# CRS/RCS water parameters



## Ebichua (May 13, 2008)

It works, though it wouldn't hurt to lower the Nitrate more  
5 or less is ideal.


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## Hockiumguru (Sep 3, 2008)

I just use the strip tests, so 10 is a general estimate between 0 and 20. Perhaps its closer to 5, but undoubtably no higher then 10 :thumbsup:

Anything else I could do to assist thier efforts?


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## Ebichua (May 13, 2008)

Keep temps low, at around 72. After that, just neglect them. That's what I do with my shrimp once I can stabilize their parameters. The less you tamper, the better they do.


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## waterfaller1 (Jul 5, 2006)

Ebichua said:


> Keep temps low, at around 72. After that, just neglect them. That's what I do with my shrimp once I can stabilize their parameters. The less you tamper, the better they do.


I am glad you made this statement. I was worried I was keeping them at too low of a temp, and that is basicly how I feed~"oh..haven't fed them in a few days..."
I find if overfed, snail and worm populations take over!


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## southerndesert (Sep 9, 2007)

Also add a 10 to 20 percent weekly water change to the above advise....

Cheers, Bill


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## A Hill (Jul 25, 2005)

southerndesert said:


> Also add a 10 to 20 percent weekly water change to the above advise....
> 
> Cheers, Bill


Bill, I've got to disagree especially with people who are new to CRS. Low tech tanks with just water top offs are far easier to maintain..

Weekly, or even monthly WC isn't needed IME especially if you are using RO water (I'm not) Maybe every few months is a good habit but not entirely necessary.

-Andrew


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## Hockiumguru (Sep 3, 2008)

Thanks for the temp. advice. I've got mine around 74/75, so i'll drop it down a bit.

As for water changes, I do about 20% weekly, using tap water treated with aquaplus water conditioner.

what is RO water?


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

Treat it with Prime.

RO = reverse osmosis.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

I really have to ask, have any of you done any test of any sort that show that what you claim? I'm talking about temps, NO3's, Traces, and KH specifically? Or is it just what other folks, also, who have not tested anything, said? I have CRS's, they breed and did well in a high light, EI dosed aquarium, full of plants, CO2 etc, typical high light ADA AS, CO2 enriched tank with meaty nutrients. Rain- did the same thing, I'm hardly the only person that's done this. And I kept doing it, still am doing it and can in the future.
Now I did do weekly 50-70% water changes, sometimes 2x a week, feed them well, the KH was about 2 degrees, and the NO3 sat around 20ppm as KNO3(very little from fish waste => NH4). I had a good sized canister filter, cleaned rarely. Temps went from about 88-90F during the summer, now at about 78F. The shrimp had everything removed and uprooted, generally a bad place, stress, pulling up all sorts of nutrients from the old ADA AS, did this 2x.

Now if you accept that if made a hypothesis, say higher than 5ppm NO3 kills shrimp/kills the fry, why did my shrimp NOT die? How did they increase 4x in numbers? If this is a cause of poor health/mortality? I want an answer. Not personal mumbo, not off topic baloney. The same is true for Traces, I add 5mls per day of TMG in 75 liters of water, never an issue. Where's is the issue?

Out of the dozen or so shrimp I started off with, I ended up with about 40-50 at the end of 3 months. Another tank , a non CO2 tank had cherries for over a year and they where spread to other tanks and sold off, never one water change. I cannot say for CRS's because I have not kept them in a non CO2 tank, but I'm not going to repeat something that was not tested either, nor try to suggest I know something I've not tested myself. But I think I've clearly and definitively shown that Crystal Reds cannot be dying due to these claimed NO3 and trace levels with KNO3 and ADA AS and with Tropica master grow, nor temps, nor water changes.

It has to be other factors that should be looked at and considered.
This is the exact same approach to falsification that was used to show excess levels of PO4 does not cause algae. You add it, and where is the algae as the theory claimed?

If you do not test it and provide a control for a reference, you cannot say. To do say without testing it and basing on someone who is merely just "playing it safe" without ever really testing is leading you all down the road of myths and belief. Why have my CRS's not died? If what you claim is true? I want someone to explain this contradiction. Leave the personal mumbo at the door, talk about ppm's, mortality, an LD 50, breeding, examples where you think you saw mortality due to solely KNO3 dosing etc, how many times did you test this etc. Are any of you willing to kill some shrimp for the greater good? To learn about the risk and how far you can go without causing harm?

