Mosura TDS Up dosage & the exact TDS required?

[Navanod]

Hi Bros and Sis, hehe.

Currently in the process of fine tuning my new shrimp rack's water parameters and facing abit of uncertainties.

Firstly, anyone had experience with Mosura TDS up? The instructions did not state dosage and the bag is filled with what seemed to be brown sugar, yummy~

Being cautious, I threw in 3 full scoops and waited a day before measuring again. TDS went up by ONE, from 98 to 99. The large volume of the tanks (~450L) may be the reason why its so hard to bring TDS up but a rough dosage guide would be helpful.
I just threw in another 10 scoops last night...

Then again, do I really need the TDS any higher? I used to think the TDS should be between 150-220 and my old 2ft tank had always been about 180-210. CRS are breeding in it, but not doing super well.

Some sites says 80-100, some says 100-150. Others say 200????

[cheetf]

I suspect the dosage is not stated because there are too many variables. The tank size being one of them. The other thing I believe is that it has to be used in tandem with a TDS meter. Maybe you can premix a measure of the the TDS up and slowly pour in measured amounts so that you can have a good guide on how much you need to raise the TDS by a certain amount each time.

[Navanod]

Tank size and volume is always taken into account on other mosura products leh? Normally X scoops per XX L of water. I have the TDS meter and will probably do some experiments in a 5L tub to see how much 1 scoop will raise the TDS. I don't think TDS is like pH, which is in log and is buffered by KH. TDS should be quite straight forward?
I'll report in this thread on the dosage once I've tested.

I have some FR culls in the tank and they are not very active. Not sure if it's the TDS or the pH.
Current readings
TDS ~100
pH ~5.8
GH ~4

I've hooked up a small matured filter so ammonia should not be an issue, especially with 450L and only 4 tiny shrimps. Added my new Aura blues in and they seemed normal and active these few days.

Should I increase TDS somemore?

[avex30]

I tested 2 scoop in 15 litre pail for Tds 60 shot up to 168.

[Navanod]

Thanks bro. Now I have something to compare against when I try this weekend.

Going by your figures...1 scoop in 1 litre of water would give about 810ppm TDS. In my tank of about 450++L...that will be around 1-2ppm increase per scoop. But I only got 1ppm after 3 scoops? May have to do more controlled testings.

[ZackZhou]

Thanks bro. Now I have something to compare against when I try this weekend.

Going by your figures...1 scoop in 1 litre of water would give about 810ppm TDS. In my tank of about 450++L...that will be around 1-2ppm increase per scoop. But I only got 1ppm after 3 scoops? May have to do more controlled testings.

Haha bro just came across an acticle by silane, hope it helps:

First need to understand how TDS is measured. It is by passing electrical current through 2 conductors and measure the current, there is water parameter known as conductivity. Then from conductivity, a certain factor is used to product the figure TDS.

What factor is used? Maybe around 0.6 to 1, depending on the manufacturer. So, for the same water, if you use different TDS meter from different manufacturer, you can expect different value. And more over TDS meter is calibrated with NaCl solutions but our shrimp tank has little NaCl but other minerals.

So actually TDS is not a good meter for shrimp tanks. A straight forward measurement is the level of electrolytes is the conductivity.

Measure of GH or conductivity alone is not enough, I suggest to measure both GH and conductivity.

GH which mainly measure the content of Calcium and Magnesium ion. Conductivity measure the overall presence of electrolytes in water.

To increase Total dissolved solids, technically, you can use NaCl but..... TDS is just a reading of total dissolved solids or the electrolytes level without knowing exactly what it is... Beneficial way? I dont think it is good just to look at TDS when ignoring GH and PH.

[Navanod]

Haha bro just came across an acticle by silane, hope it helps:

First need to understand how TDS is measured. It is by passing electrical current through 2 conductors and measure the current, there is water parameter known as conductivity. Then from conductivity, a certain factor is used to product the figure TDS.

What factor is used? Maybe around 0.6 to 1, depending on the manufacturer. So, for the same water, if you use different TDS meter from different manufacturer, you can expect different value. And more over TDS meter is calibrated with NaCl solutions but our shrimp tank has little NaCl but other minerals.

So actually TDS is not a good meter for shrimp tanks. A straight forward measurement is the level of electrolytes is the conductivity.

Measure of GH or conductivity alone is not enough, I suggest to measure both GH and conductivity.

GH which mainly measure the content of Calcium and Magnesium ion. Conductivity measure the overall presence of electrolytes in water.

To increase Total dissolved solids, technically, you can use NaCl but..... TDS is just a reading of total dissolved solids or the electrolytes level without knowing exactly what it is... Beneficial way? I dont think it is good just to look at TDS when ignoring GH and PH.

Thanks for the info bro.
I recently indirectly calibrated my TDS meter using 200ppm calibration solutions. My meter reads only 186ppm so I know its about 14ppm off and I add 14ppm to my readings each time. But now that conductivity is brought into the picture, its kinda confusing.

I recall Silane also made some comments on TDS vs conductivity. I quote:
TDS meter or Conductivity Meter?
Often one can hear that his TDS meters are not measuring correct. One reason is it need recalibration, one will need calibraion solution to do this. Another reason is, basically TDS meters from different manufacturers are calibrated with different conversion factor.

