Crystal Red Shrimp help please

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Be forewarned, its very common for ada aquasoil to leech ammonia for the first month of setup. I would monitor this very carefully as your crystals will not tolerate ammonia of any detectable levels without catastrophic results.
 
I have wicked hard water with a Ph of 8.6-8.8 out of the tap.

I just treat with prime and call it done, like Karma said.

I only have 2 RCS in the 5g along with a Ghost shrimp or two plus a couple guppies and snails. They have been in this tank for quite some time now with no ill effects. I don't buffer or treat anything, in my experience it isn't worth it to even try. All my tanks sit at 6.4-7.2 with ZERO actual buffering aside from plants and wood, if they even affect it - even though it's high 8's out of the tap. I over thought things for a while, now I just keep it simple.
 
i would recommend a 1-3 stage ro unit. then use ro-right to introduce the needed minerals back in. the ro unit will soften your water and neutralize the ph. i like it better than using chemicals to treat the water. Check ebay. i got my first 24 gpd ro unit for 44 bucks brand new. it was a bare bones 5 stage unit, but it did the job.
 
thanks everyone! this thread is a bit old and i have done more research since starting it but thx for the tips. I have some purigen and ammonia removing media in the CRS tank. seems to be doing fine. i actually had an "accident" with the purigen. what are your thoughts on shrimp delight msjinkzd?
 
I use it, the CRS I keep don't care for it very much but my neocaridina and other speciesl ike it. I feed shirakura and kens pellets to my CRS. The copper contained isn't a huge issue. I only feed my shrimp 2x a week anyway as they are in heavily planted tanks and graze on biofilms and infusoria constantly as it is. One of hte biggest problems in shrimp/invertebrate tanks is overfeeding which is very easy to do.
 
The one advantage of RO water is that it is consistent. No matter where you go it will always be the same, then add the RO-right or Seachems equivalent and you always have the same water. Local tap may vary from day to day in dissolved minerals and polutants. I used filtered tap in our old apparetnment for both reff and FW with no problems. Did the same thing in the new house and almost killed the reef and badly hurt the fw fish.
 
thats cuz its lowell water haha. thx for the input. I also use shirakura food msjinkzd. where do you buy yours? i could only find it on ebay from singapore and don't wanna do that again! it took a month to get here. i am not too concerned with feeding though since as you were mentioning about yours, my tank too has plants and algae for them to feed on.
 
ok cool! i have a full .35 gram bag which will probably last me well over a year, but thx for the info!
 
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