I did. I found that many the common claims where outright wrong. I'm also not the only person that has used EI and has done well with CRS's also. 
I can rule out a few reason why they die, I cannot, however, tell and explain why everyone's shrimp die in every case. Nor do I make such claims, only what I do know based on what I've dosed and done to the CRS's thus far. Could I have gotten better brood production using bare bottom tanks and no plants/CO2 etc? Sure, perhaps...........but that's not the question, the question is in the context of planted tanks, not max brood production.

Still, no one has ever answered my query, how come my shrimp did not die when I added these things way beyond the suggested levels?
They diverge from the question, keep quiet and/or avoid it. 
Some have gotten mad, or roll their eyes, or other personal baloney, still not answering the question. I do not care, I want to hear some logic about the issue. 

If the only concern is max brood production, then keep larger tanks, say 20 gal, bare bottom, get some good sticks for food, add some leaves etc that get well colonized with inverts for them to eat, do water changes, say 20% 3x a week, add a few pieces of aged driftwood, a good canister filter with good high flow(Say a HOT Magnum) etc. Feed small amounts 2x a day.
Aquaticeco.com sells the 1 lb bags of spirulina sticks, pretty good product.
Make sure the filter is well cycled in every and all cases. 

Some potential causes for folks having issues: 
Poor flow
Low O2/high temp combinations
Poor underpowered filter 
New uncycled filter
Poor feeding/fed
Tap water issue- run through carbon
Super low KH=> makes all trace metals much more toxic than higher KH's
Small tiny tanks tend to have large changes in nutrients, water changes, temp changes, etc, try a larger tank.

These are things to focus on and see about ruling out.
Also, NO3 test strips are about as bad as you can get, use a good quality test kit(say Lamotte) and then calibrate it using a know reference set for measurement of NO3 especially. We really have no clue about what the NO3 is if that's not addressed. I'm curious how many of the shrimp folks that make these claims really have calibrated their test kits? The post and various web sites I've read(no mention of it), but many are very certain and confident of their measurements/ppms. So in answer to the poster's question, yes, the shrimp will breed at those parameters, mind did just fine.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## A Hill (Jul 25, 2005)

Tom as for the water changes being needed they are not. I have a colony going on two years with next to no water changes.

Temperature is interesting though. Mine won't breed at over 73-74 degrees F or so. My tank finally dropped back down to the low 70s and there are three or so berried now. 

I'm surprised you had good success with these shrimp at higher temperatures... What grade where they?

As for the PPM of this and that, I don't test all that jazz so I can't help you today with that, but if you really want me to I can start testing.

-Andrew


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## southerndesert (Sep 9, 2007)

In my experience breeding slows with less attention payed to water changes Andrew and this is from experience with my tanks and I do use RO and ADA Amazonia. I am not exactly sure which chemicals that build up are to blame, but the results of less water changes were very obvious in my tanks. I am having much better results with cleaner water than I was when I was when not doing weekly WC. This is in large population tanks, but my findings none the less. These are all low light, no dose tanks and I am faaaaaaar from being an expert.....

Not looking to debate just sharing my experiences with S to SSS grades here in AZ. I can trace most of my major issues with die offs to breeding issues to water quality when tracing back as I have learned many a lesson the hard way.


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## Ebichua (May 13, 2008)

Water changes do more damage to my shrimp tanks than it does help. I overload my tanks with plants to keep nitrates down, so I only have to do small top-offs. I use direct tap water + dechlor, not RO water. I think this is why it's more damaging for my case, if you use RO water it might be okay. Since my tap water needs to be converted by AS first, so in a way, I alter the PH for a short while while RO stays the same... So yeah, WCs depends.

As for temperature, the lower the temp the better. Once you hit 77+, my CRS started slowing down. They moved very little, stayed out of the light, didn't pick at food very much and was overall inactive for the most part. Anything higher, I had deaths. Heat waves repeatedly hit CA during the summer and I lost a TON of CRS/CBS (A-S). My temps shot up to 78-82. My other shrimp at the time were fine though. I had RCS/snowballs in the same temp. 

Nitrates? 5-10 is my general rule, would I dare experiment to go higher? Probably not, simply because I don't think it's safe for them to go that far and I'm not willing to risk harming them just for the sake of testing. That is my opinion though 
Although there was one point, where my nitrate in my CRS tank DID go to around 20 on my API liquid test. I lost one or two CRS if I recall correctly. Ever since then, I stacked more plants in to drain the nitrates. I can't say for sure that nitrate was the culprit, but I did do my best to eliminate that possibility. 

