# Red Cherry Shrimp Water/High TDS?



## macjeff (Feb 6, 2018)

I have had a 20 gallon RCS tank for 3 years now. I have moss balls and some JAVA moss, drift wood, and mineral rocks.

Only RCS in the tank and some soft shell snails I have in there I breed for my fresh water puffer fish in another tank,.

My issue is that the shrimp live 1-2 years and they breed just fine but I never see babies. I see plenty of eggs but never babies. (Well 1 or 2 a month maybe but they disappear)

The adults keep going just fine until they die off of old age or something else. 

I keep about 100 shrimp in the tank and have to replenish 50 every 6 months about.

Water Temp I keep about neutral. 

PH- 7- 7.2

I use distilled water or sometimes Reverse Osmosis water because our tap water goes through a water softener which puts a LOT of salt in it which makes TDS very high so I try not to use tap water at all. 

I feed every 2 days with Azoo or other good food and not much. Its all gone by the time I feed again. 

I do add some powder food for the babies and a shrimp bacteria powder (just started that about 6 months ago but has not helped or hurt)

Someone told me due to the distilled water my issue is LOW TDS. So I bought TWO different meters. I tested the distilled water and its about zero which is correct. I then tested my water and its about 700. I do top offs and just did a 20% water change last weekend with distilled water.

So is that the issue? Should I pull out the mineral rocks?

I am thinking tonight to take about 8 gallons of water and drain the tank down about 40% and then fill with the distilled water. I can repeat the process in a week and once I get the TDS under 150 I can add a little shrimp mineral to get it to the 200 range. The reason I am saying that is the TDS could be bad TDS and not the minerals they needs. I ordered some Salty Shrimp Mineral which I heard was good.

Should I just give up?



THANKS for your help 

Jeff


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

macjeff said:


> I have had a 20 gallon RCS tank for 3 years now. I have moss balls and some JAVA moss, drift wood, and mineral rocks.
> 
> Only RCS in the tank and some soft shell snails I have in there I breed for my fresh water puffer fish in another tank,.
> 
> ...


Answered in bold


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## WalterJay (Dec 11, 2017)

My thought, to add on to Quagulator's good response, is that I would cut back on the feeding. It might be all gone by the time you feed next, but I would bet that is because your snails are polishing it all off - and likely breeding well. The shrimp themselves might not be eating it all. Snails will eat a handful of food a day if you let them.


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## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

What are your GH and KH?


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## tamsin (Jan 12, 2011)

What are you remineralising your distilled/RO water with and what TDS is that giving you? Basically what is the TDS of the water going into the tank. IF you check that, you'll know if the high TDS in your tank is from something in your tank or something in the water.


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