# The myth of crystal red shrimps.



## Krispyplants (Apr 15, 2014)

Do you keep your crystal red shrimps in full tap water? I can't believe that so much products came out specifically for shrimps up to date but one of the misconceptions that I see is that crs absolutely requires ro water mineralized with good mineral contents in order to properly molt. This is false. My water spits out 6.6 and my shrimps are not only surviving but spawning too as well. The shrimplets are growing. I've since sold my 1000 mg salty shrimp gh+. I feel like the market is what feeds the community with information sometimes.


----------



## vajcher91 (Jan 2, 2016)

The thing is everyones tap water is different depending on where you live. Some ppls tap are like yours and is lucky while some of us (like me) live where the water is like liquid rock. Also to add, tap is very uncontrollable as you never what gets into the water supply or if you live in the city, you never know what they will add into the water. 

Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk


----------



## Krispyplants (Apr 15, 2014)

Yes I agree but it's the risk that most fish keepers take every water change. It's just the fact that tds, gh, kh and ph is glorified to have a certain par or standard within keeping crystal red shrimps. Not to mention linking hundreds of fatalities directly to not using mineralization products. I myself have a colony of pure red line.


----------



## vajcher91 (Jan 2, 2016)

Thats interesting being you have PRLs. Whats your setup like?

Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk


----------



## Krispyplants (Apr 15, 2014)

This is my 10 gal that has been running for a while now (more than 1 year). Ada soil, 1 t5 ho and 2 sponge filters. It's on full tap water now. I recently took out almost everything in there to build my 22 gal. Ada soil tap water.


----------



## payluder (Feb 3, 2016)

I have one cube gallon tank with crs with only use one week age tap water and water change weekly to keep tds down to 275 my ph is 7.4 with no issues. My crs has been breeding like mad and now have about 40+ tiny babies in this tiny tank.


----------



## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

Well, using tap water with a buffering soil can result in the soil becoming exhausted faster.



My tap is 7.2 pH, 3-4 GH and KH, and TDS is around 50 to 60. Without using a remineralizer, I couldn't get cherry shrimp to adults. Could have 10+ berried females, but rarely ever saw a baby shrimp. Had a couple make it to a few weeks old, but none ever survived to adult-hood. The adults also slowly died off.


If I was having that many problems with cherry shrimp, I can't imagine I'd have any better luck with crystal shrimp.


----------



## TropicalAquarist (Jun 9, 2015)

I agree it might be a bit of a myth. However the majority of people have hard water, and CRS will not do well at all in hard water. Also don't underestimate the buffering capacity of your substrate! I keep my CRS and CBS in pure tap water (TDS 50, gh and kh 0-1, ph 7.8), and my substrate brings the ph down to 7.2. I do add something to up the gh as it helps them to molt and grow better.


----------



## natemcnutty (May 26, 2016)

It really does depend on your local water. I'm fortunate to have water that comes out 60 tds, 3 kh, 4 gh, and 7.6 ph. I use blasting sand substrate, so no buffering there, but the driftwood and CO2 bring it down to 7.2. I use nilocg's GH booster to bring GH up to 5-6, and while I know the Ca:Mg ratio is 3:1 instead of 4:1 like the remineralizers do, it hasn't caused any issues yet.

I was also fortunate to find a local breeder on the same water as me, so maybe he did the hard part of getting them adapted to a higher pH than usual. Maybe I'd have better shrimplet survival rates in lower pH water, used a buffering substrate, or did RO with remineralizers, but I feel like trying to maintain those over what I'm doing now would just leave me open to even more instability (or rather, more variables to worry about).

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk


----------



## GrampsGrunge (Jun 18, 2012)

My water is darn near Rio ***** river water out of the tap, little to no hardness in either gh or kh, with some tannins, especially now with the Alders shedding their leaves in our stream. I have 9 BCS in my 2.5 gallon with satellite tub tank, and I've been adding a little crushed oyster shell to the substrate, in addition to adding a few grains of Epsom salt with every quart of water changed. 

I'm sort of loathe to change something that's working. My shrimp are active, and they're growing, the first group of shrimp were darn near Mica ant size, and are now close to adult size ( roughly honeybee sized? ) So they aren't having molting issues. I worry that the substrate might be a little too dirty and mulmy, the tank is over 8 months old and has been used for baby fish growing out and I've not gravel vacuumed in ages. There are hundreds of seed shrimp in this tank.


----------



## WaterLife (Jul 1, 2015)

It's all dependent on your water parameters out of the tap, which most peoples' water does not come out suitable.

I'm all for not having to use/buy anything unnecessary, especially in the shrimp side of the hobby with so many products that are extremely overpriced and unnecessary.
Do you even know your GH, KH and TDS? Your params may be suitable, but not everyone's is.

Many breeders in Germany raise and breed their Caridinas in tap water because their water is suitable there.
Not only that, but within reason and gradual changes, living organisms can adapt.

Recommended water params are based off the params where the shrimp are found in nature. Evolution around their natural water chemistry is not made up. Certain mineral levels are necessary.

I never took it as Caridinas require RO and remineralizer, but most people do need them (not to mention other contaminates that may come from tap). If you do use RO, you do need to add minerals.


----------



## HBdirtbag (Jun 15, 2015)

vajcher91 said:


> The thing is everyones tap water is different depending on where you live. Some ppls tap are like yours and is lucky while some of us (like me) live where the water is like liquid rock. Also to add, tap is very uncontrollable as you never what gets into the water supply or if you live in the city, you never know what they will add into the water.
> 
> Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk



That's it exactly, my tap water is in the 350+ TDS rating.........


