# Water Changes- Do you match TDS?



## Symplicity (Oct 14, 2011)

Hi All,
As my shrimplet population seems to rapidly decrease over time I am suspecting it to be due to a drop in my TDS.

I drip my 10-15% water changes very slowly using RO water. I dose Mosura Richwater, Old Sea Mud, and some BT-9 into my RO water. This brings my RO water from 10TDS to approx 25TDS.

My tank TDS normally gets to about 190TDS before a water change. After a water change it goes down to approx 165 TDS. Since I am running CO2 24x7 and have a kH of 2 my pH does not fluctuate too much anymore so I doubt this is the reason.

I also have 0/0/0. I am down to either the change in TDS or some other reason? My tank has been setup for almost a year and there is enough biofilm and I do feed Bio Plus every few days....

I am pretty sure my last water change has killed off 20+ shrimplets as I can not find them anywhere. 

Either:
1. TDS swings cause shrimp deaths
2. Assassin snail is eating the babies (though Ive never seen 1 be attacked)
3. ph swing?? (i doubt as it is usually around 6.4 when i test it every time)
4. Not enough food??? (doubt it i feed bioplus every other day + bt9)

I may turn to top-offs only from now on. But i heard +200TDS is bad ....


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## Jaysan (Dec 19, 2011)

Symplicity said:


> Hi All,
> As my shrimplet population seems to rapidly decrease over time I am suspecting it to be due to a drop in my TDS.
> 
> I drip my 10-15% water changes very slowly using RO water. I dose Mosura Richwater, Old Sea Mud, and some BT-9 into my RO water. This brings my RO water from 10TDS to approx 25TDS.
> ...


If 200TDS is bad...my shrimps are TROOPERS, lol

My TDS last I checked in my 7Gal was around 230-250 haha. I have never changed water. Only top-offs when the water gets about 1-1.5 inches below the rim of the tank.

After top off, my TDS usually drops down to 200. I do only use treated tap water though.


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

I used to do 10% WC every 7 to 10 days and I don't even do that much anymore, it's more like 10% WC every 2 to 3 weeks. 

I use a mix of peat treat tap or peat treat RO (experimenting) and pure RO. If my tank TDS is 150, I get the new water to around 140-145 before pour it in, I don't drip or stuff like that. 

I do top-off with pure RO. That does lower the TDS but very minimum as the new RO going in never exceeds 10%, more like 5% really.


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

OK I went and purchased one of those TDS meters from Home Depot and my water test came back at 40 what does this mean? I don't have RO so this is straight tap water with my clay based soil....any help please I don't know what Im looking at here


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## splur (May 11, 2011)

40? That's pretty low, your clay could be removing certain solids from your water. I know akadama does that at first. Burlington water could also be amazing clean... although I doubt that.


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## Symplicity (Oct 14, 2011)

Is it 40dts or 40um? some Tds can read in 2 formats. Conductivity and total dissolved solids

40tds is fairly clean with average water around 150 in my areas.... My RO water comes in at 10tds lol


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

it says ppm on the front of the meter! I measured a couple of my other tanks and they are even lower around 25. Maybe the batteries are not working that great, it keeps turning off and I have to open it up again and fix the batteries then it works. I will try a couple of new batteries in it, but if it still does this then I will just take it back for exchange...might be the digital thingy is not working right.


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## matti2uude (Jan 10, 2009)

Your meter may also need to be calibrated.


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## chinamon (Jun 16, 2012)

matti2uude said:


> Your meter may also need to be calibrated.


i definitely think it needs calibration.

i dont like the meters with screw-type calibration. they tend to lose calibration quite easily. digital calibration is the way to go these days.


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

Test your tap water with the meter, I think there's a chance your new meter is not working.


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## Symplicity (Oct 14, 2011)

I agree with randy it's pretty impossible for tap water to be 40ppm unless u have special water that makes you so good at shrimp breeding hmmmm


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

Get it returned to HD and get an exchange. If it keeps turning off something is wrong.


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

yeah I think its a dud...it shuts off the backlight too and fluctuates constantly, more than its supposed to do and that's with new batteries in it.
Guess its back to HD for a new one....


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

Yeah, I think its faulty...even with new batteries in it it is fluctuating too much and then shuts off...even the backlight doesn't stay on. Guess I got a dud!  Now I have to hope the next one is better....oh well cheap ones


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## getochkn (Jul 10, 2011)

Mine did that when I dropped it in the water, or rather my pH pen did but same thing, flickered and gave me pH reading from 3 to 13 and never stayed stable. Maybe someone dunked that one and brought it back. lol.


