# TDS and red cherry shrimps



## tamsin

They'll be fine with that RCS are pretty adaptable. Does you tap water provider post water reports? That would give you an idea of GH.

Ideally want you want is a fairly stable TDS, so if it continues to creep up and up that might be a sign you need to do slightly larger or slightly more regular water changes. If it stays at roughly that level you are good. Obviously you'll have a bit of up/down just before/after water changes but as long as it stays within.

The tank always tends to be higher than the tap as other things add to it - plant ferts, food, decaying plants, some substrates etc.


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## Flying_Rasbora

Cherrys thrive around 250-300 TDS. Your shrimp will be multiplying in no time.


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## DonoBBD

We are at 300 most of the time and they do very well. Peppy and not lethargic at all.

If you are really worried you can float some **** tail or hornwort. it will pull you TDS down fast if your light is on over 8 hours per day.


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## VRaverna

The TDS climbed to 260 about 12 hours after that and then when I did another test just before the light turned on in the morning (6 hours later), the TDS was at 261. Changing about 1/3 of the water and the TDS dropped back to 235. (Is this calculation correct? 2/3 * 245 + 1/3 * 214 = ( 490 + 214 ) / 3 = 704 / 3 = 234.66 )

Seem like my tap water is not stable at 214. It was 214 (test was done at night) but when I tested today, it was only 211 (test was done in the morning). Mixing in with prime, the TDS climbed to 214.


My other problem is that I noticed a small white organism in the tank that look like a small and short worm or an insect. It was white color that is around 2 mm long on the glass of the tank. Planaria?

Also some algae started to grow on the glass which I didn't have for over a month. The only change that I did recently is to change the lid from a white/milk colored acrylic to a clear one. I guess my light was too high and white acrylic lid reduced the light enough so that algae didn't appear. Or maybe it was just coincidence.

I like the clear color lid better since the light is brighter for viewing the tank so instead of changing back to the other lid, I reduced the light period by two hours.


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## kashif314

Your tds is fine. Up to 300 is fine for cherry shrimps. They are very hardy. And its normal tds for them. About the worms if they have a triangular shape head means its planaria but if they are very thin like thread then they are detritus worms and completely harmless. 

Don't rush for water changes so quickly. Keep recorded if tds daily for a week. I mean while water change tds can be lower but your real tds will show up the next day because of possibility of some other organisms in your water. Make sure to always prime the water as must if you are using tap water.


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## Zoidburg

I've seen cherry shrimp living in water with a TDS higher than 600... with evaporation.


I've heard of others living in TDS of 800-1000+....


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## VRaverna

Found a shrimp head or maybe just the shell of the head being eaten by a shrimp. It is under the sponge filter so it is hard to see if it is just shell or a whole head.

Hopefully that is just an old shell of a molted shrimp and not that one of my shrimp died.


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## KayakJimW

molts are perfectly clear, almost ghostly. Any flesh would turn pink and look like a cooked shrimp, fwiw


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## VRaverna

I am almost certain it was molt.


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## sky99

I have a 20L tank in which i had neocaridina davidi sakura red, and they lived fine with a 300+ TDS.
However, i'm lowering it now, and they seem more active, so i don't know what is the optimal value for those shrimps on this parameter.


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## VRaverna

Almost 24 hours since the water change, the TDS is at 245 before light on. I guess I probably fed them too much or left the leftover too long in the water for it to climbed to 261. Without feeding the TDS seem to be stable.


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## sky99

By the way, you can't consider 211 and 214 really different values, this is within the error range of your TDS meter (unless you have a very accurate, calibrated one).
Also, things in suspension in the water (food or soil) can alter the measure, so it's best to measure before feeding or planting. I usually collect the water from my filter exhaust pipe to measure TDS.


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## VRaverna

This is my shrimp tank (17 L):










With about 30 neocaridina shrimps, how often to feed? The tank is only about one month old, used to have 6 livebearers (guppy and platy) in it because I let my 3 years old daughter did the stocking. Added the shrimps starting about two weeks ago and moved the livebearers (only two platies left).


