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HelloThisIsPam

Am I right in seeing that your TDS is 683? It should be more around 200.


CrowbarZero08

Fr i'm still trying to lower it


nidus11

Go get some distilled water and slowly mix it in after a water change. I would do a 50% water change with distilled water/RO water. That would still only lower your tds by half. You’d need to do it again in a week or so but you have too many minerals in your water column and it’s making your shrimps shells too hard for them to molt. The inside will keep growing and if that can’t molt the eventually are smothered by their own organs. You also need to figure out where all the minerals are coming from and try to get a handle on it.


terrybill234

mine was just like that and now i got a ro unit and only do water changes every other month but have a lot of top offs and have it down around 300 but it was my gh and kh that really through me but more plants have given me a lot better results


shoushou0212

this reads like a meme post 😭😭


SpookyNerdzilla

Honestly, the past 2 weeks, I can't tell anymore. rofl


alextheawsm

Google neocaridina water parameters and match them. Your TDS should never be more than 300


aehanken

Do you recommend a TDS tester or is it just an extra precaution on top of a water testing kit?


-OmarLittle-

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aehanken

Thanks for the advice and oh thank you, I didn’t even realize!


alextheawsm

I just check KH and GH and only check TDS when asked what my TDS is.


[deleted]

Assuming you did the dry start with an active aquasoil, your kh will be next to nothing, which isn't exactly great for neos. Caridina do much better with lower pH/kh. Also, your TDS meter seems to be a bit out of touch with reality, the liquid rock that falls out of my tap is around 200 TDS.


Stormaqua33

Getting the liquid test kits will be more accurate for water parameters, test strips can be wildly off.


Omen46

Yeah I’ve found strips barely if ever work and are hard to read


Radiant-Back-7840

Make sure you acclimate them long enough, like 1-2 hours


Immediate_Title_1392

I committed the shrimp for almost 2 hours


Corn__bean

Your tds is crazy high, i think at like >500 is unsafe for humans to drink, and these shrimp are living in it. The only way to bring that down is to do a water change with ro water or distilled water. Replace 10% of your water with ro or distilled water every 2 days to bring that down, and try to drip the new water into your tank to not shock the shrimp


Seekoibecoy

Well shrimp eat poop so I wouldn’t really compare them to humans. But yes his TDS is insane. It’s as if he dumped a bunch of salt into it and called it a day.


Immediate_Title_1392

I haven't dosed my tank in any salt or any fertilizers sides for the ones that came in with the fluval substrate


Corn__bean

Do you have any rocks in the tank? Rocks like seiryu would be constantly depositing minerals into the water. Every time you do a water change with tap water the tds will go up- the minerals don’t evaporate with the water


Immediate_Title_1392

Yes I do have a rocks in my fish tank over 6 palm size. Smooth rocks dark gray. I don't really know what they are. Thought they looked cool so I bought them but I'll look into leaking minerals. Thank you!


xJunoBugx

Holy BEANS I thought my local water was high. Is that even safe for human consumption???


yeeftw1

Geez, tds too high


BigShrimpin8

First off, awesome tank! Could be tds could be just not adjusting from there original supplier, stress, water quality etc. keep fine tuning the water perimeters to match closest to recommendation. Dont do drastic changes to the water or you could loose more than what you had already. When dealing with neocaridina I’ve noticed less Is more with my tanks they better they grow. I use aquavitro shrimp start and shrimp gh from them for the last few months and have had great success keeping my tanks perimeters locked in. I keep lots of Java moss and hornwort for them to hide and climb. Feed them algae wafers and bug bites algae wafers. The baby’s like to graze on the glass algae and the adults like the wafers. Also use cuddle fish bone. My tanks are 10g with sponge filters and kept at 78 degrees Fahrenheit . Even after doing this for awhile i will have a couple that do pass away time to time, don’t panic! I’ve had new ones from lfs that just don’t agree with the change.This is Just some info of what I do that may help you. If u have any other questions, let me know. More than happy to help!


ImpressiveBig8485

Do 2 50% water changes with pure RO. How did your TDS get that high?


SpookyNerdzilla

Skrimps gonna skimp.


GaugeWon

First off: What are the TDS of your tap water? Secondly: How often & how much water do you routinely exchange? Solution: * If your tap water is normally around 200 TDS, just increase your water changes. Drip the new water in to the tank, so that they don't die from stress. * If your tap water is higher than 300 TDS, then you should mix your tap with R/O or distilled water to get it down to around 200 TDS.


Immediate_Title_1392

I do a water change anywhere from every other week to every third week. It depends on how low my water level gets. Even when I do wait three weeks my water is almost always crystal clear cuz how heavy I plant all of my tanks. I don't feed my fish all that often so I don't build up too much. Ammonia I feed my fish anywhere from once every two to three days to allow them to grays onwhatever is left


GaugeWon

What is the TDS of your tap water before you add it to the tank?


