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TDS going down


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My water has a TDS right around 225. My TDS in the tank seems to be dropping roughly 5 a week so far. Down to about 190 when I tested last night. It is a planted tank. Dirted, capped with bdbs. Water is fairly hard gh11 kh12, ph 7.6 and ammonia, nitrites and nitrate all zero. I am wondering if the plants are using the bicarbonate in the water and lowering the TDS this way maybe? Anyone else have a TDS drop or know reasons this could happen?

 

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I *think* we have the same outcome albeit happening two different ways. Your substrate could be pulling any minerals from the low KH (0-1 from reading your other posts) you have out of the water and lowering the TDS. I have a corkscrew val growing and this along with some other plants could be using the KH from the water as I have no/low nitrates for them to feed on. I tested the water last night and now the TDS has risen to 195. Guessing some ammonia/nitrite/nitrates became available and the plants stopped sucking up the KH. In theory (if correct) in your tank the TDS drop should stop since the KH was very low anyways. If so it may happen when doing water changes as you will be adding some of those minerals again with the remineralized water but with even less of a drop.

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4 hours ago, JLui83 said:

I just checked my tank.....

 

all parameters are good except my tds. When I add the salty shrimp gh. My tds is at 150. My tds now is around 140.

 

im curious to see why the tds is going down as well. Figured it would go up.

 

 

 

I am also using Salty Shrimp GH+, water changes are always done using 130 TDS remineralized RO/DI, tank drops about 1 tds a day. The only way my tds doesn't drop is if I don't top off evaporation. I am however using active carbon in my canister filter, the canister I bought came with some and I used it since day 1, so far shrimp are breeding and super active so I never stopped using it. 

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Since I've added my shrimp, I haven't done any water changes. Just top off with RODI water not remineralized. Figured there's no need to do any water change since my nitrates are really low, and zero ammonia and zero nitrites.

 

just letting the tank run. Still haven't had any berried females yet though. Lots of molts but none berried.

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I use distilled currently but same thing pretty much as RO. Both should be 0 TDS water. Evap should make TDS go up in the tank as only water is leaving and minerals are staying. A top off should actually be diluting and lowering TDS. Ddd_sss what are you using for substrate? Also do you ever swap old carbon out for new? JLui I think those shrimp do not breed as often as neos. Once they get all settled though they will probably start bumping exos. I will be keeping up with your journal as I intend to keep CBS and want to see how long these things roughly take.

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5 hours ago, Undershrimp said:

I use distilled currently but same thing pretty much as RO. Both should be 0 TDS water. Evap should make TDS go up in the tank as only water is leaving and minerals are staying. A top off should actually be diluting and lowering TDS. Ddd_sss what are you using for substrate? Also do you ever swap old carbon out for new? JLui I think those shrimp do not breed as often as neos. Once they get all settled though they will probably start bumping exos. I will be keeping up with your journal as I intend to keep CBS and want to see how long these things roughly take.

I am using fluval shrimp stratum, and yes I changed the carbon after 1 month. I've only had this tank for 2 months...I got my first batch of babies last week and currently have 5 more berried females..I do weekly 10% water changes to replenish the TDS drop. So far my shrimp are super active, breeding, feeding, so I'm not too worried about the TDS fluctuations. I am just doing my best to keep conditions relatively stable! :)

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1 hour ago, Undershrimp said:

Your experiences are helping me out here so I just want to thank you both for the information. I am probably going to be using the shrimp stratum when I setup my CBS tank and now I can have an idea what to expect using the same products.

No worries! Always glad to help!

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Whats the degree of error on your tds meter?  

That is a good question, I will have to take a look. I double check it in distilled and that always comes up zero. Figure if off there I can add or subtract the number off it is from the TDS of the water in question. Pretty sure its not the meter though. I have a tank right next to the tank with the drop, it has a TDS of 250 and everything is the same except no val, hairgrass and pygmy chain sword. It's mostly stems in that one. As it turns out hornwort, swords (a bunch of pygmy chain and micro swords in this tank) and others will use bicarbonate as well. When there is nothing else to feed on, they will use bicarbonate ions as a source of carbon. Removing something my meter reads and turning it into something my meter cannot read, oxygen. I am going to give removing floaters a shot to give the plants some more nutrition as I am wary of using liquid carbon. Thinking back, the day my TDS rose was the day after I thinned out my floaters.
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Checked it out and variance is +/- 2% so being off by 5 wouldn't be a stretch. I would expect to see the variance when testing the distilled water though. I checked today as all my floaters have multiplied like crazy as usual and it is back down to 190. I removed about 99% of them and will check it out tomorrow. I really just want to keep things stable for the wee shrimpy and the fluctuations worry me. I have to admit, I wish I hadn't planted these tanks and just went moss only.

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4 hours ago, Undershrimp said:

Would you recommend dosing trace minerals or topping off with regular/remin water to achieve desired TDS? Or using a product like TDS up?

I achieve desired tds once a week when I do my water change. I siphon out some old water and slowly drip slightly higher TDS remin/RO water.

