Very Very Confused With Crs Conditions!

[craftycarper52]

i have read from many sources that crs should be kept in soft acidic water but then i keep seeing all these products for shrimp that raise the gh and add calcium etc??? so which is right? sof water or hard? my tap water is like concrete but i often use ro for my plecs so i have the option of either

 

[three-fingers]

They are adaptable, but I remember reading somewhere that the recommendation for acidic water it has to do with how ammonia is mainly in the form of non-toxic ammonium when the water is acidic.
That combined with that fact that some people seem to recommend keeping them (or at least used to) in tanks with no filters, so that lots of detritus could build up for them to feed on and so baby shrimp wouldn't get sucked in (no idea why they wouldn't just use sponge filters, or put a prefiler over a power filter.

I would personally go half tap and half RO water and skip adding anything else that messes around with water chemistry, just make sure the tank has a mature filter, and some plants, wood, leaves...that sort of thing so the shrimp have something to pick at.

 

[craftycarper52]

thats what i thought, just go with 50/50. thanks for the info

 

[Liam]

I am pretty sure about this but it is hard to get accurate information. Its the GH that is important to the CRS, they don't do so well if the water is too soft, a KH of about 2 and a gh of about 4 seems to work for me. A TDS of about 150 is good, if the water doesn't have enough GH the white parts of shrimp turn a sort of rusty colour and the survival rate of the babies is poor, at one point I had the water too soft trying to keep the pH low and the cherry shrimp in that tank stopped breeding though the CRS still did. I think all the additives for them have to do with raising the GH i.e. adding calcium without raising KH and therefore pH. I do think keeping the ph below seven is useful for them, any ammonia is lethal to them and its less toxic with lower ph. Even removing too many plants at one time and a few bodies will be found in the following few days. They are adaptable up to a point, I have hard London water I have tried keeping them in it a few times and though they will live and sometimes breed the colony never lasted more than six months. Depends on your tap water whether 50/50 ro/tap would work best.