[bsherwood]

so I jumped into three shrimp tanks prior to paying much attention to chemistry. I had raised rc's in the past and thought i'd have another go at it.....well....I have different water than before.

PH out of the tap is 8.2
GH about 180
KH about 60
TDS was just shy of 600!

I am bringing the ph down with almond leaves, peat and prayer....
I bought an RO unit and am slowly bringing the TDS down

Am I correct in thinking that I do not need to re-mineralize my water while my GH and KH are that high?


I never wanted to be a chemist....now I 've got test kits and tds meters and ph meters.....

thanks for any and all advice.

Bump: one of the shrimp tanks at c02 and that is about 7.2 and holding...

 

[Diana]

You can find a blend of RO + tap to suit your livestock.
As hard as your water is, that might be as little as 10-20% tap water, the rest RO.
Make up a few blends and see how close you can get.

Set the GH appropriate for the livestock.
The KH will be very low.
Test the pH.
If the shrimp want a higher pH than this blend then add small amounts of baking soda or potassium bicarbonate to raise the KH. This will raise the pH.

 

[PlantedRich]

I've learned to go with the local water and not try to change it as it is truly hard and alkaline.
This is a typical local creek and most of them do run as channels cut in the local limestone. Not going to be anything but hard and alkaline.
My GH/Kh run somewhere above 300! :surprise:

 

[FuzzyMuffin]

Realize that your kH and gH will both go down while you add RO water, not just your pH. GH is probably the most important, as too much or too little will cause molting issues. I suggest experimenting with RO/tap ratios to see what brings it down to the best readings, then keep a bucket full of the adjusted water for water changes.

I also have tap water like liquid rock. So far I've been using mostly RO water mixed with a bit of tap, keeping things in the proper range for Neos. It's worked out just fine for any babies I had bought, they adapted well, but my adults have been slowly dying. Not sure if it's a difference in parameters from their original home, or if something was unstable, but things may have leveled out for now as I haven't lost anybody too recently.

The tricky thing about mixing tap and RO is that it can be difficult to get the same results every time, or get them exactly like the tank parameters, and those differences can cause shock and death. I'm not sure if it's easier to get consistent readings with remineralizing, but these are my experiences so far! So as far as I know, you won't have to remineralize, but it may be easier to switch to just remineralized RO, if it's more consistent.