Is your tap water right for shrimp? Check it in a minute

The most common reason shrimp “just didn’t work out” is not the food and not the filter. It is the water — more precisely, its hardness. Neocaridina are happy in ordinary tap water almost everywhere in Europe. Caridina — Crystal Red, Bee, Taiwan Bee — struggle in it: they need soft water, and there is no way around preparing it.

The trouble is that hardly anyone knows the hardness of their own tap water. It is in the water company’s reports, but finding it there is a small adventure of its own. We did that part for you.

How it works

1. Pick your country and start typing the name of your town or municipality.
2. The tool shows the general hardness (GH) from your water company’s official figures — in °dH or °fH, whichever you are used to. If you know your carbonate hardness (KH), enter it too: the assessment gets more precise.
3. On the scale you see where your water lands against the comfort ranges for Neocaridina and for Caridina — and you get a plain answer: straight from the tap, worth softening, or reverse osmosis needed.

No formulas, no tables — one scale and a clear verdict.

Where the data comes from

Official sources only: the Vlaamse Milieumaatschappij for Flanders, the Service public de Wallonie for Wallonia, the French Ministry of Health’s Hub’Eau database for France, and the Waternet utility for the Netherlands. These are the same numbers the water companies publish in their quality reports — just collected in one place and translated into aquarist language.

Honest about what is not there yet

Not every town is covered, and we know it. Belgium is almost complete. For France we have the largest communes; smaller ones are not in yet. For the Netherlands, only Amsterdam and its surroundings so far — the other regions are in progress. For Germany there is no ready database at all yet: there, every local water supplier publishes hardness separately, and we are still collecting it.

Carbonate hardness (KH) is known only for some supply zones — where the water company publishes it.

If your town is not in the list, that is not a dead end. Find the hardness on your water company’s website or on your bill and type the number in by hand: the tool shows just the same which shrimp it suits. And we add to the database regularly.

One important caveat

Water company figures are averages for a supply zone, not the water in your particular tank. They are excellent for knowing where to start. But before you add expensive shrimp, measure GH and KH in the aquarium itself with a test kit — it takes two minutes and saves disappointment.

Try it

The tool is free and needs no account.

Check your water