I suggest low-tech tanks because they are easier to maintain and you don't have to worry about the chemical balances in tanks. Not because you have to add stuff in it. There's nothing wrong with adding ferts, just as long as you maintain the balance, then there is no risk. So in short, low-tech = less worries.


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## southerndesert (Sep 9, 2007)

Yes temp is definitely an issue with CRS and I second your findings. As I said I an not a high tech PT person, just a shrimp keeper and most tanks have moss and a few other low light plants. I do however keep 20 species of shrimp without issues and all are very healthy and breeding. I really enjoy these threads that show and explain different successful environments created for these guys from high tech to low tech no plant tanks.

I know what is working for me anyway and always willing to share my methods....


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

A Hill said:


> Tom as for the water changes being needed they are not. I have a colony going on two years with next to no water changes.
> 
> Temperature is interesting though. Mine won't breed at over 73-74 degrees F or so. My tank finally dropped back down to the low 70s and there are three or so berried now.
> 
> ...


I do not grade shrimp, some seemed to be high grades as the folks bought them up rather fast. But this was for the CRS?
If so, then the non CO2 method planted tank would seem to work well, as long as input(food waste) = output(plant biomass), things should be very well in such non CO2 planted systems, generally, as far as NO3 and N, traces etc go, better than the CO2 enriched systems.

Comforting to know, I know it works well with Cherry's, just have not tried it with CRS's.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

I think overall , you folks are on the right track for your goal, do not take me the wrong way. But when I test something, I do test it and make sure there's no way that a parameter can be causing the issue.

It does not tell me much, just about the parameter I know I monkeyed with, nothing more.

But non CO2 planted tanks= much easier and nicer to tend and take of over time. BTW, if you want softer water, use a bicarb user and do not do water changes, only add top off evaporation water for a non CO2 planted tank.

And they are able to sustain a lower level of nutrients as the rate of plant growth is also much lower. High plant biomass will rapidly convert NH4 waste into plant tissue and little NO3 will be present, yet the plants will still have enough N.

If you worry about this, try adding a bunch of water sprite on the surface.
You will avoid water changes from then on!

Give yourself unto plants!

They can mop up most any shrimp tank and knock the ppm's to zero without any water changes. Any emergent growth will increase the uptake rates by up to 10-20X. Just a FYI.

This should help more folks get the results and goals as far as water quality, with much less work and more flexibility. Also, the results in non CO2 planted tanks is better if you avoid water changes, have a reasonable fish load/light level.

And with a little trimming once a month or two, can look pretty nice also.

But for those that do like CO2, high light etc, these shrimp do pretty well also. 
The grades should not matter as far as toxicity, only the genetic make up.
As they are highly inbreed, there's very little variation there, making them particularly sensitive for that reason alone.

As they breed well, and you can run larger numbers, and folks often cull the low grades I think they make a model test critter for toxicity, much like a canary.

All my shrimp came from Aqua Forest if interested.

Regards, 
tom Barr


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## Hockiumguru (Sep 3, 2008)

Woah, things suddenly took off here. Too bad much of it is going over my head. I will have to wikipedia reverse osmosis.

My 20G tank is a very low light (less than 1wpg - working on that), with low light plants (java moss; java fern regular, needle + windelov; crypt parva; hygro; anubias nana.)
It also has a DIY co2 setup, 1 bubble/4 seconds. I treat with iron enriched twice a week.
1 water change of 20% /week.
Feed once per day.

Thats the basics of my tank, unfortunately I am not nearly as informed as others here, so thats the best info I can provide.
I'm also new to shrimp as I've only owned mine for about 1.5 months.


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## Ugly Genius (Sep 27, 2003)

The gist of all this, Hockiumguru, is if you've kept your shrimp healthy and thriving for one and a half months, just keep doing what you're doing. Your parameters look fine.


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## Ebichua (May 13, 2008)

If your shrimp came from AFA, then I highly suspect you have A-S grades. I've been there and have seen their colonies. How much did you get them for? :-D


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## RandomKayos (Oct 3, 2008)

I may be a bit off base here but regarding temps. I've been told that warmer water holds less oxygen. When I raised guppies in small tanks I found that every time the temps went up I had to increase the air exchange. I used air stones and later I had a water fall set up. I also notice that my plant growth would increase with the temp increase but then level off until I added the airstones or agitation.