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## sky99

Hello, i feed my neocaridina often (every day, sometimes more often), but feed very little.
When you have a matured tank, with loads of biofilm, you can feed much less. What you can do is to put a feeding cup, feed your shrimps in it, and
remove what's uneaten after one hour. You can thus adjust accordingly.

If you don't have a feeding dish, glass youghurt pots do the trick (the larger, less tall ones)

In order to promote biofilm growth, there are products such as glassgarten bacter AE, or Mosura BT-9.

Another solution is to add mosses, such as java moss : they find loads of things to eat between the moss leaves (i have a 20L tank with shrimps, and i have left it unfed for long periods,
still had reproduction in it).


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## VRaverna

sky99 said:


> Hello, i feed my neocaridina often (every day, sometimes more often), but feed very little.
> When you have a matured tank, with loads of biofilm, you can feed much less. What you can do is to put a feeding cup, feed your shrimps in it, and
> remove what's uneaten after one hour. You can thus adjust accordingly.
> 
> If you don't have a feeding dish, glass youghurt pots do the trick (the larger, less tall ones)
> 
> In order to promote biofilm growth, there are products such as glassgarten bacter AE, or Mosura BT-9.
> 
> Another solution is to add mosses, such as java moss : they find loads of things to eat between the moss leaves (i have a 20L tank with shrimps, and i have left it unfed for long periods,
> still had reproduction in it).


I have a feeding dish, if you look closely on the picture of my tank, at the bottom right corner, you can see the glass feeding dish.

I tried to feed half piece of ADA Red Bee Shrimp food today. Seem like still too much, after two hours there is still about half of it left but the shrimps are still eating.

I don't have moss in the tank but I have pellia that came with the shrimps. I just left it at the back of the tank not attached to anything.

My wife is pushing me to add fish to the tank. She said that the tank is boring without fishes. So what to add? Chili rasbora? If so how many of them in a 4.5 gallons with about 30 dwarf shrimps?


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## sky99

VRaverna said:


> I have a feeding dish, if you look closely on the picture of my tank, at the bottom right corner, you can see the glass feeding dish.
> 
> I tried to feed half piece of ADA Red Bee Shrimp food today. Seem like still too much, after two hours there is still about half of it left but the shrimps are still eating.
> 
> I don't have moss in the tank but I have pellia that came with the shrimps. I just left it at the back of the tank not attached to anything.
> 
> My wife is pushing me to add fish to the tank. She said that the tank is boring without fishes. So what to add? Chili rasbora? If so how many of them in a 4.5 gallons with about 30 dwarf shrimps?


Hello,
about the food, again, the shrimps are said to fare better underfed rather than over fed. However, you can observe their behaviour, and see if they graze on the walls, plants, etc. if so, it means that they find biofilm to eat.
I rarely feed the small tank that i have of a comparable size to yours, but it's really mature : 









As you can see, plenty of vegetation. Yours have many plants, but not yet as lush, so perhaps you can feed what you gave every two days?

By the way, pellia est GREAT; but in order for it to reach it's full potential, you should tie it to a rock or something. In that case, it will grow to a nice, compact ball, great for young shrimps.
otherwise, it will just end up having small floating bits, unless left really undisturbed in a corner with not much water flow to move it.

About fishes, for startes, you can add some ottocinclus, there are some small varieties, and they are algae eaters, so won't pretate on shrimplets when your colony breeds.
Chili rasboras are awesome too, i use them in my shrimp tanks, for i need them to eat mosquito larvae, and they don't predate too much on shrimplets, seeing how small they are.
I have selected some small guppy males that i introduce in such tanks (in the 20L tanks, there is one small double sword male).

I also like pigmy corys to go with my shrimps, they do well.

Regular corys also do well with shrimps, but they'll probably like a larger tank; also they are large enough to eat shrimplets.
I also have pangio khuli in one of my shrimp tanks, and the colony reproduces, so predation doesn't seem to be too much of a problem,
however the tank may be a bit small for them.

Anyway, if you get a fish, don't overfeed either to avoid pollution, and the fish food that falls on the ground should be picked up by the shrimps.
i'm sorry that i can't give you hard numbers on how many to feed, or how many of each fish, but i don't have a strict formulae to give, it's more
according to how the tank reacts.

