# shrimps in "blackwater"???



## steven p (Jun 22, 2012)

Not full on black water... But I do have tannin stained water in tanks with shrimp. It's fine.


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## wicca27 (May 3, 2009)

i say try it


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## vangp79660 (Mar 9, 2013)

steven p said:


> Not full on black water... But I do have tannin stained water in tanks with shrimp. It's fine.


hmm, my gh kh were a tadd bit too high, so i just bout some peat softener for my canister filter. I hear they're suppose to tan the tank a little. Hopefully my crs won't suffer anything else, lately my crs has been looking kinda ghostly. whites are wearing off ;(


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## steven p (Jun 22, 2012)

Don't look to me for guidance there, I embrace my liquid rock. 

Whatever you decide to do to soften your water, do it slowly.


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## randyl (Feb 1, 2012)

Your best bet is really using remineralized RO and active substrate. Using black water or any product with similar effect will reduce the PH/GH/KH, but I just don't think it's a good idea to have that reducing happening in the tank while shrimps are in it. Unless you mix all these things outside of the tank to a consistent parameter for WC (nearly impossible to be the same every time). Shrimps really do appreciate a stable tank.


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## vangp79660 (Mar 9, 2013)

randyl said:


> Your best bet is really using remineralized RO and active substrate. Using black water or any product with similar effect will reduce the PH/GH/KH, but I just don't think it's a good idea to have that reducing happening in the tank while shrimps are in it. Unless you mix all these things outside of the tank to a consistent parameter for WC (nearly impossible to be the same every time). Shrimps really do appreciate a stable tank.


definitely gonna have to soften the water one way or another. for now, going to try out the peats lightly. maybe soak it off before i put it in. just did a 1/4 distilled water change and the whites are coming back already . plants are lookin better already too. maybe a future RO system investment in the future may be consider. it's a bit costly!

anyone knows of a cheaper RO solution? plz share


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## sayurasem (Jun 17, 2011)

Aren't black water their natural environment? Just thinking because shrimps wild color is brown and they are at the bottom of the food chain, camouflage.


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## randyl (Feb 1, 2012)

sayurasem said:


> Aren't black water their natural environment? Just thinking because shrimps wild color is brown and they are at the bottom of the food chain, camouflage.


Not really. Black water is mainly the environment in Amazon river, but we don't see many aquarium shrimps from that river, right?

I drill a small hole on the bottom of a bucket, lay down two to three layers of filter floss, then fill the bucket with peat from garden center. Then drip tap water from top and out comes the treated water. This way, I get PH 4.0-5.0, TDS 90, GH 3, KH0. My tap is PH 7.8, TDS 180, GH 8, KH 5. You might want to try this. The hard part is to control the water flow rate, too fast it overflows, too slow it takes forever, it takes a few times to get a hang of it. Or you can install a switch that used in the RO system directly onto the water pipe, those switches are pretty handy in controlling the flow. An 1 gallon bucket full of peat can get you at least 20 to 30G or such water, store them in a empty tank so you don't get some water with crazy low PH and some higher, again, stable is the key. Try to be consistent.


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## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

Using a peat bomb isn't exactly stable though... 

Here's what Getochkn posted here: "Peat, I found inconsistent in the fact that it's hard to filter the water through and have it come in contact with the exact amount of peat. I could take my tap water (ph/gh/kh), roughly 8/8/8 180TDS and get it down to 4/2/0 40 TDS with peat, which was too low, then you'd have to add tap water back and it was a mess to do. The second batch of water that when through my peat-filter would be like 5.5/4/1 80TDS, so that had to be mixed with less tap water. As you can see, lots of testing and mixing and it wasn't worth it in the end."


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## randyl (Feb 1, 2012)

Soothing Shrimp said:


> Using a peat bomb isn't exactly stable though...
> 
> Here's what Getochkn posted here: "Peat, I found inconsistent in the fact that it's hard to filter the water through and have it come in contact with the exact amount of peat. I could take my tap water (ph/gh/kh), roughly 8/8/8 180TDS and get it down to 4/2/0 40 TDS with peat, which was too low, then you'd have to add tap water back and it was a mess to do. The second batch of water that when through my peat-filter would be like 5.5/4/1 80TDS, so that had to be mixed with less tap water. As you can see, lots of testing and mixing and it wasn't worth it in the end."


That's why I recommend using a larger tank to mix all batches of treated water, and then go from there. It's been working for me. The first 3 buckets of water will be super low in PH, but after that you should get 10 to 15 pretty stable. This, of course, is not as stable as remineralized RO, and I use both.


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