Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Hi Everyone,

I have been searching and reading this forum for 2 days now and cannot locate where I might find what chemicals are safe for use in Shrimp tanks, i.e. to lower ph, to lower ph, to lower amonia... well, you get the idea. (Try doing a search on lower ph or ph, alot of talk about lowering it, but not what is used).

I thought it would be nice to start a thread and have everyone post what they safely used in their tanks for others to refer to (like me).

Right now I'm specifically looking to lower the tanks ph level.

I'm 2 days behind in my laundry now...

Dilute muratic acid from Home depot is safe. Mix 10:1 water to acid. Then use about 10 drops at a time, wait an hour & recheck pH.

Thanks badflash!!

I'll actually be going near a HD today!!

Debi

Would filtering over turf be a good idea?

turf? What is that? Here it is the lawn, and I don't think you mean that. Some people filter over peat, but is doesn't have much buffering capacity and it colors the water.

B***! Yes, sorry, peat. I check two or three different forums a day, half in english, half in dutch, I do make the occasional mistake.

Back when I started my first tank in the 1980s it was very popular amongst the cichlid crowd.

An easy way to acheive your target water coditions is to dilute your tapwater with RO water to reduce the buffering capacity just enough that the pH may be lowered by peat filtration or decaying leaf litter. This a much more natural way to modify your water without the need to buy additives.

If you need to raise the pH and buffering capacity aragonite/dolomite in the filter system will raise it gradually and then help maintain it. It depends on what your house water is like and what species of shrimp you are trying to keep.

Hi Apistomaster,

I have been trying to search to find out what RO or R/O water means, I came up with tons of subjects on the RO water, but none explained what it is or what it means... so I'm lost here...

Reverse Osmosis, basically a filtering system that produces very pure water. If the setup also has an ion-exchange resin at the end, it will produce almost 100% pure water. If you can't buy R/O water locally, you can get a complete home system for around $100. A google search will give you more detailed, specific info on different setups and prices. They're widely used for SW aquariums, also quite handy if you keep soft water species of inverts or fish.

R/O units can be had at any of the big box home centers.

Wow, Thanks so much for all the great information!! Now that I know what RO means, I can do more research, prices, models, etc...


Thanks everyone!!