Kingdom
Hi Everyone

Hope you are all well.

I am having some problems with RCS here in Sunny Manchester.

Whenever I do a water change, even a small 10% or less, I lose Shrimp to white ring of death within a few days.

I remineralise the water with the Salty Shrimp GH/KH+ as our tap water is very soft here. Water report attached

My PH in the tank is 6.8 and the tap water is broadly the same.

I have tested KH, it is less that 1. The GH is 6 - based on the JBL Tests, which measure in Degrees of hardness on the german scale.

Substrate wise, I have JBL Manado.

What course of action would the more experience shrimpers suggest?

The shrimps seem generally happy and I have shrimplets. They just seem to struggle with water changes.

Thanks
Aaron
 

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Hey Zeus
Not a lot - I dose enough to match TDS, but I know that is only 1 part of the picture, and TDS is not as simple as 1 number
I have always had problems with them in Manchester, because of the super soft water

Aaron
 
Not a lot - I dose enough to match TDS

If you post what you dose and water volumes, I will run the numbers through the IFC calculators remineraliser (which is yet to be released)along with your water report figures and see what the kH and gH works out on paper ;)
 
The white band is a sign of moulting issues which is often linked to a lack of calcium. Your water report shows only 7.6mg of Calcium per litre, which very low.

You are doing the right thing adding Salty Shrimp. You could probably just use the GH+ variant though, there is no real need to boost the KH, Cherry shrimp are fine as sub-7.0 pH values. Better yet, just buy some Magnesium Sulphate (Epsom salts) and some Calcium Chloride and mix your own.

You can also supplement their diet with high calcium foods, like nettle and mulberry leaves.

You say you lose the shrimp when you do a water change - I take it you are adding a suitable dechlorinator?

For what it's worth, I'd kill for water as soft as yours - believe me its a lot easier to add minerals to water than it is to take them out!
 
Thanks for the feedback guys
At the moment I dose the GH/KH+ to get up to 250 on the TDS meter. The tank is about 380.
I do it slightly lower so that I can keep the overall TDS number from creeping up too high.
I will have a look what salts I have in the loft.
I am dosing with Prime

The tank is a small tank, it's a 23 litre fluval edge. I only change 10% at a time tops
 
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my water is around double the values of yours at approx 15mg/l calcium and 3 degrees clarke hardness but still regarded as soft but i have no issues and have had a stable RCS population for years, i do have an occasional few die when moving tank or rescaping but i think that just happens with shrimp and some adapt better than other to changing environments

how old is the tank? if it's still fairly new (under 2-3 months) then i would say this is to be expected and it will settle down, the new shrimplets will be raised in your water and will be more hardy
 
thanks Kalum

The tank has been running for a few years. I did do a tear down and rescape a few months back - but kept the media and plants.

I do have bog wood in the tank, as seemed good for shrimp, so suspect that is softening the water up even more

Aaron
 
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