Good or Bad?

Outch !... If these readings are precise enough, You have liquid rock.

Try to have your LFS do these tests for you with liquid test.

If my eyes / monitor / brain, works good enough, You have a GH of over 300 ppm, KH around 180 and more, with a PH over 8.4...

"Very hard" in both sense, these levels push the limit for most of them. Maybe Sulawesi Shrimp could make it. If you turn your tank to brackish water.

Can you do this same test on your source water that has sit for a day, when you can. I want to be sure if your source matches and nothing is hardening your water in the tank.

But for the moment it will be difficult to have even the toughest freshwater shrimps on the planet.

MaloK said:

Outch !... If these readings are precise enough, You have liquid rock.

Try to have your LFS do these tests for you with liquid test.

If my eyes / monitor / brain, works good enough, You have a GH of over 300 ppm, KH around 180 and more, with a PH over 8.4...

"Very hard" in both sense, these levels push the limit for most of them. Maybe Sulawesi Shrimp could make it. If you turn your tank to brackish water.

Can you do this same test on your source water that has sit for a day, when you can. I want to be sure if your source matches and nothing is hardening your water in the tank.

But for the moment it will be difficult to have even the toughest freshwater shrimps on the planet.

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Liquid rock sounds 100% accurate, given the parameters the city provides. But yes, I do believe you are reading those correct. While the GH seems to sit right at 300, the KH is between over 180 and under 300, while the pH is...at this point, I don't even know exactly what it is.
I don't believe any of the stores in my area use a liquid tester (the LFS I got the shrimp from might, so I can ask this weekend), but I can see if I can get straight tap water to test when I get my tank water tested. Given that (as of the week before last) all my tanks had similar readings of KH, GH, and pH, I'm going to guess it's the tap water itself.
Regarding softening the water, I do have homemade blackwater extract that I can add, although it may stain the water. While I've always heard that Neocaridina were better suited to more alkaline water (although most sources say a neutral to slightly higher, not extremely alkaline), I can definitely look into Sulawesi Shrimp (I feel like I've read about those before...Cardinal Shrimp?). Who knows—while it is a 2.5 gal, maybe I could try some smaller brackish livestock!

For reference, here's what the city website says:

Hard is the word. 350 ok it can pass, but 550... Is too much.

Don't bother cross checking it, your own test corroborates your supplier. try to get a hand on the parameters in your LFS shrimp tank so you have a good comparative.

Since you have a very small tank and cherry shrimps does not need massive water changes. You could get away with diluting you liquid rock with deminarilzed water. 1/3 tap 2/3 deminarilzed and test that.

Anything over 180 is killing them for me here. 100 being the sweet spot.

My tap water is too hard for my neocaridina. I buy 4 gallons of spring water at a local market for $3.49 for all 4 gallons. The Gh is 150 ppm. I do a 1 gallon weekly water change in my 5 gallon shrimp tank. That’s a month’s worth of safety for a cheap price.

gwand said:

My tap water is too hard for my neocaridina. I buy 4 gallons of spring water at a local market for $3.49 for all 4 gallons. The Gh is 150 ppm. I do a 1 gallon weekly water change in my 5 gallon shrimp tank. That’s a month’s worth of safety for a cheap price.

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I wonder how my supplier is doing it...maybe they're using RO water? Either way, I want to find out how they're thriving over there

Just got the results back for my tank—luckily nitrates and nitrites didn't spike (phew!), but alkalinity and pH was, to quote the associate who tested my water, "off the charts." In other words, exact same readings. I'm going to try doing my future water changes with RO water, as clearly blackwater extract, cholla wood, and oak leaves are doing very little to lower the pH. I may try peat if need be, but I've heard that it's non-renewable (and therefore not the best choice).

Side note: @MaloK Dang it, you suggesting Sulawesi Shrimp led me on a deep dive, leading me to a biotope-specific species of shell-dwelling goby...

How much salt does it need, how big these goby grows ???

Just kidding, These shrimps are very "specific" on water parameters. Requires very high PH, low conductivity and absolute stability. They are rated on the "difficult" level by seasoned aquarist.

Re-minarilized RO water... And Cherry Shrimps...

MaloK said:

How much salt does it need, how big these goby grows ???

Just kidding, These shrimps are very "specific" on water parameters. Requires very high PH, low conductivity and absolute stability. They are rated on the "difficult" level by seasoned aquarist.

Re-minarilized RO water... And Cherry Shrimps...

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Just curious—out of experience, are there any good alternatives to re-mineralize water for shrimp without the commercial liquids? I've seen the bottles of "shrimp essential minerals," but was curious if it was actually needed or simply a cheap way to make money off people's ignorance (for example, bacteria starters or "betta-specific" water conditioners).

The best economical way to re-mineralize, is to use your hard water that you already have... and cut it with RO. It has a very good chance to have the good proportions of calcium and magnesium but too concentrated.

Beyond this point, if all goes well... don't look back.

If you want to remineralize for neocaridina, you could probably go 2 parts RO and 1 part tap water, then do a water test. Neocaridina have pretty forgiving parameters, so this mixture should probably be safely within their zone. However, for caridina or sulawesi shrimp you pretty much need to buy the powders or additives because it's a pain to raise gh without raising kh etc.

I agree that your tap water does come out really hard, although Neos can usually adapt to amazingly hard water - IF acclimated slowly enough. I have tried to read the whole thread and you don't seem to have taken on board the fact that you killed your shrimp by your method of introduction. Your description makes it sound much too quick. Shrimp are completley different to fish in this way. They cannot adapt to sudden osmotic or hardness changes at all. For safety, you need to take at least 2 hours to dilute to at least 4 x the volume of bag water before release into a tank. Ideally use a TDS pen to dilute until the bag TDS is within around 10ppm of the tank TDS.

hamfistUK said:

I agree that your tap water does come out really hard, although Neos can usually adapt to amazingly hard water - IF acclimated slowly enough. I have tried to read the whole thread and you don't seem to have taken on board the fact that you killed your shrimp by your method of introduction. Your description makes it sound much too quick. Shrimp are completley different to fish in this way. They cannot adapt to sudden osmotic or hardness changes at all. For safety, you need to take at least 2 hours to dilute to at least 4 x the volume of bag water before release into a tank. Ideally use a TDS pen to dilute until the bag TDS is within around 10ppm of the tank TDS.

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I agree with you on that—I definitely didn't drip acclimate, and I more than need to do that next time. While I thought I did it over a long enough time (30 minutes), that is absolutely miniscule compared to the 2+ hours you're suggesting.
It took me by surprise that they all passed three days after adding them, especially when they seemed to be doing so well (feeding). That being said, I understand that animals will generally hide any ailments for as long as possible. I just thought it was weird that they seemingly dropped dead simultaneously.
However, I've never heard of a TDS pen...I'm going off to look that up now!

MaloK said:

The best economical way to re-mineralize, is to use your hard water that you already have... and cut it with RO. It has a very good chance to have the good proportions of calcium and magnesium but too concentrated.

Beyond this point, if all goes well... don't look back.

Click to expand...

That sounds about right—the calcium build-up is 100% a thing, so I can check that off the list. I am curious though...above, @gwand mentioned that they use spring water. I know there's a difference between spring, RO, and distilled water (can't remember specifics at the moment), but would they all work for the same purpose of diluting my water?

Some Spring water will have a higher mineral content than Ro/distilled water. Check the label for mineral content.

if you use Demineralized / Ro / Distilled water, it will take less to cut back your Tap water to a good level.