Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Is RO (reverse osmosis) water good for shrimps or is it bad?!?!

Right now for my current tanks, I have been using water that passes through one of those RO filtering systems where it blocks off a lot of minerals including chlorine. It is seperated into normal water (about 190 ppm) and soft water (about 1-2ppm). I dont know the conversion between the other hardness scale to the ppm scale so I'm a bit confused with the hardness stuff right now. If somebody can explain to me, that would be awesome.

thx

Pure R/O is not good for alkaline loving shrimp like red cherry. You need to re-constitute with something like electro-right or R/O-right to the proper hardness.

Hi devilofdajnk,

The question is how is the water working for your shrimp? Are your shrimp healthy and breeding or are they sick and dying? The water that you are using may be just fine for your shrimp. Please update us

Hi, I use R/O water my self. I have booth cherries and crs in the tank. All seem to be doing well (cherries better than the crs) mainly because my PH is high and i believe crs do better with low PH but im working on that with using R/O for water changes. Many cherries are pregnant and i have some babies as well from 1 female right now so like NeonShrimp said too me as long as things are doing well no need to change things

badflash wrote:Pure R/O is not good for alkaline loving shrimp like red cherry. You need to re-constitute with something like electro-right or R/O-right to the proper hardness.

do you use pure R/O for your shrimp that likes acidic water, CRS, bumblebee, tigers, sri lanka, etc?

Thanks

Yes, I have been for some time, but right now I'm just keeping Bamboo and vampire shrimps here. The fish food seems to add enough minerals.

badflash wrote:Yes, I have been for some time, but right now I'm just keeping Bamboo and vampire shrimps here. The fish food seems to add enough minerals.

Cool to know that someone else is doing the same...I keep my CRS and tigers with pure R/O water.


Cheers,
Pedro

My only concern with me using R/O water is if they are getting enough minerals, calcium etc..but that can be fixed by using Equillibrium but..do they really need it or do they get what they need from what they eat?

Soft water animals get their minerals from their food. If you add minerals to it, it isn't soft any more, and the pH becomes hard to control.

This is what I thought. In my case my population exploded when I started to use pure R/O water. I feed them a varied diet which contain calcium, vitamins as well as other minerals. I also have notice the shrimp to be more active and showing better coloration.

Cheers,
Pedro

i use Pure R/O with my tiger and the pop are doing well.
with my cherry i use R/O + electrorigth and litlle bit of crush coral on the ground, they are doing well also.

Well i got these 2 together, cherries and crs im pretty sure crs will do fine with pure R/O water but not quite sure with cherries ill just have to wait and see cherries seem to be doing great so far.. lots of females with eggs and all seem to be active. I feed them algae waffer and crab cuisine. What do you guys feed them? those of you who are using R/O.

I feed my shrimp the same as you plus Omega One Veggie Rounds and boiled vegetables now and then. Let me know how it goes with the CRS I want to try raising them in the future.

Hey thanks for the quick reply! ill try feeding them some vegetables i hear spinich is really good. How long to you usually boil this for and do you just boil it in a normal pan with a small amount of water? As for the CRS i have 6 i believe.. none with eggs so far..although that could be due to my high PH right now in time it will lower with the R/O water all of them are active and seem to look healthy my temperature right now is usually between 24-26 i keep it cool with air conditioner in my room

Spinach is good and you can boil it for 1-3 minutes in a normal amount of water. You can even freeze some for later. I first heard about the shrimp liking the rounded leaf spinach best and I have found this to be true. Be sure you wash the vegetables well to make sure any pesticides or chemicals are washed off, unless you by organic ones which do not use these. Thanks for the info on your CRS and hope to hear more