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A Guide To Crystal Red Shrimp

Would "cutting" the remineralised RO with dechlorinated tap water with a pH of 7.3 and a TDS of 330 (liquid rock area!) solve the problem or would I be adding KH to the aquarium?
Adding tap water will almost certainly add KH to your tank. Again, I suggest you measure your GH (and KH) so you know where you're at approximately - you really just need to measure occasionally, but they are good parameters to know when keeping shrimps especially.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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Edit...sorry, I didn't realise this was a dedicated thread for CRS and not RCS.
Hi @pat1cp No problem. Not super critical either way... plenty of people keep both and are having both thriving and breeding in the same tank - but it seems a good idea to slant the water parameters more towards what is preferred by the CRS rather than the RCS which seems more adaptable to typical CRS conditions rather than the other way around. Congrats on your RCS success btw! :)

Cheers,
Michael
 
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Ordered. Thanks everyone.
pH seems settled at 6.6 but its early days. I bought ht some Fritz buffering and mixed a batch with the gh+.
 
plus they give you the ability to double/quadruple the test fluid volume to vary the test accuracy/resolution:
Yup, I use a 10 ml test tube, instead of the 5 ml tube that comes with the API GH/KH Test Kit. The 10 ml tube gives what is akin to a +/- 0.5 resolution. At least it narrows the uncertainty. For measurements in the 4 and above range its perfect, but it becomes tricky to measure if your down in the 1-2 range, where I am at with my KH, as the color and reaction gets very faint and subtle in a 10 ml tube.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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Just got my CRS finally. Had to wait to go down to Sydney after lockdowns were lifted to collect them as relying on our crappy postal service was way to big a risk. Anyhow they seem happy in their new home and foreaging around but are small so no idea of the mix M or F at this stage.
So following this post with interest.
Dirk
 
So 6 weeks in and the pH is settled at 6.2 +/- .1
The GH is 5/6 & the KH is 0.5/1
I do a 20% water change when the TDS reaches 220
Patience and time will tell!
 
Fruits of toil. Lots of tiny shrimplets roaming around the tank.
Thank you so much for your help.
 

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Fruits of toil. Lots of tiny shrimplets roaming around the tank.
Thank you so much for your help.
@The_storm Exciting! Congratulations! I am in the process of slowly tweaking my water a bit for a future introduction of CRS to my shrimp tank (currently have various colors of RCS) - essentially knocking the TDS down to the 150 ppm range from 210-230 in the past. I am currently hovering at 190 ppm - still a bit too high for the CRS I am getting which are mostly raised in waters around 150-160ppm... I assume you maintained GH at 5/6 and KH at 0.5/1, but what about your TDS? Where is that at? also what's your water temperature?

Stability is the key.
Very true.

Chasing water parameters is pointless.
As a blanket statement, for shrimps in particular, this is most certainly incorrect. You got to be in the ballpark with your water parameters, but probably nothing more than that. If your Ca and/or Mg content is too low your shrimps wont be able to build their exoskeleton and molt successfully...if Ca content is too high they wont be able to molt successfully either. Shrimps don't have the same ability for osmotic regulation as fish, so if your TDS is too high (or extremely low) your shrimps wont thrive - and rapid changes to TDS can be lethal as shrimp adapts to change in osmotic pressure very slowly. If your Cu content is too high your shrimps will most likely die etc.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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Thanks Michael, exiting indeed! GH has always been at about 6 and KH usually zero but never more than 0.5.
I've gradually reduced the TDS to 150 after realising I was making the mistake of topping up with mineralised water. I now top up the evaporation with pure RO.
Temp sits at about 22.
I do a bi weekly water change of temperature matched, remineralised RO.
10 litres of RO at a TDS of 130 in a 45 litre tank.
 
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Thanks Michael, exiting indeed! GH has always been at about 6 and KH usually zero but never more than 0.5.
I've gradually reduced the TDS to 150 after realising I was making the mistake of topping up with mineralised water. I now top up the evaporation with pure RO.
Temp sits at about 22.
Great! Good to know that my targets are not too far off :)

Cheers,
Michael
 
I've gradually reduced the TDS to 150 after realising I was making the mistake of topping up with mineralised water.
I learnt that from reef keepers in that they top up with fresh, and not salt.

Ive not been keeping shrimp long so excited seeing i have two berried. They are molting ok so my water seems to be ok for them.

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Interesting point by Storm about using straight RO. I was following a recomendation of using only straight RO top up water. The theory being the minerals don't evaporate but I found that straight RO replacement water, (in my case 10 lts) did drop the TDS and I lost a few critters. Now I do remineralize the top up to the same TDS reading as the tank.

These CRS are delicate enough depending on their previous parameters but try PRL they are a challenge. I am battling a high basic tap water Ph level which also gives me a higher RO Ph level than generally but looks like I have it under control, (sort of) but its taken some doing and keeping it at the correct level and the other readings stable is definately the answer. I also drip aclamatise my top up water just as a caution.

Just waiting for new shipment of PRL's this morning or whenever they arrive with this lousy postal service we have here these days.
 
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I also drip aclamatise my top up water just as a caution.
I think thats a real good habit to get into, and i do the same. Although doing it manually is no hardship i would like to set up an auto top up system as i get further along into it.
 
I do the water change with remineralised RO to a TDS of 130 but I top up with 'pure' RO.
I'm still in the mode of checking the TDS daily and it's stable at 150, the GH stays at 6 and the KH is negligible.
When I topped up with mineralised RO, my TDS kept rising.
 
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