About the tank beeing more active though : if your colony picks up, in a few months you may end up with tons of shrimps roaming around, so it'll be
more active  But a small guppy or a few boraras maculatus or boraras brigittae won't hurt 
Just check if your filter is enough, don't make harsh water changes for the shrimps don't like it, check for nitrates (if it grows too fast, probably overfeeding),
and everything should be fine


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## VRaverna

Added 8 chili rasbora but seem like they don't help much. Smaller than the shrimps so my wife still complain about them. 

According to aqadvisor, my stocking level is over 200%, I hope aqadvisor is not correct about the bioload of chili rasbora.


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## sky99

VRaverna said:


> Added 8 chili rasbora but seem like they don't help much. Smaller than the shrimps so my wife still complain about them.
> 
> According to aqadvisor, my stocking level is over 200%, I hope aqadvisor is not correct about the bioload of chili rasbora.


Do some water tests; if levels rise too quickly, increase bio filtration/add more plants


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## VRaverna

Since I added fishes, I started to do more water changes (about 30% per day) to prevent problem with ammonia level since I did the cycling blind without having ammonia/nitrite/nitrates test done so I don't know if the cycling (with fishes before the shrimps) was completed or not. Seem like the TDS of the water stay around the same. (235 after water change, 245-250 after 24 hours with feeding). I guess the over 260 TDS was caused by overfeeding.

I noticed another partial shrimp shell so I guess I have at least two successful molting since I didn't find any dead shrimps. Also noticed some of the shrimps like to curl up and pull the tail close to the mouth. Are those molting signs? Maybe those shrimps are going to molt soon?


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## VRaverna

First confimed shrimp death in my tank today. When the light first turned on today, noticed a bunch of shrimps were eating a dead shrimp. Doesn't look like molting problem, the dead shrimp didn't look like in process of molting. It was one of the bigger shrimps from my first batch (24th January).


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## tamsin

Does your local fish shop offer testing? I'd suggest finding out your GH/KH. TDS is made up of everything in the tank, poop, ferts etc. so you can have a good seeming TDS and still not enough calcium for the shrimps.


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## kashif314

With shrimps you need to know your water parameters. I never bought any test kits until I moved to shrimps hobby. You need to know your GH, KH, TDS, PH, No3, No2, Amonia and temperature. Neocaridina Shrimps are hardy but still there Gh should be 5 to six. Temperature should be 72-74. That's why not suitable with fish. And only fish which I find acceptable is chili rasboras. You can have a separate tank for your wife to enjoy fish.


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## VRaverna

It is possible that it was my fault. I moved some stem plants from the right back corner to front left corner so that I can move windelov java fern to the back of the tank then in the morning, I found the dead shrimp.

As for 72-74 Fahrenheit temperature, it is not possible at my location. I have to have air conditioner running 24 hours a day to get temperature that low in my apartment.


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## tamsin

VRaverna said:


> It is possible that it was my fault. I moved some stem plants from the right back corner to front left corner so that I can move windelov java fern to the back of the tank then in the morning, I found the dead shrimp.


Unless there is another issue in your tank, like anerobic substrate moving plants shouldn't hurt shrimp.


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## VRaverna

Another confirmed dead shrimp today. No obvious cause. This dead shrimp is still look exactly like a live one and no sign of molting failure, not sign of parasite or any other mark. Just a dead red colored shrimp. Seem like it died not long before I found it.

Also seem like two of my chili rasbora went missing. Don't know when they went missing, I just noticed a day ago. Try to count them several times and only can counted to 6 fishes. It is possible that they're hiding but not likely since 12 hours later, I still counted only 6.

As for TDS, the tank was stable at around 250 TDS for over a week now, but today after I found the dead shrimp, I did about 30% water change and after that the TDS was 262. So I guess before the wc, the TDS was 270 or more. Too bad I didn't test it before I changed the water so I don't know the actual number.


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## Zoidburg

What are the parameters of your tank?

