# TDS Skyrocketed - Safe TDS Increase/Decrease?



## Symplicity (Oct 14, 2011)

Hey All,

After months of delaying I had finally fixed my APA Pre-filter and decided to re-attach it into the CRS Tank.

I added a full liter of new biomedia (DeNitrate, Purigen, and Fluval BioMax, and some existing biomedia to help seed)

After a trip to home depot with the correct tube sizes, O-rings and clamps the prefilter was back in business. 

Anyways. I got around to testing the water that night and found my TDS had literally jumped from ~145 TDS to ~168 TDS! I havent seen any deaths per say, but I am on the lookout for my BKK and higher grade shrimp. Hopefully they are fine.

Wondering what caused the jump? I did rinse the biomedia. Not sure what would cause the spike in TDS from re-introducing a pre-filter.....

AND what is a safe TDS swing? Lets say I want to introduce 100 TDS water in my water changes to aim for a TDS of 100. How many days would be safe to lower TDS by 1/2ish.


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## getochkn (Jul 10, 2011)

23 is not a skyrocket. lol. As for obsessing over trying to hit a 100TDS, if it's 150 and they're happy, they're happy. If it's 120 or 290 and they're happy, they're happy. Constantly messing and changing water and params messes shrimp up more than stability. There is no magic number that fits all. If your shrimp are breeding and you're getting babies to live, keep it at whatever it's at, regardless of what some website says your numbers should be at.


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## Symplicity (Oct 14, 2011)

I agree.

For a year its been around 150. I try my best to keep it stable. I now want to start bumping it down to 100 because I use alot less products to boost my RO.

My tap water is pretty much toxic (to shrimp) and hard (w/ lots of iron) so I do not want to start adding tap and Prime to RO.

Ugh i hate living in the middle of nowhere.


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## aaronc (Jul 24, 2008)

Symplicity said:


> Ugh i hate living in the middle of nowhere.


I know how you feel.lol.

Don't worry too much just keep the parameters stable and if they do change, change them gradually you'll never have a problem.


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