Immediate_Title_1392

Before I add the conditioner and stuff it is 680 to 700. Plus I just talked to my parent and our water is heavy on chlorine and salt but so far the distilled water seems to be lowering the TDS since I added it to my fish tank. Keep y'all updated for the next couple days to see if my shrimp like the change 😂


GaugeWon

Yeah, that's your issue. Follow my recommendation for dilution to around 200ppm (TDS) each water change. *edit* But don't add it directly to the tank - that's too fast of a change! Dilute the fresh water when you do a water change. On the other hand, you should look into sulawesi shrimp. Your water is perfect for them - most people have to add limestone to get the water that hard.


redeye_one

Are they the only thing in the tank? How often are you doing water changes? Shrimp like clean water. Also rapid change in temperature when doing a water change can kill them, I got a little pump and its fantastic for slow "acclimation" of new water.


Immediate_Title_1392

Yes I do have other things in the tank some endler guppies. They're all juvenile so they're really small. Make almost no ways. They're not aggressive. Heavily planted tank to combat the nitrate


Immediate_Title_1392

At this point I'm just testing all my tanks now. My beta tank is at 920 TDS while my other guppy tank is 130. What is with these dramatic differences? What the heck😂


Comprehensive-Cap672

Your TDS is way to high, try to lower it slowly with destilled water.


Immediate_Title_1392

For those who have responded. Thank you. I will try to bring down my tds with the advice that you guys have given me more history on the tank I have Fluva Plant and Shrimp Stratum, underneath that is used substrate from other tanks that I broke down and washed. I don't know why. My TDS is high but I will try to do the OR and distilled water to start off with so thank you and any more advice would be appreciated. I don't really know how to properly take care of shrimp. I tried once before with red cherry shrimp and they all died except for the two that have been living in one of my tanks for about 4 months now out of the 15 like those two seem to be doing fantastic.


Immediate_Title_1392

Hidden your guy's advice. I decided to check one of my other fish tanks where I have the last two of my cherry shrimp. The TDS reads for that tank 106. Then I decided to check my tap water straight from the top. It is 683 at its highest. So now I'm even more confused because I was thinking the rocks in my fish tank were leaching a bunch of minerals. But now I'm extra confused if I should take them out just in case since my tap water is pretty much the same as my fish tank. That was 680 I checked that fish tank again. It's now 640 so it's gone down since yesterday testing. I haven't changed anything since then I bought a bunch of distilled water so I'm going to try to do I water change today with distilled water 20 to 30% so I don't shock any of my fish I would say is fine at least for today https://preview.redd.it/j8uox67xp0wb1.jpeg?width=2268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1b2e39476b8e5720e71215550addead930018bde This is my full fish tank I like to keep all of my tanks heavily planted so it combats the ammonia which I don't really have too many things in here. I have obviously the shrimp 20 Blue dreams. I keep a small snail population in here and then I have some antler guppies. They're all juveniles so they don't produce pretty much any waste and their docile so I know they're not attacking any of the shrimp from me watching them for the past couple days. There's about 22 antler duppies. That's all I have in this tank


Immediate_Title_1392

I just retested my faucets decided to do all three. I mainly only grab the water from the bathtub since I'm able to get a bucket a lot faster. The bathtub is 713 TDS and both kitchen and bathroom sinks are 680 or so


Immediate_Title_1392

All right so I decided to do a water change with distilled water like you guys suggested. I put in exactly four and a half gallons and this is what my TDS is now https://preview.redd.it/mqdl53zf21wb1.jpeg?width=2268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8ac0cd72c2abd981e699688d6d0976cc9767258a So it's dropped down by about 200 or so. Obviously it's still on the higher side at 469 but obviously I can bring that down in a couple days when I buy some more distilled water any more advice from here would still be appreciated and I will keep you guys updated on the development of my tank. Thank you guys for all that you have suggested in the past 24 hours


Immediate_Title_1392

It's a 20 gallon tank quick history of the tank I did about a 7 week dry start. Somewhat dry start and then I've had water in this tank for about the past month I believe and then got my shrimp about 3 days ago just want to make sure I'm doing this all right


Jaccasnacc

Do you have a way to test for ammonia? Strips can be in accurate as well. I only see nitrite and nitrate on your strips.


Immediate_Title_1392

Have no way to test ammonia currently


Jaccasnacc

It may not be the issue, but it’s definitely something you need to be able to test. We recommend the API Freshwater Master Kit. Tests Ph, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. I also recommend their liquid GH & KH kit. I’ve used strips side by side with this to get much different results from strips. It’s normal to lose one or two adult shrimp when you place them in a new tank. They prefer well established ecosystems, and don’t always respond well even with gradual acclimation. However, losing one every day or so is a concern. I would first speculate water parameters. I will literally toss shrimp from one of my tanks right into another without acclimation. My parameters vary, but slightly, and I have zero ammonia readings across the tanks.


Fish-Shrimp-Guy2069

Dont kill them