If you are a beginner and starting out in shrimp keeping or keeping freshwater aquariums in general you have probably searched up YT videos on must have tools & equipment when starting out. Of course, the test kit is essential when you are starting out, it helps give you a birds eye view of the overall status of your aquarium. It’s vital for your learning and growth as a new hobbyist; you can go in blind but the trial and error phase can be more discouraging if you don’t truly understand what’s happening. An analogy I would give is if you have to make a decision on an important purchase online, what’s the first thing you would do? Welp that’s easy, you would research and gather key data points to compare & understand if the value for money is there. Same applies to testing aquariums, the quality of results help guide our decisions in taking the best course of action, sometimes no action is the best action though.
Now, for my list of add-on items, think of this like having various tools to help you on your conquest like a sword, shield, scroll or helmet and so on. But in this case the equipment will aid you on your shrimping journey.
First up on the list is none other than the TDS pen, which measures the total dissolved solids present in the body of water. This item is super helpful when preparing and doing water-changes as it gives you the readings quickly and relatively accurately as well. You don’t necessarily need to reach a precise value, but finding a range and sticking to it is the best way. If we think about it as well, in nature the temperature changes daily, water volume fluctuates depending on season and rain, the debris such as leaves and wood are also factors too. Hence, I always advise to aim for the optimal ranges. Back to the TDS meter, an example: You measure a reading of 140ppm in the current shrimp tank, when preparing the fresh new water you want to get a few PPM below that value like 120ppm fresh new water. And stick to that range from then onwards. Best to use RO water and remineralise with GH+ and/or KH+. The value of the pen comes from convenience of readings, its instant dip & find out and that’s why it’s a must for me for your aquarium keeping avatar character to have equipped. I bought my TDS meter off eBay, but there are plenty of aquarium & aquaponics stores that may also stock them.
Next up we have the pH pen, this item is also relatively crucial, as a low acidic environment is what most Caridina shrimps prefer, although there are some exceptions such as tigers. The pH pen I will say does require more time for accurate readings, but it’ll help give you a more precise reading that the test kits can, even go low on the ranges too with readings of pH 3. However, for this item you wouldn’t be using on a daily basis if you have multiple tanks, perhaps monthly or when issues occur, since we will be using soil as well majority of the foundation work is done, we just want to monitor if there are deviations from the pH ranges we want. To conclude for this attachment it’s optional but definitely can come in handy as you won’t be playing around with as any chemicals that are present in a test kit. I also bought my pH meter off eBay AU.
My third and final weapon of choice is of course the temperature gun, it’s relatively affordable online and the readings are also super quick and accurate. The temp gun is by far the most fun to use, you won’t get wet and the readings you get from it can give you so much information. From what I found, shrimp tanks on different levels of the rack will have temperatures deviating by 0.5-2.5*C. A fan can help circulate and evenly distribute the temperature in this case. You can hit multiple tanks back to back like the TDS pen with ease, which sort of puts internal thermometers out of business. There is a common theme occurring which is I also bought the temp guns from eBay AU lol.
That will be all for this post, I hope it was a fun and helpful read.