[CrazyCatPeekin]

My local water has pretty high ph (around 8.4) so I decided to use distilled water in my shrimp tank. I replaced about 95% of the water in there yesterday with distilled and then dosed it with Fluval Shrimp Mineral Supplement. My current ph is reading 6.4 which should be good. The kh test is either 0 or 1..hard to tell since it never turns blue; the first drop goes in yellow. I am thinking this is good. The gh is now reading 6 (107 ppm) which I believe is also good.

First question, can someone verify that my current levels are indeed going to be good for my shrimp? Am I on the right track here?

Second question, when doing water changes, should I try to get only the new water to the proper gh and then add it? Or should I add the water, check the params, and then dose the whole tank only if needed?

Third water question, I added some Prime mostly out of habit since I do it for my fish tanks, but I am thinking that I don't need it with the distilled water. Can someone confirm?

Thanks, as always, for your help!

 

[jasonpatterson]

What kind of shrimp are you keeping? If it's cherry shrimp, they really don't care what you put them in (I've got a thriving colony in water with a pH of 8.7, for instance.) Other shrimp, like some of the sulawesi species and ghost shrimp, actually prefer basic conditions.

Are you running CO2 in the tank? If not, a low KH isn't a big deal, if so, you might want to add a bit of baking soda to try to get the KH up to 2 or 3. The hardness should be fine.

Generally speaking, a stable environment is preferable to one that changes for a shrimp tank. I adjust the parameters of the new water before it gets to the tank to try to reduce the swings that a water change inevitably causes. Does it make any difference to the shrimp? I dunno, honestly.

Shouldn't need prime unless you're really stirring up some gunk in the bottom of the tank when you do a water change. That can cause an ammonia spike, which prime can help with, but otherwise it's wasted money. I don't use it at all, personally, and haven't had problems.

 

[CrazyCatPeekin]

Oh yeah...occupants would help, huh?

I have 15 TFR/PFR shrimp arriving soon. Current resident is a mystery snail.

There is no CO2 in the tank nor will there be.

 

[jasonpatterson]

Cherry shrimp should be fine then. If you're worried about your tap water's pH, you could go 20/80 tap/distilled and it will come out at about a pH of 7 when you do water changes. It will also probably give you a reasonable GH and KH as a result.