I've read in a few places that shrimp are not THAT sensitive to slight fluctuations in their environment as long as it is gradual, as in nature when it rains tds will drop and when it doesn't tds will rise etc. Unless you're having issues with your shrimp I wouldn't worry too much. :)

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If the shrimp are fine I wouldn't worry about it. People keep neos at 600+ and they still do just fine. In my case I was more worried about fluctuations. TDS can be a bit misleading as it could be great stuff already in the water or it could be a buildup of horrible stuff. If you said your water was 150 last week and now its 450 then I would be worried. If it was horrible your shrimp probably wouldn't seem so fine. I conclude it must be good then!

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If the shrimp are fine I wouldn't worry about it. People keep neos at 600+ and they still do just fine. In my case I was more worried about fluctuations. TDS can be a bit misleading as it could be great stuff already in the water or it could be a buildup of horrible stuff. If you said your water was 150 last week and now its 450 then I would be worried. If it was horrible your shrimp probably wouldn't seem so fine. I conclude it must be good then!


The copepods in the tank are thriving, so it's probably not an issue. Thanks for the help :)


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The copepods in the tank are thriving, so it's probably not an issue. Thanks for the help [emoji4]


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Glad to be of assistance. We all help each other [emoji1] just look at how others are helping me in this and other threads. I'm still a noob round these parts, shrimp parts that is. Just have too much time on my hands and read a lot. Fyi I read on one of these old posts that the copepods are good protein for the shrimp when they die too. I think it was Soothing Shrimp that said that if I remember correctly.
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On 4/23/2017 at 8:15 PM, Undershrimp said:

Would you recommend dosing trace minerals or topping off with regular/remin water to achieve desired TDS? Or using a product like TDS up?

Calcium is something most shrimp need, a bit of aragonite or coral sand, like a teaspoon per 5 gallons would slowly and safely keep the KH and GH up. I'd only add small amounts of extra powder mineralization, better for TDS stablity, and always check the water after each change and remineralization.

 

All I can add is that I've just recently been adding CaSo4 to all of my Shrimp and Planted tanks, in addition to some Epsom salts and Potassium Sulfate for the plants. and things have stabilized for the better in the planted 20 gallon tank.   Better growth in the plants, and I seem to have fixed some long standing algae and deficiency issues.  The shrimp have been having better baby survival numbers.  But my levels of TDS are small since I'm keeping Crystal shrimp and soft water fish.

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The water I use is fairly hard for neos. GH11 and KH12 and has good mineral content though my TDS is lower. Just another way TDS can be misleading lol. It is very pure but not purified, aquifer water from MN. Costly ($1.29/gallon) but worth it for the shrimp until I get that RO system, if I decide to go remin water on the neo tanks. I may just stick with this water because it is so good. I will definitely look into the CaSo4, Epsom salts and Potassium Sulfate though as they may prove useful in the future. Thank you for being so helpful LesterBee!

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2 minutes ago, Undershrimp said:

The water I use is fairly hard for neos. GH11 and KH12 and has good mineral content though my TDS is lower. Just another way TDS can be misleading lol. It is very pure but not purified, aquifer water from MN. Costly ($1.29/gallon) but worth it for the shrimp until I get that RO system, if I decide to go remin water on the neo tanks. I may just stick with this water because it is so good. I will definitely look into the CaSo4, Epsom salts and Potassium Sulfate though as they may prove useful in the future. Thank you for being so helpful LesterBee!

 The 11 GH/12 KH water is from Minnesota? Oh you live in MN.. duh..

 

  Do you know if I can buy some here in Oregon?  

 

  If it's doing well right now, I'd be loathe to mess with anything. If I were you replenish with your bottled water thinned with RO for now.   My problem is our water is almost rain water, it's about GH of 1.5~2 and a unreadable amount of KH, and is about 30~45 TDS out of the tap.  I need to have some mineralization just to have healthy plants and shrimp.

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 The 11 GH/12 KH water is from Minnesota? Oh you live in MN.. duh..
 
  Do you know if I can buy some here in Oregon?  
 
  If it's doing well right now, I'd be loathe to mess with anything. If I were you replenish with your bottled water thinned with RO for now.   My problem is our water is almost rain water, it's about GH of 1.5~2 and a unreadable amount of KH, and is about 30~45 TDS out of the tap.  I need to have some mineralization just to have healthy plants and shrimp.

The water is called buhl water, "finest water in America." I would doubt they sell it there because there are good mountain springs in Oregon. Try locating a natural spring nearby and you might be able to get great water for free. Otherwise companies like mount mazama will deliver a six month supply in 5 gallon carboys if you live in their delivery zone. Check cheap local spring water in gallon jugs or carboys at local supermarkets as well. Lookup their water quality reports (very detailed) from the bottlers website online or email them for it. This usually tells you how they process it, if needed. I use spring water from Wisconsin which is fairly soft for my cory tank as well. The tap water in this part of the city is basically softened so unusable unless I get a RO system. Best thing about pure good water is you don't even have to treat it and people that work at the companies are usually very willing to answer questions. If the bottle does not say if they add chlorine or chloramines then definitely ask them. Some companies use it at the end if the process to be safe. There should be some good options in your area. [emoji3]
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