KH, GH, pH, cycling, and testing explained.
Got a fresh container of RO water and Sulawesi shrimp waiting for it? Don’t pour it in yet: Sulawesi shrimp (lake Caridina species) need RO or RO/DI water rebuilt with a mineral made for this group until the batch tests…
Your tap water tests soft, and the rabbit snail (Tylomelania sp.) you want to keep comes from lakes that are alkaline. Raise both the pH and the minerals, lifting KH and GH together toward pH 7.5-8.5, because calcium on its…
You don’t need a mineral supplement to help vampire crabs (Geosesarma) molt. Leave the shed shell in the tank so the crab can eat it, keep feeding a varied diet, and make sure every crab can reach clean water it…
Land cycling in a vampire crab paludarium is really two jobs running on two clocks. The water section has to grow the bacteria that turn waste into nitrate, the same way an aquarium does. The land has to settle until…
You’re planning a tank for a rabbit snail, and one care sheet you read mentioned salt. Rabbit snails (Tylomelania spp.) are freshwater snails, and strictly so: the genus is endemic to Sulawesi, Indonesia, where it lives in lakes, rivers and…
Your rabbit snail tank is still empty, and the substrate is the first thing that goes in. The best substrate for rabbit snails (Tylomelania sp.) is a fine, smooth, inert sand, with rock on top for them to graze. It’s…
Your rabbit snail tank has a haze on the front glass and a scatter of droppings across the sand. Most rabbit snail tanks need cleaning once a week, and a small water change plus a light pass over the sand…
Your rabbit snail tank sits at 74°F, and breeding was never the plan. It’s still too cold. 74°F is below 79-86°F (26-30°C), the range we keep rabbit snails (Tylomelania sp.) in. A tank held there is cool for the animal…
Your rabbit snail (Tylomelania sp.) needs somewhere to stay for a few weeks, and the spare tank you’ve got is a cycled 2.5-gallon. It can hold the snail for two to four weeks, as long as the water matches what…
What is Lake Matano’s water actually like? Its surface is warm, startlingly clear and short of dissolved minerals, at 77-82°F (25-28°C) and pH 8.6 in one study and pH 7.4 in another. Neither set of numbers is what you should…
How close should your tank get to Lake Towuti’s water? Not very: across seven surface stations sampled between June and October 2009, the lake averaged 85.3°F (29.6°C) at pH 7.46-8.40, with a conductivity of only 139-156 µS[[1]] That’s warmer, more…
Your Sulawesi shrimp spend the whole day picking at bare rock, even with food in the tank. That’s what their lakes built them for. A handful of very old Indonesian lakes hold almost nothing a shrimp can eat, so these…