My Question to Mr. Barr would be in regards to his setups. They may already have a very good gas exchange setup from what I can gather so his higher temps would not be a factor where in the lower tech tanks they may need to add airstones or such.

Just my two shrimps worth.

RK


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## Natty (Apr 2, 2008)

Is it safe to add CO2 in a low light 1.4 wpg tank with shrimps? Or should I stay without CO2?

I just want CO2 to aid my plants in growing in that tank. Shrimps will be most important and I just want CO2 if it is completely safe for the shrimps.

There will be no dosing.


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## Ebichua (May 13, 2008)

Natty said:


> Is it safe to add CO2 in a low light 1.4 wpg tank with shrimps? Or should I stay without CO2?
> 
> I just want CO2 to aid my plants in growing in that tank. Shrimps will be most important and I just want CO2 if it is completely safe for the shrimps.
> 
> There will be no dosing.


It is safe, but just tone the co2 down. If you want to make it easier on yourself, use flourish Excel and dose once every 2 days or so (to play it safe). Excel tends to work better because it's easier to use on low-techs. You won't have to worry about, "Am I adding too much CO2? Will I poison them with too much of it?" Though if you want to toy around with direct CO2 and screw the excel idea, it's still fine. It can be as good, if not better than excel, if you can reach the ideal amount.

Just be careful, if you end up adding more CO2 than the plants can use (due to low lights), it can pose a threat!


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## Natty (Apr 2, 2008)

So enough for the plants but not too much for the shrimps right?

And enough to keep the algae down. I think I have about 15 ppm worth of CO2 going on in there. I have my molly to tell me if there's too much CO2 lol.

The fish are in there at the moment to help cycle the tank, once its done, they're out of there.


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## Ebichua (May 13, 2008)

Natty said:


> So enough for the plants but not too much for the shrimps right?
> 
> And enough to keep the algae down. I think I have about 15 ppm worth of CO2 going on in there. I have my molly to tell me if there's too much CO2 lol.
> 
> The fish are in there at the moment to help cycle the tank, once its done, they're out of there.


Indeed! But like I said, excel will make your worries about overdoing co2 go away. Just keep the co2 balance in check


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

Hm, speaking of water parameters...I have snowball shrimp in a small tank, been there for about two months now, everything going well. Did a WC two days ago. Added some Prime (old stuff) and put the new water in. Since then I've had 5-6 of them die on me. Body just turns white and they die. Really weird.

Worried that maybe the Prime was expired and I wiped out my biological filter or something to that effect.


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## A Hill (Jul 25, 2005)

Bill, I know I've never tested this and don't have any means to but generally I would think that the high water volume exchange and whatnot plays with the hormone levels in the tanks which helps to increase the numbers. Unless you have very little plantmass those problem nutrients shouldn't really pose too much a problem IME. I have nothing against WCs but generally for the new person it is easier to avoid them to help keep parameters much more stable.



plantbrain said:


> I do not grade shrimp, some seemed to be high grades as the folks bought them up rather fast. But this was for the CRS?
> If so, then the non CO2 method planted tank would seem to work well, as long as input(food waste) = output(plant biomass), things should be very well in such non CO2 planted systems, generally, as far as NO3 and N, traces etc go, better than the CO2 enriched systems.
> 
> Comforting to know, I know it works well with Cherry's, just have not tried it with CRS's.
> ...


The reason I brought up "grade" was because as grades get higher they have generally been much more inbred and are more of a pain and like everything much more stable. I would bet your shrimp where around A-S grade which aren't too picky IME but I am surprised that you had such success with those high temperatures.

It works very well with CRS/Black Diamonds especially if you're one with a busy schedual. Every month or two I do a huge trim and let the plants go crazy again. My personal problem is the substrate looks to be going anaerobic (that spelled correctly?) so I may be setting up a new tank and switching them over to it. 



RandomKayos said:


> I may be a bit off base here but regarding temps. I've been told that warmer water holds less oxygen. When I raised guppies in small tanks I found that every time the temps went up I had to increase the air exchange. I used air stones and later I had a water fall set up. I also notice that my plant growth would increase with the temp increase but then level off until I added the airstones or agitation.
> 
> My Question to Mr. Barr would be in regards to his setups. They may already have a very good gas exchange setup from what I can gather so his higher temps would not be a factor where in the lower tech tanks they may need to add airstones or such.
> 
> ...


