Blue Ram Posted March 9, 2012 Report Share Posted March 9, 2012 About 5 weeks ago I moved my large colony of crystal red shrimp into a new tank. Used the sponge filter that had been running on their previous tank and I had zero levels of ammonia and nitrites. I use 100% aged tap water in their tank. Over the past several weeks I have lost some shrimp every day - I've probably lost 30 shrimp (mostly all adults). I've been doing water changes for the past 10 days and monitoring with tests. The only thing out of wack is the TDS. My meter has read readings as high as 800 in this tank and after a 50% water change, down to less than 400 but it quite quickly climbs back up to 700. This evening I had a reading of 749. I know the meter is reading correctly because I have tested all my other tanks many times to get a reference reading. Most of my tanks are under 200 after a water change except for the tanks that I use RO water and they are around 100-130. I have been introducing some RO water into the tank to try to reduce the TDS reading. The PH is also high at 8. Tested my tap water - ph of 7.8 and TDS of 197. My RO water is TDS of less than 5 and ph of 7.6. The only thing I can think of is something in the tank is causing these high readings and hence the death of the shrimp. The tank has some stem plants still in their pots from the store, well aged driftwood, bamboo shrimp caves and some rock. All of this came from the tank they were in previously which had been running for well over 2 yrs. I have been breeding these shrimp for over 3 years and have never suffered losses like this. The substrate in the tank is several years old. It was a shrimp substrate I brought home from Singapore. Anyone have any ideas what might be causing the high TDS and ph readings? I'm considering moving them all to a sterile 10 gallon with the sponge filter and completely gutting the current tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eugene Posted March 9, 2012 Report Share Posted March 9, 2012 Could there be some ferts in plant pots? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvision Posted March 9, 2012 Report Share Posted March 9, 2012 It sounds like something is dissolving in the tank. Is there a chance that there are dead snails and their shells are dissolving? Sodium bicarbonate buffers around pH of 8, could that be getting into the tank? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckmullin Posted March 9, 2012 Report Share Posted March 9, 2012 (edited) For Calgary at these times of the year...salt runoff from the roads is higher than normal. Run offs of various things could be the problem...you yourself said 100% aged tap. I'm going to start a CRS colony as well...I'm waiting for that RO and will start only at that point. Since I don't like chemicals I'm going to use peat water to lower the ph...perhaps give that a try regarding the higher ph of 8. Care to sell any CRS! Edited March 9, 2012 by ckmullin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fisher Posted March 9, 2012 Report Share Posted March 9, 2012 (edited) The only thing I can think of is something in the tank is causing these high readings. The substrate in the tank is several years old. It was a shrimp substrate I brought home from Singapore. I'm wondering about your substrate. What kind of substrate is shrimp substrate? Is it from your previous tank? If so, maybe it was deteriorating in the lower strata... pouring it over to a new tank, is now exposed to water and dissolving. Just a guess. Edit: Were you using a product like aquasoil? Edited March 9, 2012 by Fisher Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geleen Posted March 9, 2012 Report Share Posted March 9, 2012 The only thing I can think of is something in the tank is causing these high readings. The substrate in the tank is several years old. It was a shrimp substrate I brought home from Singapore. I'm wondering about your substrate. What kind of substrate is shrimp substrate? Is it from your previous tank? If so, maybe it was deteriorating in the lower strata... pouring it over to a new tank, is now exposed to water and dissolving. Just a guess. Edit: Were you using a product like aquasoil? I tend to agree. the substrate may be leeching stuff Why don't you remove a bit put it into RO water then check TDS every 4 hours or so John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Ram Posted March 9, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 9, 2012 I'm thinking more and more it is the substrate. If it was Calgary tap water, I would see the high TDS in all of my tanks. As I said, my tap water sitting in my barrel for aging has a TDS reading of 197. This morning the TDS in the shrimp tank was 549 after doing a 25% change last night using 50/50 aged tap water and RO. I'm going to start removing the substrate tonight. The only other thing that the tank developed was a layer of quite thick brown algae on the back wall. Other 3 sides of glass are clean. Would this cause high TDS readings? Thanks everyone for your thoughts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jayba Posted March 10, 2012 Report Share Posted March 10, 2012 If you think about it, there are 3 things that are large enough in volume to change the the TDS that much. The water itself that you have ruled out. The substrate or the tank itself. So unless the the tank was made with some weird chinese based lead silicone. I would think substrate as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fisher Posted March 10, 2012 Report Share Posted March 10, 2012 (edited) The only other thing that the tank developed was a layer of quite thick brown algae on the back wall. Other 3 sides of glass are clean. Would this cause high TDS readings? TDS is positively correlated to brown algae (diatom), but it's not always causal. TDS does influence ph. So it'd be wise to locate the cause of your TDS swing. Discover and treat the cause and you eliminate its symptoms. Why don't you remove a bit put it into RO water then check TDS every 4 hours or so Brilliant! A great way to isolate and evaluate your substrate! edit: sp Edited March 10, 2012 by Fisher Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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