[mordalphus]

Well... another reason to use dirt.

And as for additives, I don't mean water dosing, I mean something that lasts many months, like running spaghnum moss in your filter box, effectively gets it down to the 6 range.

Or for buffering up, use calcium sand or crushed corals.

I think Liam means gradual pH range outside of the shrimps' tolerance, eventually leads to shrimp deaths.

Using peat or coral is way more work keeping pH at 6.5 using an aquasoil. Coral disintigrates after a while making it very difficult to rely on the amoubt you have to adjust, then what? Do you add some peat AND coral? It's a huge hassle. Also, coral adds hardness to the water as well, raising gh and kh. Peat floods the tank with tannic acid, and when the tannins are removed, some of the pH buffering is also removed.

It's way more work than its worth to try to use these things over just replacing your substrate every year or two.

And when I mentioned your shrimp start dying, its from a change in pH, hardness and a release of stored toxins and nutrients that the high CEC substrates release when spent.

 

[mordalphus]

Once your substrate expires, your shrimp will start dying, starting with babies, so it will be easier to net them all out and change them into a new tank.