[Whitesage]

Ok a couple of weeks ago I posted that I had some trouble with my shrimp and the crazy water parameters. Gh 75+ppm, kh 180+ppm , ph 7.8 to 8.0 So I got the TDS meter some one suggested and the TDS was like 450. I only have 4 adult RCS and 1 juv left out of 17. So that made me decide to go to distilled in my 13g and get a second 8g for my shrimp. I also have a serious snail problem. My first reaction is just break it all down. Move my shrimp to the new tank and the neons and oto to my old 10g for now. Take out all the plants and dip them in salt water (someone also suggested chlorine dip but I thought that might not be wise) to get rid of the snails and fill it back up with distilled and add saltyshrimp shrimp mineral supplement. 1) will changing it that drastically crash my bacteria colony? 2) should I worry about plant total melt down 3) is there anything else I should be worried about or 4) should I just change it slowly by takin 1-2g a day out and filling back up with distilled and not just doing it all at once? I haven't done anything yet, I'm waiting a couple of weeks to cycle the shrimp tank with some old filter material from the 13g so I'm not in the greatest of hurries.

 

[Diana]

1) The nitrifying bacteria seem to handle the changing GH and KH just fine. They thrive in hard, alkaline water, though, so making things too soft might slow them down. Monitor the conditions while you implement step 4 and see how the bacteria is doing.

2) Plants seem to adapt pretty well. I think Crypts melt if you change them around like this, but they should recover. Look into Alum treatment for snails.

3,4) The fish will not adapt very well to a sudden change in water hardness.
I would start now, and with each water change blend just enough distilled water so that the GH and KH drop by 1-2 German degrees of hardness max. (1 degree = 17.9 ppm). A few days later do this again. Do not just suddenly make the whole change in water hardness in one go.