# Help needed: Crystals dying rapedly TDS went up unexpected



## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Hi Guys

I'm having fun with my tanks lately. First my fish tank with corries dieing and now my shrimp tank. My TDS unexpectedly and rapidly went up from 250 to over 300 in few days. I'm using RO water in that tank. It is 10GL tank that has mix of cherries and Crystal reds. Crystals just had babies and now all dying because TDS went up. All the parameters good, no ammonia or NO2 or NO3, ph is 65-7. Walter changes 10% every 2 weeks. Using little of bee shrimp minerals to give to shrimps for RO water. The only think is 2 weeks ago I discovered planaria and used N0-Planaria from Shrimp fever. Which I used successfully before. I do not think it could trigger TDS increase. Any advice is appreciated.


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## creature55 (Apr 3, 2014)

Slowly lower your TDS down to below 200 by doing several small-ish water changes. I have no problems changing 25-30% at a time. When you put new water in, make sure the TDS of the new water is no more than 30 less than where the tank is sitting at. So if you are at 250, then add water that is at 220 for the first change, etc. I keep my crystals anywhere from 150-180. Cherries tolerate much higher TDS than crystals.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

emathieu55 said:


> Slowly lower your TDS down to below 200 by doing several small-ish water changes. I have no problems changing 25-30% at a time. When you put new water in, make sure the TDS of the new water is no more than 30 less than where the tank is sitting at. So if you are at 250, then add water that is at 220 for the first change, etc. I keep my crystals anywhere from 150-180. Cherries tolerate much higher TDS than crystals.


Thank you. My TDS right now is 300. I usually add water with TDS 120-150 to keep it 250. Should I just change 25% and only put TDS of new water to 50% of those 25% ?


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## creature55 (Apr 3, 2014)

Sorry, I don't understand what you're asking. You should be aiming for under 200. So do some larger water changes (25% each...you may need a few of these) until you get down to under 200. Be careful of adding water with a drastically lower TDS than what is already in the tank. Maybe try adding TDS 200 water in your first few changes, then you can start adding water that is 150. The idea is not to change the TDS too drastically, too quickly.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

emathieu55 said:


> Sorry, I don't understand what you're asking. You should be aiming for under 200. So do some larger water changes (25% each...you may need a few of these) until you get down to under 200. Be careful of adding water with a drastically lower TDS than what is already in the tank. Maybe try adding TDS 200 water in your first few changes, then you can start adding water that is 150. The idea is not to change the TDS too drastically, too quickly.


Thank you for explanation. My problem is that something in the tank triggering TDS. I did not do any water changes for two weeks and my TDS went up from 250 to 320 at the moment as still rising. All crystals are dead and now some cherries dieing. Also when I original switched to RO water from tab I could never drop it below 250. And my RO water was never higher than 150.
So I don;t realy know what to do. Even if I add RO water with 200 right now it will be big change from 320 to 200 ?


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## Atom (Sep 17, 2014)

Could it be your substrate? Got any rocks or other decorations in your tank?


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Atom said:


> Could it be your substrate? Got any rocks or other decorations in your tank?


Heavily planted with little peace of Malayan wood and glass Perl. That about it. Also have assassin snails in it. And internal (inside tank) digital plastic thermometer and seachem Ammonia and PH indicators. Regular (blue gravel) and heater and AC20 filter with prefilter spangle. And last thing is cleaning magnet that always in that tank


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## creature55 (Apr 3, 2014)

I'm sorry to hear about your crystals! What is the source of your RO? TDS of RO should be less than 10 before adding mineral to bring up to around 150. That's very strange that your TDS went up so much without any additives. Do you have a lot of evaporation in the tank? Even then, that's a big jump.

Since all your crystals are dead (unfortunately) you don't have to be quite as careful with lowering TDS since cherries will tolerate the change much better. Do you plan to get crystals again? If not, then I would recommend just using tap water for cherries. I find they do very well in the GTA tap water. You can start doing 25% water changes with tap now that the crystals are gone.

The other strange thing is that your cherries shouldn't be dying at that TDS. I know people who have cherries in TDS 500! How much are you feeding? Do you have any kids who could be feeding when you aren't watching? Seems like something is definitely going in the tank without you know it!


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

emathieu55 said:


> I'm sorry to hear about your crystals! What is the source of your RO? TDS of RO should be less than 10 before adding mineral to bring up to around 150. That's very strange that your TDS went up so much without any additives. Do you have a lot of evaporation in the tank? Even then, that's a big jump.
> 
> Since all your crystals are dead (unfortunately) you don't have to be quite as careful with lowering TDS since cherries will tolerate the change much better. Do you plan to get crystals again? If not, then I would recommend just using tap water for cherries. I find they do very well in the GTA tap water. You can start doing 25% water changes with tap now that the crystals are gone.
> 
> The other strange thing is that your cherries shouldn't be dying at that TDS. I know people who have cherries in TDS 500! How much are you feeding? Do you have any kids who could be feeding when you aren't watching? Seems like something is definitely going in the tank without you know it!


Yes I have good evaporation there. Also I'm planning to add Crystals back after I stabilize the tank. This is why I use RO water from Big Al. My RO before adding minerals is TDS 10 or so. And I have kids but tank is closed and they know not to touch it. May be overfeeding as I feed 5 different foods each food each day (not mix of all 5 in one day). I usually give one large tab or 3 mini tabs of then a day It is something like alergy waffols or so most from Japan. Also I give once a week a special Biozime microgranizm for baby shrimps. I'm guessing if I got planaria in that tank I was overfeeding.


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## creature55 (Apr 3, 2014)

Having a lot of evaporation will increase your TDS (unless you are topping up with straight RO water). I suggest having a lid on the tank to reduce evaporation. 

Yep, definitely feeing too much! Everyone will give you different suggestions, but I personally feed my shrimp a VERY small amount every second or third day. I rotate through a few different types of food and only feed one kind each day that I feed them. So cut back majorly on the feeding! I would be very surprised if you don't have nitrate problems or even ammonia if your tank isn't well cycled (I'm not sure how old it is).

Have you started the water changes?


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

emathieu55 said:


> Having a lot of evaporation will increase your TDS (unless you are topping up with straight RO water). I suggest having a lid on the tank to reduce evaporation.
> 
> Yep, definitely feeing too much! Everyone will give you different suggestions, but I personally feed my shrimp a VERY small amount every second or third day. I rotate through a few different types of food and only feed one kind each day that I feed them. So cut back majorly on the feeding! I would be very surprised if you don't have nitrate problems or even ammonia if your tank isn't well cycled (I'm not sure how old it is).
> 
> Have you started the water changes?


I have a lid on top of the tank with 2 cfl lamps that are on for 6hrs a day for plant growth purposes. This is small 10Gl tank with scru in CFLs. And add plain RO water all the time. Probably overfeeding, you are right. Going to feed them less and not every day. Just done my first 25% water change and dropped TDS 265 and it is stable at that number now. While changing water discovered 3-4 remaining CRS. Next change next week as I and Big Al both run out of RO water and they getting theirs in the middle of the week.


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## creature55 (Apr 3, 2014)

You can also use Culligan water from Walmart. Not sure where you are, but Shrimp Fever in Scarborough also sells RO.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

emathieu55 said:


> You can also use Culligan water from Walmart. Not sure where you are, but Shrimp Fever in Scarborough also sells RO.


I'm near Big Al in North York / Thornhill. I have Wal-Mart near me. And I know shrimp fever very well because all my shrimp food, minerals and medication from them. I go there once a month. I'll wait on Big Al as they will have RO this week and I'm not planning to do water change until the weekend unless something Jurassic will happen again.


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