TDS meter base on reading the conductivity of the water and convert it to TDS with a known conversion factor, it is known to be a conductivity meter of 200uS has a TDS value of 100ppm of NaCl. So very simple for manufacturers, they just get the meter to show the conductivity meter value by half and now become a TDS meter. But some manfacturers use CaCO3 solution to calibrate and this will result in for the same water, the TDS values are different.

To avoid all the confusion, one can simply use a conductivity meters, and most TDS meter comes with conductivity measuring function.

So unless we know for sure our conversion factor that was used in our TDS meters, to convert the raw conductivity readings into TDS, we may get totally wrong readings. So for my case, my meter may simply be 14ppm off, or it could be using a conversion factor of 46.5% instead of 50%, i.e every 200uS conductivity will only give TDS 93 instead of 100. So simply adding 14ppm to my readings will also give me wrong results.

Then again, if the errors are within a narrow range, and the actual readings are still well within 100-200ppm TDS, would the shrimps care?

[Navanod]

Something more interesting I dug up.

The average TDS of the world's rivers is 120ppm. Of course, averages are not very meaningful when we are only interested in the conditions for something as specific as CRS or Fire reds but it's a rough guide.

Anything more than 1000ppm is considered brackish and sea water averages around 35000ppm

[silane]

Something more interesting I dug up.

The average TDS of the world's rivers is 120ppm. Of course, averages are not very meaningful when we are only interested in the conditions for something as specific as CRS or Fire reds but it's a rough guide.

Anything more than 1000ppm is considered brackish and sea water averages around 35000ppm

The creeks where i visit for shrimps are in range of conductivity 30 plus us/cm, that about 17ppm.

If one is to keep captivity refined shrimps like PRL, crs and fire red in tds of like nature creek, it is very likely that the prl color will drop, FR produces lousy cherry and shrimps may die.

wait..... part 2



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[xconnect.]

Those kind of low ppm is like putting our shrimps in distillted water man XD

[Navanod]

A 17ppm stream? Wow, cleaning than our tap water.

[silane]

Those kind of low ppm is like putting our shrimps in distillted water man XD

A 17ppm stream? Wow, cleaning than our tap water.

yes, but if you would to put shrimps into low ppm water, it will not survive for long.


part 2
tap water plus certain new soil will give around 100ppm, RO water plus certain new soil will give about 60ppm. First is to check if GH is enough, if not

[Navanod]

Thanks Silane for the insights.

My tap water is around 75ppm. Even with Borneowild and mosura soil, it hardly went up, which was why I started using TDS Up.
GH was adjusted to 4 using mineral plus before adding the shrimps.

How low is low? The 17ppm creek is obviously too low, but I've heard many different levels of TDS being the "correct" ppm to keep shrimps in.
GC claims its 150-200 for most bee shrimps and 200-250 for tiger shrimps. I previously used 150-200 as a rule of thumb.
Nothing said about fire reds and others.

This website is quite detailed about the water parameters but the TDS recommended is much lower than what most other sources mentioned. The range is also much narrower.
http://www.shrimpkeeping.com/

Who to follow?

[silane]

TDS is not a straight forward measurements of any elements or compounds, some variation of the values maybe contributed by experience, water source, soil source, tds pen conversion factor and conversion calibration.

Different sources of shrimps might have to adapt to certain condition. Look at the tiger shrimps the site says ph 7 but nature creek where tiger shrimps found is at high 5 to low 6 which i have visited. TDS in nature is 30ppm, but the site said 100 to 180.

One a side note, It is really easy to gather information to from internet, interpolate data and make it as a reference. It is easy to make bleeding food even one dont breed. Good to follow?

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[Kingkong]

I've been reading through this thread, have we found an answer yet?
Is it like 300 microsiemens and/ or 150 ppm as à guide line

[Navanod]

No clear answers...but I did decide to revise my TDS range from 150-200 to 120-150.

[huizhong]

I think 100-300ppm for our shrimps is very safe? That's my opinion

[Navanod]

Yes, given enough time to acclimatize. But I reasoned that the larger the TDS number, the larger the drop when I do 10-20% WC, whilst a lower TDS will have less variations. Of course, one can always do slow drip or adjust the aged water's TDS...but I think simple is best.

[RonWill]

...But I reasoned that the larger the TDS number, the larger the drop when I do 10-20% WC, whilst a lower TDS will have less variations

While there will be many who'd adhere strictly to reference parameters from farms, other individuals and shops, your conclusion is entirely feasible and easier to maintain over the long haul. There's no right or wrong to this approach but it does make life, and those of your shrimps, less traumatic.

[Navanod]

While there will be many who'd adhere strictly to reference parameters from farms, other individuals and shops, your conclusion is entirely feasible and easier to maintain over the long haul. There's no right or wrong to this approach but it does make life, and those of your shrimps, less traumatic.

After hearing about how low and high some natural habitats can be, and how high before its considered brackish and marine, I believe that TDS is not as rigid as long as enough acclimatization time is given. Will report back once I have some experience