Help...Starting caridina tank

[Rajabatak]

Hi everyone,
I've 75 litre tank, and I want to keep caridina shrimps. I've done my research from youtube and decided to use akadama Ibaraki 2red line soil. The firs time I put the soil, and put the water and seachem prime to the tank, and leave it for two days.. the pH is 6,3 that day, tds 40. The third day, I started my sponge filter to make the water flow and added again seachem prime.. but what make my heart suddenly stop, after half hour I use my tetra test for pH and it was reading 7,0.. what the hell happening?? Can some one give me idea about it? Should I leave it there, and wc for day 7? Or should I change my soil? Today I tested my pH again (day 4) and it's 7,5.. I've put nothing on the tank, only soil and sponge filter

 

[Autumnsky]

Hello, I am not personally familiar with this soil, although I have heard of it being used.

I just read a little about it, the information mentions to change the water every few days for the first week and then cycle for 6 weeks.

Also mentions that it does not release ammonia, and will extract cations from the water within the few days and weeks, read from shrimpcity.co.za As General Hardness is made up of Ca Mg, and K, result in the GH of the tank being reduced during this time TDS will drop in time. Doing water changes as necessary.

Look this up and read how it functions and become more familiar so you will have confidence in what you are using and how it works.

It is a produced as a bonsai soil and is not directly a shrimp substrate. This is also somewhat confusing but works according to some popular keepers and one seems to be Marks Shrimp, probably where I heard of it in seeing a video.

It is hard to keep all these new things straight!!!

So it seems though at this point to do a couple water changes every few days.

What is your water source?

If you take a cup of your water -edit: forgot to finish that thought, as I read what the substrate was.

If you let your water from your water source sit for 2 days what is the pH, TDS?

 

[Rajabatak]

Hi autumn,
I'm using RO water, the pH 6,3 and tds is 40.. yes I've watched markshrimp on youtube, but he didn't say anything about the pH will raising...

 

[Autumnsky]

What are you adding to the RO water?

Which type of Caridina shrimp are you wanting to keep in the tank when it is cycled?

One thing many people fail to mention is that a matured tank is better for shrimp keeping, which means after the cycle period and the tank is safe for fish, it really should be lived in by a group of fish for a period of time to allow the biofilm and micro organisms, aufwuchs to grow. On the substrate and DW, stones.

This allows a better environment for the shrimp to thrive. You can cheat on this extra time by using stones, DW and plants which all have been around for months, and months, moved from another tank.

In my guestimate the time during cycling is not ideal for these to develop enough because of the dangerous unsafe levels (like dosing ammonia) throughout the cycling process. My opinion - I think the stable time allows this to develop more solidly and gives the shrimp a necessary environment to allow them to eat all day long as they pick constantly everywhere in the tank.

This is not the case with new glass tank, new substrate, a new DW, new rocks, and newly ordered plants which could have been pest dipped killing off any good things as well as bad.

People seem to do this though and shrimp stay alive. My shrimp perspective.

 

[Rajabatak]

Hi autumns,
Thx for the reply, yes I think the best for shrimp is to let the tank mature.. and I'm not in the hurry because I think better to have it slow rather than fast but the result is bad for the shrimp.. that's why I really surprised why in the day three the pH is rising?? I put "seachem stability" in the tank, and not put any mineral yet... Oh and I'm planning to keep PRL.. because it's expensive I'm not in the rush to put it in the tank, any suggestion about the pH raising? Should I water change it? Today the pH is still above 7-7,5 I think... Really make me confused...

 

[Autumnsky]

It seems after a few pwc's then it just evens out and then the substrate begins to reduce pH.

I would do a pwc, then 2-3 days another pwc. Then watch as the time rolls on, monitoring the pH - and parameters periodically. I always like to watch if the substrate actually does what the company / others suggest, as in not producing ammonia, like Amazonia.

Right now I have a small group of PRL with new little babies, 3 so far as I can see!
https://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f129/prl-2020-autumnsky-starting-over-372085.html