Ammonia
Nitrites
Nitrates
GH
KH
Temp


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## VRaverna

I don't know. It was going well that I never got around to get test kit.

About the TDS change, I found out the cause of it. It is not something in the tank, my apartment's tap water's TDS increased. When I changed the water using my tap water, I caused the TDS to rise. Now my tap water's TDS is higher than my tank's TDS.

I am going to get some test kit to check my tank and tap water.


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## Zoidburg

And now you can see why tap water isn't always recommended for shrimp tanks... water parameters can change, or they can add more chemicals into it.

If you can switch to remineralized RO water, that would be great! Until then, it's best to know what you *are* dealing with and get the *liquid* test kits.


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## Tank Stand

Zoidburg said:


> And now you can see why tap water isn't always recommended for shrimp tanks... water parameters can change, or they can add more chemicals into it.
> 
> If you can switch to remineralized RO water, that would be great! Until then, it's best to know what you *are* dealing with and get the *liquid* test kits.


I've had no problems with my RCS with tap water. I've had one death and that was because one of my shrimp flew out of the tank probably whilst I was installing a spray bar onto the filter. 

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk


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## Tank Stand

kashif314 said:


> With shrimps you need to know your water parameters. I never bought any test kits until I moved to shrimps hobby. You need to know your GH, KH, TDS, PH, No3, No2, Amonia and temperature. Neocaridina Shrimps are hardy but still there Gh should be 5 to six. Temperature should be 72-74. That's why not suitable with fish. And only fish which I find acceptable is chili rasboras. You can have a separate tank for your wife to enjoy fish.


I agree with the temperature point as it shortens they're life span. If you have enough hiding spots and your shrimp colony is established then it'll be fine. You'll lose some to predation but more than enough will survive. I have mine RCS with cardinal and ember Tetra's. Male and female apistogramma. The female is the only one that attacks the shrimp. She's on and off with them.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk


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## DCook

Tank Stand said:


> I agree with the temperature point as it shortens they're life span. If you have enough hiding spots and your shrimp colony is established then it'll be fine. You'll lose some to predation but more than enough will survive. I have mine RCS with cardinal and ember Tetra's. Male and female apistogramma. The female is the only one that attacks the shrimp. She's on and off with them.
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk




Do you find that the shrimp hide most of the time though in that situation?


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## Tank Stand

DCook said:


> Do you find that the shrimp hide most of the time though in that situation?


When they're being attacked or in general. They usually get attacked when the shrimp swim around the top. They come out and spend their time on the driftwood or on the moss that I have. There are times when they hide, where I'll only see a couple and that's usually during water changes or after I've just done a water change. Eventually they adapt to having more fish in the tank but make sure there are plenty of hiding spots. My female apisto navigates through my plants that aren't as dense. I also have a sump at the back as well which is safe zone for the ones that escaped into without me realising (that was before the fish were there) and I can't get them out even if I tried -_-

It also comes down to the personality of the fish. You could have lots of fish that don't care about them and then have that one that chases them. From my experience Tetra's are fine. Just be wary of bigger mouth fish such as apoisotogramma, rams, Kribensis etc. With those it depends on the individual temperament of the fish. The younger the fish is when you get them and if they're tank bred, the better the chance of them not eating the shrimp (I have no way to prove that but it's what I read on many forums. When I bought my fish I asked for the smallest and youngest fish they had of each of the species).

Edit:Also having floating plant's helps

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk


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## Zoidburg

Tank Stand said:


> I've had no problems with my RCS with tap water. I've had one death and that was because one of my shrimp flew out of the tank probably whilst I was installing a spray bar onto the filter.
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk


And my shrimp died in straight tap water. Lucky you, you had good enough tap to keep shrimp in! I have to add stuff to mine in order for them to live... or just go straight remineralized RO.


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## VRaverna

Got water test strip which is probably not a great idea but better than nothing. Have hard time matching the color but here are the result:

Nitrate 8 mg/l
Nitrit 0 mg/l
Ammonia unknown (the strip doesn't detect that)
GH 8
KH 3
pH 7.8

TDS 245 (my tap water's TDS dropped to 211)

Have serious problem since my last post, shrimps are dying on average of 1 per day.

