What to do with RO water

[gigahertz]

Hi everyone.
I have a few RO water questions may be some of the experts here can help me out with.

This is my setup:

60G tank, RO water, Equilibrium to reconstitute the minerals, Eco-complete substrate, 220W Compact fluorescent light, no CO2, Canister filter.

Plant: Java moss ( big clump occupying 1/5 of my tank ), Java Fern, Twisted Vals, Amazon sords.

Shrimps: 10 CRS ( used to be 25 :( )

I am mixing every 20G of RO water with 3 teaspoon of Equilibrium. The tank temp is kept at around 75F.

What I am noticing is that the plants are not growing that fast and brown algae are starting to grow. The shrimps were doing ok and then started to die off. I at one time had around 5 shrimps holding eggs and now I have none.

I changed 50% of the water last week and they seemed to have stabilized.

My questions are:

1) What is the water hardness that is suitable for these shrimps?
2) Should I add Calcium Carbonate into the water for the shrimps to help them form their shell?
3) Is there anyone on this forum have a similar setup that can share the setup parameters of each component ( KH, GH etc )

Thanks in advance for any info or pointer that anyone can share.

[silane]

Hi gigahertz,

Do you have your current and before KH, PH and GH values? And perphas TDS?

[gigahertz]

I will take the readings as soon as I can. I did not have any readings from before. I did a panic water change when I saw the dead shrimps :(

Thanks for the reply

[simcb]

I will take the readings as soon as I can. I did not have any readings from before. I did a panic water change when I saw the dead shrimps :(

Thanks for the reply

Why are u using Ro water in the first place.... it lacks for material like calcium,magnesium,zinc and other mineral critical for shrimp development. Is the water off the tap really that harsh?

Ph,Kh shouldnt be a problem

[silane]

Tap water of some area of USA can be very hard, that's why they need to use RO or mix with RO water. Smaller tank owners may buy distilled water from vending machine.

Since he is using RO water and Equilibrium, the hardness should be alright, let see what he get back on his KH, GH, PH and other values.

[simcb]

How long has your 60 gallon tank been cycled before putting in the CRS?

How long do u maintain your canister filter? Best is change the cotton pad once every 3-4mths....cause it will clog up and reduce the water circulation.
Do u add any Benifical bacteria every water change?

how often do u water change ? 2 times a week or once a month?

Brown algae visit when phosphates is in excess....usually the case of overfeeding or lack of water change to balance the water parameters.

[gigahertz]

Sorry for the late reply. Work has been hell for the past two days.

My 60G tank has currently a Magnum canister filter by Marineland. I am using the filter wool and not the water polishing filter that came with it. It is now 2 months old and I used old water and filter wool so it should be adequately cycled by now.

As far as water change I usually change 10G weekly.

The water here in Los Angeles is ROCK hard. It's so hard that it's almost crunchy when you drink it!!! lol Out of the tap the water has TDS of 268ppm. After my RO I am getting 3 to 4 ppm.

I have discovered a problem last night. When the tank was originally set up the ph was stable at 6.7 with no buffer added. Last night the ph was at 8!
I have only ec-complete as substrate and it claims that it will not change ph so there is no reason for it to change so drastically in two weeks.

Right below the 60G tank I have a 2 weeks old 40G with the same setup. It's ph was at 6.7 where it's suppose to be. I did a water exchange between immediately to get the ph of the 60G to around 7.5. I did not want to go too fast too soon as a big ph swing is never good for anything.

Just as expected the ph of the 60G tank was as 7.05 before the light came on. I then took the CO2 setup from my 120G planted tank and set it up on the 60G. I set the ph regulator to maintain the ph at around 7.

I hope this will keep the shrimps happy and not dying on me. I have only 9 shrimps left and one is carrying eggs (I had 4 shrimps carrying eggs before this problem came up....so sad ).

I will check on the rest of the pertinent water parameter and report back.

Thanks again for all the responses.

[gigahertz]

Update:

I noticed a definitely improvement on the condition of my shrimp. The most important improvement was that they STOP DYING! :thumbsup:

Now they are out gracing all the time. The plants are doing better too. My twisted vals are growing like crazy and pearling too! I think the eco-complete had some contaminant in it that had caused the ph jump.

Last night I even saw a shrimp shell floating around and so far no dead shrimp so think it was a successful molt.

I took a good photo of my shrimp last night. After struggling with my camera for a while I finally learned how to take good macro shots.

Let me know what you all think.

http://www.fdlam.com/DSC00174_sm1.jpg

This one I took today and looks like the babies are ready to come out any moment now, you guys agree? :nice:

http://www.fdlam.com/DSC00207_sm.jpg

[simcb]

Congrats! you will be having cubs soon :sunny:

[gigahertz]

I hope so :)

Now I just need to wait on my Crystal Red ladies to get in the mood and make some CR babies. :D