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## YourNoob (Dec 4, 2010)

I think if your tds is 200 it is acceptable AS LONG as your shrimp are still active and breeding. There are many accounts of people successfully keeping their shrimp at tds or even bit higher. 
I think water changes should only be done if you notice that shrimp are having a harder time when molting or breeding slows down or in the case of high nitrates. 

I personally think that these ranges for water parameters are guidelines for what you should be aiming for, while in the pursuit of finding out what works for YOUR specific setup. My philosophy is, pay attention to the behaviour of your shrimp, breeding patterns, feeding patterns, and activity level before messing around with the water chemistry. Stability is key.


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## Symplicity (Oct 14, 2011)

Im having a difficult time determining what works best. My CRS always seem berried at 170-200 and cant tell which is best to keep. Maybe even lower than 170 is best??? I dont know.

I am also finding it abit difficult to keep the babies alive and not sure if TDS plays a huge role .... especially if TDS swings from 200-to-160 will cause shrimplet deaths :9

I have at least 20 babies make it to juvie stage but im sure more than 100 have already died over the months. There are always 3-4 berried a month at any given time in my tank. Things are looking better with 24x7 CO2 to help stabalize pH swings which will need more time to help isolate shrimp death.


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

I don't really have a lot of experience breeding CRS, but with the amount of failures I had, here is my 2 cents.

If your water is stabled enough to have CRS breed and see baby shrimps, then there two things that can kill the babies after they are born.

First one is nitrate. And I believe 80%+ people don't test it the right way with test kit. For the cases I have tried, people claim they have 0 nitrate (which to me is next to impossible unless you have a big tank with tons of plants and very little animals in the tank), and when I tested it, it wasn't 0. Nitrate issue normally kills the shrimplets within 3 days of birth. If parents are tough, they will have no problem keep getting berried.

The second one is feeding. Note I don't say food, but feeding. You have to make sure your shrimplets eat. How? it's different in every case. If they don't eat, they will die slowly, normally within a week to 10 days. Some commercial food works, matured tanks don't have this issue unless some external factor breaks the balance.

Of course, if you have ammonia or nitrite or other toxins in your tank, they kill shrimplet before these two factors. Other minor factors are planaria and hydra, they kill shrimplet slowly but surely.


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## Symplicity (Oct 14, 2011)

Fairly sure I am testing my Nitrates correctly  I was hitting 20-40 nitrate prior to my filter modifications. After the bioproducts from Seachem kicked in they drastically reduced nitrates to 0. BRIGHT YELLOW readings. Multiple tests throughout the past month prove this to be 0. Tank is heavily planted aswell (15+ blyxa bushes, HC carpet, and 20+ stem plants, and a bunch of moss)

Tested other tanks and they read 40-80 nitrate which I believe to be true aswell.

No signs of planaria and hydra either 

I think last batch are doing well since getting nitrates to 0. I should see a noticeable amount of babies in the next few weeks and keep track of babies I see. I am finding more CBS than CRS make it to juvie stage.


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## manmadecorals (Jan 17, 2012)

Today i found the first death in my shrimplets...seems like it didn't molt properly as it was soft and i had a hard time picking it up before it started to deteriorate. My only real change is adding Mosura products and removing C02 for the last 3 days. I have reinstalled the C02 during my lunch today...Hopefully it's nothing too serious. My nitrate has been been 0 lately but i've added a much more frequent feeding regime for the last two weeks. I've read of people feeding their shrimps everyday though...


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## splur (May 11, 2011)

manhtu said:


> Today i found the first death in my shrimplets...seems like it didn't molt properly as it was soft and i had a hard time picking it up before it started to deteriorate. My only real change is adding Mosura products and removing C02 for the last 3 days. I have reinstalled the C02 during my lunch today...Hopefully it's nothing too serious. My nitrate has been been 0 lately but i've added a much more frequent feeding regime for the last two weeks. I've read of people feeding their shrimps everyday though...


Do you have any mineral rock? I found that it did a good job at equalizing the mineral content in the water, whatever I missed when re-mineralizing.


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## manmadecorals (Jan 17, 2012)

i do...although they have gotten smaller then originally. When should i add more...is too much mineral rock bad?


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## Symplicity (Oct 14, 2011)

Just test your gH. Adding treated tap water works great too


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## splur (May 11, 2011)

manhtu said:


> i do...although they have gotten smaller then originally. When should i add more...is too much mineral rock bad?


Basically when it's pretty much gone. Depends how big your tank is though.


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## MananaP (Jul 6, 2012)

I always match the GH of my water to the GH of my tank when doing water change, i usually don't have the patience and time to slow drip so i just dump a whole bucket of water back into the tank with no ill effects. I have done this for many years of shrimp keeping.


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