I got seachem paraguard and start dose it since yesterday to rule out bacteria or parasite since my problem started around the time I started to add sl-aqua magic powder. Other than that maybe the ADA fertilizers that I use, I also started adding that before the shrimps started dying but I stopped for over a week now and still found dead shrimps.

Other possibility is temperature since most of the time, I found dead shrimp in the afternoon. But last sunday, I have AC on the whole day and still found dead shrimp so maybe not temperature.

Feeding is also another possibility, don't know if it is coincidence but found dead shrimp several hours after feeding. No feeding and no dead shrimp for a day or two. Maybe ammonia?

Good news is I started to find a few baby shrimps. Just three of them at the same time but maybe there are more hiding since sometime I don't see any.


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## Zoidburg

If the only food you have is ADA Red Bee Shrimp, then that could indeed be part of the issue. This is made mostly of animal protein and Neos do best with a plant/algae based diet. They shouldn't receive animal protein more than once, at max, twice, a week.

I missed this before. If you don't have any other food then search for some different food and be mindful of the first 3-5 ingredients. You want to find food that is made up of mostly vegetables/algae for the shrimp. Switch to feeding that type of food for a while and see how they fare.


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## VRaverna

Zoidburg said:


> If the only food you have is ADA Red Bee Shrimp, then that could indeed be part of the issue. This is made mostly of animal protein and Neos do best with a plant/algae based diet. They shouldn't receive animal protein more than once, at max, twice, a week.
> 
> I missed this before. If you don't have any other food then search for some different food and be mindful of the first 3-5 ingredients. You want to find food that is made up of mostly vegetables/algae for the shrimp. Switch to feeding that type of food for a while and see how they fare.


I also feed them lowkeys ebi210!.

And since I have chili rasbora, I also feed the fishes with hikari micro pellets and the shrimps sometime join in and grab some of the pellets.

I'm going to try not feed them anything for a week. I think algae and biofilm growed enough for the shrimps to have food to eat and the chili rasbora can probably feed on the worms and other microorganism that is in the tank.

One week without additional food are safe for chili rasbora and shrimps, right? One problem is that if the chili rasbora are hungry, maybe they'll be more active in hunting down the baby shrimps.


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## Zoidburg

You just might need to have a separate setup for shrimp and fish and see if that helps any as well.


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## VRaverna

After 24 hours of not feeding and third dose of paraguard, didn't find any dead shrimp. Saw chili rasbora chase some of the baby shrimps but didn't see them manage to catch and kill any. But some of the rasbora pooped so either they ate some of the baby shrimps or they found enough worms and other microorganism to eat.

Some of the anubias leaves don't look healthy, don't know if they're affected by paraguard or because I moved them about a week ago and now they get less light than before. Also floating salvinia plant seem to grow very fast now and cover 3/4 of the surface.


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## Xenogade

well, i have had issue with RCS as well. All the parameters are acceptable and still dying 1 by 1. 

Fed up with it, convert to a fish tank with the current shrimp survivors in the tank. Did a heavily planted tank for the fish. 

Didn't care about the GH , KH and TDS. Setup Co2, dose daily excel and ferts. Guess what, the shrimps stop dying and are breeding already. TDS is well over 400. 

I have no idea why also.


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## VRaverna

Second 24 hours of no feeding and found one dead shrimp so seem like not because of food.

I start to think it is temperature related. Most of the time, I found dead shrimps in the afternoon after work.

Good thing is that there are a lot of baby shrimps, today I counted 10 of them. 4 grazing on the same anubias leaf, 4 on the side glass grazing on algae that are on the glass, 2 on the back glass. I guess even with 1 dead shrimp every day or every 2 day, the number will still grow.


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## VRaverna

Now I'm confused. Is it possible the shrimps died because they're killed by other shrimps. Today I thought I saw a dead shrimp being eaten by two other shrimps but before I take the dead shrimp out of the tank, the dead shrimp managed to escape and swam away.

What make shrimps attack another shrimp? Is it because of molting? Is it just mating?


