Water Parameters

[raasy30@yahoo.com]

Looking for some insight as to proper water parameters for a shrimp tank. I have owned Ope's for quite a few years now, all in small 1/2 gallon to 1 gallon vases. No issues, the occasional 1 die off, again no big deal.
Now I am trying to set up a 3 gallon tank, and cycled it for 2 weeks, took 7 of my existing shrimp and rehomed them to the new tank. Within a week all 7 were dead.
I assumed the Tank had not cycled long enough. I tested and Ammonia was super high close to 2ppm.
Since that disaster, I added a couple of Guppies, added a filter and airstone to help cycle the water. It's been about about 5 weeks now since original set up.
Using Hanna Colorimeters, my Ammonia is now 0.02, Nitrite are undectible, Nitrates are 1.67ppm. I am waiting on my salinity tester to arrive so I don't have that measurement.

Am I safe to try again for some new residents?
What should the proper parameters be for Ope's?

I do plan on moving the guppies to my freshwater tank and taking the filter off before I restock the tank.

[raasy30@yahoo.com]

I would insert a Pic of the tank but cannot seem to figure out how to do so

[Cropster]

I cannot answer your main tank setup issues but to attach photos I have an answer for you! When you are posting, below the big white box is a blue tab that says Options and then Attachments. Click on the attachment tab.

For your new tank did you take any substrate, rock or decor from the old tank and put it in the new tank? I heard that tends to help speed up the cycling.

[raasy30@yahoo.com]

@cropster I appreciate your response. it did help with the pic tagging now I can do that..

[Tiny Ocean]

Weird for the ammonia to be so high without any food or waste inputs. No live rock or sand even, I assume? Your water source might be bad, high nitrites and nitrates. Your ammonia as well as your nitrites should be undetectable before you put any critters in the tank.

I don't know that I'd try to salvage your existing tank. Maybe that's the wisest course but if it were me I'd try again from scratch using use RO or nonchlorinated good quality bottled springwater, add a few drops of mixed bacterial jumpstarter such as Stability or Fluval's Cycle product (I think it has another name outside the USA?) and plunk PLENTY of Mustafa's chaeto in there as part of the cycling process. For three gallons, I'd say no fewer than three "wads" of the chaeto. It will introduce appropriate bacteria to the water and substrate. Let the tank get enough sun for the chaeto to grow.

Maybe your old tank will stabilize before the new setup does, in which case, fine, the new batch can just continue to cycle so that you have an emergency supply of water ready in case the one you're using crashes. Throw some MTS in there.

[Tiny Ocean]

Oh wait. The blue coral. If that's real coral, then it's the culprit. It has biological material in it , deep in its pores, no matter how well it has been washed and dried. That's what did it. The bit of soft coral prolly has nitrogenous tissue in it too. If you keep the corals in there it will take quite a while for your tank to fully cycle and stabilize. Months. And, charming though the bracky ball is, it grows so slowly that it does very little uptake of ammonia or nitrates (or provision of oxygen). You need chaeto.