Hi,
I'm looking for help on a neocaridina shrimp tank. I keep having shrimp die. The shrimp came from another one of my tanks where they have been breeding for 5+ years. The biggest difference between the two tanks looks to be pH. The new tank has Stratum and the existing tank has sand. I attached new tank test strip results and a liquid pH test result. The test strips are Aquarium Co-op and the liquid is the API test kit. The kit does expire next month and the test strips were purchased 6-12 months ago. I say this because the pH results between the two don't seem to match. The test strips look to be below 6.4 but the liquid kit seems to be 6.8+. It is kind of hard to get an exact number. Mt tap water is about 6.8 based on the Co-op test strips. Last week I added a half pound of crush coral and did a 50% water change. The tank is 10 gallons. Test results pre water change were the same as shown below. 3 more shrimp died over the week and I'm planning to put another half pound in to try to raise the pH and add buffer. The results are typical of all my tanks with off the charts GH but very little KH. Some of my tanks will register up to 40 KH with enough crushed coral.
Does anyone have thoughts on what else to do and has another else seen this difference between the API liquid test and the Co-op test strips? Any advice would be appreciated.
And just to be clear, I have no idea which test is actually correct nor am I saying one is better than the other. I just have two tests that look to be reading noticeably different.
Thanks