Generally with shrimp when we talk temperature it pertains to the life cycle being sped up not oxygen levels. Many, probably most, hobbiest use air driven sponge filters so oxygen isn't a large problem. As for your main point, yes higher temperature water holds less oxygen:thumbsup:



epicfish said:


> Hm, speaking of water parameters...I have snowball shrimp in a small tank, been there for about two months now, everything going well. Did a WC two days ago. Added some Prime (old stuff) and put the new water in. Since then I've had 5-6 of them die on me. Body just turns white and they die. Really weird.
> 
> Worried that maybe the Prime was expired and I wiped out my biological filter or something to that effect.


I don't think the prime did it, my prime is a bit old too... 

It may have been the sudden influx in water parameters that stressed them out and killed them, maybe a sudden CO2 shift because tap water tends to have more. All kinds of stuff that may have happened...

-Andrew

PS. Natty, what are you going to be using for light (this really should just be a new topic BTW) because if anything the lighting is more of a deciding factor than what is in the tank. Personally I wouldn't bother with CO2 and keep it simple and maybe use some excel here and there.


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## fishsandwitch (Apr 20, 2008)

If your substrate is going anerobic then just get some MTS! and mess with just a tiny bit at a time and you should be fine. Thats what I did in my tiger tank.


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## A Hill (Jul 25, 2005)

fishsandwitch said:


> If your substrate is going anerobic then just get some MTS! and mess with just a tiny bit at a time and you should be fine. Thats what I did in my tiger tank.


MTS do not dig deep enough. Not past like 1cm. I've got some deeper substrate due to having it a low tech tank with lots of crypts, valls and whatnot. So they help in the top of the tank, but not the bottom of the bottom...

Its another excuse to set up my 45g that is sitting empty!

-Andrew


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

RandomKayos said:


> I may be a bit off base here but regarding temps. I've been told that warmer water holds less oxygen. When I raised guppies in small tanks I found that every time the temps went up I had to increase the air exchange. I used air stones and later I had a water fall set up. I also notice that my plant growth would increase with the temp increase but then level off until I added the airstones or agitation.
> 
> My Question to Mr. Barr would be in regards to his setups. They may already have a very good gas exchange setup from what I can gather so his higher temps would not be a factor where in the lower tech tanks they may need to add airstones or such.
> 
> ...


I think you are quite correct.

And this, rather than the direct temp effects are really what is at issue I feel.
I can show they do not die and do well over time at higher temps.
But why they do well for myself and not others, I cannot say. But if I where to guess, this and poor NH4 cycling would be the two I'd focus on.

All water holds less gas in solution as you increase temps(N2, CO2, O2 etc).

So more O2/CO2 is required at higher temps, and you also have high MET rates for the critters.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

I've done some background checks into shrimp and their physiology. To tell the truth, very little is really known in research about these shrimp.

And few have bothered to test the ranges of parameters, rather, stick with conservative ranges and supporting them with myths in many cases from what I've seen.

Sure, PO4 high ppm's might be correlated to algae, but PO4 at high ppms does not induce algae. Similar rational here.

You can rule out a lot of issues. Plenty of low grades to cull anyway, so you can use those without much $ risk. I think CRS's are model test critters.
And you can sell the higher grades off.

So most breeders can play around and test.

Or you sell every last one and not learn more about the ranges and investigate. That's fine also, $ is king for some/their goal here and some do not care about investigation that much, some are interested in it however.
I am much more the latter for my personal goals.

I do better raising plants and selling them. Much easier and no issues with reproduction/shipping/care.

So I sell the plants, buy shrimp, test them, see, learn much more about them, their ranges etc, then I know better optimal ranges to keep , feed, breed, know when I have to worry, when there is a real risk, able to give advice to a wider range of care issues that hobbyist have.

Not everyone is able to keep their tanks at 72F.
But they will keep CRS's..........now how to do that without issue?

That's useful info for many.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## go9ma123 (Oct 5, 2007)

southerndesert said:


> Also add a 10 to 20 percent weekly water change to the above advise....


I don't think you need to do 10-20% weekly water change...
This is why some people had shrimp death?
What I do is just fill up water every week and do water test every 2 weeks. When test result came with high amonia, then I do 10-20% water change.


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