Wonder Shell dramatically raised my GH and TDS

[Patrick_G]

I added some wonder shell recently and my GH went to 20+ and TDS to almost 400. 

Is this normal? 

I added three small shells to a three gallon and three small shells to 11.3 gallon. 

I did water changes to bring it down a bit but I’m a little worried about the shrimp in the three gallon. 
 

 

[Cory]

This would be expected. However, unfortunately the directions on the product are misleading for most aquarists not keeping very hard water fish. On our website we have our recommendations. I have taken a screenshot for reference. As you can see we recommend much less wonder shell per gallons of water.

[BurgersandGuppyFries]

😮

Edited February 5, 2021 by BurgersandGuppyFries

[Sandra the fish rookie]

What if I already have hard water (GH 120, and KH around 110ish), are these shells still good to use for my snails? 

[tekjunkie28]

NEVER measure TDS.  A TDS meter is used to make sure your RODI is working. 

[Patrick_G]

42 minutes ago, Cory said:

This would be expected. However, unfortunately the directions on the product are misleading for most aquarists not keeping very hard water fish. On our website we have our recommendations. I have taken a screenshot for reference. As you can see we recommend much less wonder shell per gallons of water.

Thanks, unfortunately I noticed that after the big GH spike. 
 

I’d like to keep things as stable as possible for the shrimp, but still need to reduce the GH. Would you recommend small water changes once a day or just one big one to  get it all done at once?
 

my tap water: GH 3 

[DaveSamsell]

@Patrick_G  What I have found is that 1/4 teaspoon of fully pulverized and dissolved Wonder-Shell,  per 1 gallon of water, raised the measured water GH by approx 10 degrees.  So, if applied further, the same 1/4 teaspoon did indeed raise the measured water GH by 1 degree in an approx 10 gallon aquarium.  📊

[Brandy]

29 minutes ago, Patrick_G said:

Thanks, unfortunately I noticed that after the big GH spike. 
 

I’d like to keep things as stable as possible for the shrimp, but still need to reduce the GH. Would you recommend small water changes once a day or just one big one to  get it all done at once?
 

my tap water: GH 3 

If your goal is stability, I would do small daily or even 2x daily water changes, kinda like drip acclimating back to your normal water, or whatever goal prompted you to add wonder shell in the first place. If you haven't removed the remaining pieces of wondershell, you want to do that, obviously. (sorry, just covering all the bases) 

If your shrimp seem actively distressed I would hurry that along by making the change more rapid.

[Patrick_G]

4 minutes ago, Brandy said:

If your goal is stability, I would do small daily or even 2x daily water changes, kinda like drip acclimating back to your normal water, or whatever goal prompted you to add wonder shell in the first place. If you haven't removed the remaining pieces of wondershell, you want to do that, obviously. (sorry, just covering all the bases) 

If your shrimp seem actively distressed I would hurry that along by making the change more rapid.

Thanks, good advice.  With my tap water I’ve been losing shrimp slowly. Addressing the soft water issue seemed like a good place to start. Now I think I’ve made the situation worse. The shrimp don’t seem distressed and are eating well, but I haven’t seen a molt since I added the wonder shell. 
 

I think I’ll try and drip in a 50% change and see what happens. 

[Kirsten]

5 hours ago, Patrick_G said:

With my tap water I’ve been losing shrimp slowly.

What kind of water conditioner are you using?

[Patrick_G]

22 minutes ago, Kirsten said:

What kind of water conditioner are you using?

Aqueon
the label indicates it neutralizes chlorine and chloramine 

Would it be a good idea to switch to something like Seachem? 

 

[Kirsten]

34 minutes ago, Patrick_G said:

Aqueon
the label indicates it neutralizes chlorine and chloramine 

Would it be a good idea to switch to something like Seachem? 

 

Nah, that should be fine. Just wanted to be sure you weren't relying on wondershell to remove chlorine.

[Patrick_G]

I hadn’t planned on new shrimp before I had this problem sorted but I ended up bringing home two berried females yesterday.  I decided to do some water changes before adding them to get things closer to accepted cherry shrimp parameters. 
I took out about 50% then dripped in newly  conditioned water over many hours. 
This morning I did the same thing and finally got to a 9 gh. I then drip acclimated the new shrimp over a couple hours. 
Time will tell, but both the newly added and the established shrimp look good. No erratic swimming, just peacefully grazing on some moss. 

[Ali_]

I recently added a wonder shell to my 20 gallon tank with 7 shrimp and 11 guppy’s and 5 of the shrimp died from a gh spike, all 5 of them got stuck in there molts and died just like that. I had 2 amano shrimp die, I couldn’t even find the body to the other one since my tank is heavily planted but now my tank is beginning to smell so I presume that he died. I also had 3 cherry shrimp all juveniles die. the spike jumped from 10 gh to 22 gh and I thought it was my fault since I add small amounts of gh in my buckets before water changes to keep a steady 10 but I didn’t realize till after the deaths that it was from the wonder shell. I’m sure it stressed my guppy’s a lot and it explains why non of the females have been able to breed. im sure this product may have some kind of use but the directions should have warnings of gh spikes. I will never buy this product again it’s useless.