Remineralising RO water for shrimp/snails

1351 Views 6 Replies 3 Participants Last post by somewhatshocked, Jul 26, 2021

KrangDog

Discussion Starter · Jul 24, 2021

I've got a small 10L tank with a handful of Australian native North Queensland algae shrimp (Caridina longirostris) and a couple of nerite snails. It's planted with a little moss on a tree, a small crypt 'rosen maiden' and a smattering of S. repens.

What's the general idea when it comes to remineralising RO water for shrimp? I've searched, but can't find specific info.

What GH/KH do people aim for? My planted tank gets remineralised to 5dGH/0dKH with roughly EI fert dosing, but I imagine shrimp tanks do something a little different.

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Zoidburg

· #2 · Jul 24, 2021

That all depends on the type of shrimp you are keeping as well as their preferred parameters and what substrate.

I've had MAYBE one of those species of shrimp... which was sold as an amano shrimp. I put it into a tank that had 5.5 pH, and 5+ GH with 0 KH. Not sure how long it survived

I'm not sure what other people keep them at.

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somewhatshocked

· #3 · Jul 24, 2021

I'd aim for Neo parameters. They're pretty forgiving but are primarily found in ideal Neo parameters with slight fluctuation throughout the year when rains come.

What kind of substrate are you using? Is it active/buffering? If so, I wouldn't add kH to the water. If not, I'd aim for a kH of about 2. And gH of about 7-8.

In a tank that small, you should also be careful with ferts. These are one of the few shrimp I've kept that tend to be more sensitive to higher concentrations of mineral salts (I'd consider anything over 300 TDS way too high for them) than other types I've kept through the years.

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KrangDog

Discussion Starter · #4 · Jul 25, 2021

somewhatshocked said:
What kind of substrate are you using? Is it active/buffering?

There’s a little ADA Malaya in there, and some Colorado sand. Probably a 50:50 mix. This tank has very much taken a back seat to my larger planted tank, so I’m not even sure what the current KH/GH is.

I remineralise the water for my main tank to 5dGH, so maybe I’ll start off there. I’ll probably aim to duplicate the KH present already, assuming it isn’t something crazy. And I think it would probably be easiest to throw a root tab in the soil and forget water column dosing. Any buffering/nutrients that it started with is/are probably done by now.

Thank you both, that gives me a good starting point.

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somewhatshocked

· #5 · Jul 25, 2021

Malaya is a buffering substrate, so it's going to strip kH (and even some gH) from your water at a rate faster (and longer) than regular Africana and waaaay faster & longer than regular Amazonia. It's essentially reformulated & processed Akadama soil. How long has it been in use and what are the parameters of your source water?

They'll probably be okay with that substrate but you'll definitely want to focus on stability and probably try to bump that gH up a bit.

Definitely do more testing with a decent liquid test kit as soon as you can.

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KrangDog

Discussion Starter · #6 · Jul 26, 2021

somewhatshocked said:
How long has it been in use and what are the parameters of your source water?

The Malaya is part of the initial set up, so probably getting near 9-12 months now, but I'm a little hazy on the time frame. Certainly more than six month. It was initially set up as a low maintenance tank for some nerites that were suffering in the CO2 injected environment of my main tank. They're doing much better in here. But I've taken the "low maintenance" part a little too literally and it's time to turn that around now.

I checked the GH and KH last night. 12 dGH and 2dKH. So the Malaya has probably exhausted its ability to buffer those and the tank has some "Seiryu" stone (I say "Seiryu" as I believe the stuff you buy these days isn't actually Seiryu) so that's probably been increasing GH and KH over time. The GH is high, so I'll bring that down to 5-8. The water source has been variable, tap water at times (soft, 2dKH/2dGH) and water from my main tank at others. I'll likely use RO water from now on though as I make it anyway.

Incidentally, it's a little 10L Spec V, the same as the one you set up in 2019 so far as I can see. Great little tanks.

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somewhatshocked

· #7 · Jul 26, 2021

If it's in a Spec V, it likely is nearly exhausted if you've been using tap. Just because the tank is so skinny/there's a lot less substrate than in a normal tank. But if you mean Spec III, there's more substrate per water than in the V. So it's possible it's still got some buffering capacity - but still greatly diminished.

Bet the substrate is still really nutrient-rich, though, since you haven't been doing much with the tank. So that puts you in a really good spot in terms of adding plants or maintaining what you've got.

Seems like it's going to be a good setup for what you want to do for sure.

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