Recommendations

A reverse osmosis (RO) water filtration unit removes nitrates and most impurities from tap water. The RO Buddie connects to any standard faucet, and has been a great supplement to our regular water changes. RO water is not a must-have for many freshwater fish, but can be especially helpful when balancing the specific mineral needs freshwater shrimp!

While reverse osmosis may remove the contaminants from water, it also removes the trace elements and minerals that fish and other aquatic animals require to thrive. Seachem Replenish is a product that we use in many of our tanks to remineralize our RO water.

We use 0.5 - 1 mL per gallon of water.

Salty Shrimp is, as the name may suggest, a great remineralization product that contains an ideal balance of minerals for most freshwater shrimp. In our shrimp tanks, we use Salty Shrimp instead of Replenish.

When dosing Salty Shrimp, we use a VIVOSUN digital TDS meter to take the guesswork out of dosage!

An aquarium heater is an essential for keeping tropical fish and in our experience, one of the most common sources of tank failure. A heater malfunction can silently wipe out a tank overnight. For this reason, we use temperature controllers that act as a failsafe to regulate your heater.

This model by Inkbird allows you to connect one or two heaters (allowing you to maintain temperature if one fails), and provides a digital display of the current temperature as it maintains your tank between two set points. 

We use Temperature Controllers on many of our aquariums, which gives us peace of mind when using any heater. However, when we need a new one, we go-to EHEIM.

EHEIM offers a 3-year warranty on heaters and has 9 sizes designed to heat aquariums from 5 gallons to 250 gallons. These are often sold out from local pet stores, but are worth going out of our way for. They last longer and heat more consistently than other heaters we have tried. The only heaters we use without a temperature controller are EHEIM.

The Python Water Changer was one of our harder buys to justify as hobbyist fishkeepers, but after several years of lugging five-gallon buckets and using hand-siphons to pump water out of plastic storage totes, we went big with a fifty-foot Python. It was worth it and would buy it again - except we might go with the 100-foot one!

We have considered alternatives to the Python, but for ease of use, available accessories, and quality, we haven't found one that beats it.