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## Zoidburg

Hard to say why, but shrimp will definitely go after others which are on their way out. May be best to remove them if you come across them in the tank in case the cause of their death could spread to others.


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## VRaverna

Bad news is all my chili rasbora died after I "abandoned" the tank for a week and gave up about the dying shrimps. Seem like they died from bacteria infection (dropsy symptoms) maybe that was also what killed my shrimps.

I cleaned up the tank and added some pygmy corydoras and neon tetra. Can't find baby shrimps in the tank, so either the corydoras or tetra ate them all, they all died off from whatever killed my shrimps, or they grew up.

Good news is that no new death since 2 weeks ago but I only have probably less than 10 shrimps left. I also switched the filter from a simple sponge filter into a DIY betta cup filter made using a glass mug and a glass pipe filled with some cheap filter media.

So today I'm going to buy and add 30 neocaridina to the tank. Wish me luck. 

Latest water parameter test:

0 Nitrate
0 Nitrit
8 GH
10 KH
7.6 pH
0 Chlorine
7 Co2

Didn't do the TDS test but lately my tap water TDS is very low. It was 214 when I started this thread, it got up a bit for a while but now it is under 150.

I guess I probably should invest in RO/DI water if my tap water TDS keep changing like that.


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## Flying_Rasbora

VRaverna said:


> Another confirmed dead shrimp today. No obvious cause. This dead shrimp is still look exactly like a live one and no sign of molting failure, not sign of parasite or any other mark. Just a dead red colored shrimp. Seem like it died not long before I found it.
> 
> Also seem like two of my chili rasbora went missing. Don't know when they went missing, I just noticed a day ago. Try to count them several times and only can counted to 6 fishes. It is possible that they're hiding but not likely since 12 hours later, I still counted only 6.
> 
> As for TDS, the tank was stable at around 250 TDS for over a week now, but today after I found the dead shrimp, I did about 30% water change and after that the TDS was 262. So I guess before the wc, the TDS was 270 or more. Too bad I didn't test it before I changed the water so I don't know the actual number.


Look for the rasboras on the floor. They like to fly from time to time...


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## VRaverna

Flying_Rasbora said:


> Look for the rasboras on the floor. They like to fly from time to time...


Too late for that. Every one of my chili rasbora died.


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## tamsin

I would stop adding new fish until you can get your tank stable. 

Could you check with your water supplier what's in your water and why it's fluctuating. For example, are they treating it with something, if so what, and does the dechlorinator you use cover it.


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## VRaverna

tamsin said:


> I would stop adding new fish until you can get your tank stable.
> 
> Could you check with your water supplier what's in your water and why it's fluctuating. For example, are they treating it with something, if so what, and does the dechlorinator you use cover it.


My apartment complex has their own water recycling system, they also purchase water from water utility company. Depend on water usage, when there are more recycled water, then the TDS is lower when they're using more water utility water, the TDS rise.


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## VRaverna

I hate Paraguard! It didn't stop my shrimps from dying but now it killed all of my pygmy corydoras. I thought I saw some of my pygmy corys have white dots on them so I dosed less than full dose of paraguard at night. In the morning, found 3 dead corys. The other 3 died later in the afternoon.


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## blee

A lot of people state a specific range for cherries. An truth be told, that is probably an ideal range for them to be in with no problems. Unfortunatly for me, water where I was at in Nor Cal was pushing around 700-800 TDS. After I moved there, i thought my shrimp would be goners. However, they thrived and I had the biggest colony I've ever had lol! I'm not saying to put them in high TDS, I'm just giving an example that cherries (or at least my cherries) did great in higher TDS. Neocaridina seem to be very hardy in my experience so I'm sure you'll be fine. If you're that paranoid about it then you could go by some water and dilute the tap down to a TDS you see fit. Hope that helped.


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## Kandomere

I have a 12 gallon shrimp tank with 422 TDS. They're breeding. Should I lower the TDS?


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## Blue Ridge Reef

If they act normally, eat and breed, then they've adapted to your parameters. I wouldn't change anything to chase a target on the care sheets.


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