----------



## Krispyplants (Apr 15, 2014)

Last time that I checked, tds from my tap read 250-300. Never bothered to check gh or kh because who does in fish keeping? Never even heard of testing those two until I started keeping shrimps. Nobody says anything about the wild discus parameter myth advice anymore that really has no correlation to tank bred discus. I'm sure there will be a point and time where these shrimp aren't labeled as being the vulnerable soft water needy inbreds. For me at least.


----------



## HBdirtbag (Jun 15, 2015)

Krispyplants said:


> Last time that I checked, tds from my tap read 250-300. Never bothered to check gh or kh because who does in fish keeping? Never even heard of testing those two until I started keeping shrimps. Nobody says anything about the wild discus parameter myth advice anymore that really has no correlation to tank bred discus. I'm sure there will be a point and time where these shrimp aren't labeled as being the vulnerable soft water needy inbreds. For me at least.



possibly, i know i wasn't able to keep shrimp alive for long till I started making sure TDS was below 200 mark.


----------



## Krispyplants (Apr 15, 2014)

TDs will always fluctuate with evaporation. My shrimps started out in the tank with 180 tds ro with salty shrimp. Had they been straight into my tap, I can't say if they'll survive but I do believe that Aquasoil plays an important role.


----------



## shrimpzoo (Sep 27, 2011)

I see it more as:
- To further _"guarantee"_ the success in keeping CRS (or any shrimp for that matter) you would use RO water with a re-mineralizer to have full control of water parameters.
VS.
- RO water is mandatory or else you will fail at breeding CRS lol

Like the other posters have mentioned "your mileage may vary" if you decide to use tap water due to differing parameters from person-to-person. Whereas, a product like "Salty Shrimp" will allow shrimp keepers to maintain a consistent gH/kH with RO water using a certain amount of their product each and every time.

What you're pretty much buying is control over your tank.

The real "myth" in my opinion are those mineral balls for shrimp haha.


----------



## Krispyplants (Apr 15, 2014)

Not to mention the expensive mineral tank start up powder. I've always had luck breeding with no other add ins when starting up a tank. My shrimps bred in my tap water.


----------



## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

Krispyplants said:


> Not to mention the expensive mineral tank start up powder. I've always had luck breeding with no other add ins when starting up a tank. My shrimps bred in my tap water.


Do you mean sea mud powder?


Never used any to start up a tank... or there's the bacteria from SL-Aqua that grows quite the biofilm over the substrate at startup. Never used that, either.


I'm currently mixing hard and soft tap waters to get ideal parameters. Actually better than using the crappy remineralizer... but then, it's not geared towards shrimp and it is "messy".


----------



## IntotheWRX (May 13, 2016)

Krispyplants said:


> Do you keep your crystal red shrimps in full tap water? I can't believe that so much products came out specifically for shrimps up to date but one of the misconceptions that I see is that crs absolutely requires ro water mineralized with good mineral contents in order to properly molt. This is false. My water spits out 6.6 and my shrimps are not only surviving but spawning too as well. The shrimplets are growing. I've since sold my 1000 mg salty shrimp gh+. I feel like the market is what feeds the community with information sometimes.


Ive put my shrimps in a jar of tap water. with zero care, it took months until the shrimps died on their own and melted back into the water. probably no food? no water change? iono.


----------



## Krispyplants (Apr 15, 2014)

Zoidburg said:


> Do you mean sea mud powder?
> 
> 
> Never used any to start up a tank... or there's the bacteria from SL-Aqua that grows quite the biofilm over the substrate at startup. Never used that, either.
> ...


 The only reason why I can even think of buying the biofilm starter supplement is when starting a new tank. This makes no sense because you have to let your tank cycle regardless. Maybe if you transfer an aged filter to a new tank? Waste of money either way.


----------



## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

Krispyplants said:


> The only reason why I can even think of buying the biofilm starter supplement is when starting a new tank. This makes no sense because you have to let your tank cycle regardless. Maybe if you transfer an aged filter to a new tank? Waste of money either way.



Well, yes... but the biofilm starter allows for a larger amount of biofilm (bacteria) to grow, thus more food for the shrimp once the tank is fully cycled. You can see what I mean in the following link.

https://www.discobee.com/blogs/news/18442297-cycling-a-dwarf-shrimp-tank-the-easy-sl-aqua-way


----------



## Krispyplants (Apr 15, 2014)

I would rather spend the money to buy shrimp food. There's 100% more nutrients, proteins and minerals. It's also deficient aesthetically. Like everyone would say though. It's personal preference. I can see what it's use is though.


----------



## Haroutvartanian630 (May 14, 2020)

i need help. In my 1o gallon crystal red tank i used to use fluval shrimp stratum with RO water and bee shrimp mineral to get tds 120. My Ph would be around 6.2. My stratum got old and was time to change so i decided to not use active substrate because cleaning and changing it was a nightmare. I went ahead and redid my tank a 2 months ago with regular shrimp substrate that i use for my neos by aqueon that doesnt buffer at all. Im still using RO water with bee shrimp mineral to get tds of 120. The problem starts when i went to check my ph in the tank. My ph is 5.2. The ph meter is fully calibrated so i know it is accurate. I had a lot of almond leaves and cones in the tank so i removed it but that didnt really make a difference. My question is , is 5.2 ph too low for cystral reds? My objective is to get them to breed. I dont understand why my ph is lower now vs what it was with the buffering substrate i was using which was meant to lower my ph. Should i leave it be or raise my ph to 6.2. Right now bee mineral doesnt have kh so i was thinking if i mix salty shrimp gh kh with bee shrimp mineral Gh , 60 tds each, it will give me a kh of 1, gh of 5 , and tds of 120 before i put the water in the tank and the kh shoul help to stabilize my ph around 6 . What do you think? What should i do , leave it alone or add some kh? Why is my ph lower now then i was with active substrate when i didnt change any thing else i was doing. Please help!


----------

