Do you top up your tank with tap water ? Do you get a fair bit of evaporation ? If you always top up with tap water, you will raise the
TDS readings, especially since your tap water is quite high to start with.
Doing water changes is different, because you first remove water, then replace it, where with a top up, you are simply adding more. Evaporation concentrates anything that is in the water.
You might try using some distilled or
RO water, which ought to be available at grocery stores also. Both should read zero or very close to zero in terms of
TDS, so if you use these for small top ups, you won't be adding any more solids to the tank. But be careful,
DI and
RO water will have very different pH, zero
KH and zero
GH too, so you can't use them for large top ups or water changes.
You could, however, use them to dilute the tap water, which would reduce the
TDS readings. You'd have to test
KH,
GH and pH, to ensure the ratio of neutral water to tap water doesn't change these readings too drastically.
Cherry shrimps and most of the colour variants of Neos are usually quite tolerant of most tap water. Cherries more so than any, where Crystal shrimps need fairly acidic, soft water. Many keepers of crystal shrimps use special shrimp substrates that take quite a long time to cycle, as they leach ammonia for some time after they are placed in a tank. But they keep the pH quite low, below 5, and also soften the water. Many also use
RO or
DI water, and remineralize it with a product designed for this purpose. Salty Shrimp is one I see mentioned quite often.
Using neutral water and a remineralizing product allows you to customize the water to suit Crystal or Bee shrimp, and then, much like salt water tank keepers do, you mix up water for changes a day or two ahead of time, to make sure it is completely dissolved and mixed before it goes in the tank.
Edit. far as I know, those filter rings are a neutral ceramic that has no effect on water parameters at all.
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