In research. Waitlist open.

Aqua N3rdz

Name: Aqua N3rdz
Brand: Aqua N3rdz

AN-01 Caridina GH+ · AN-02 Neocaridina GH/KH+

Every passive mineral article sold for a shrimp tank is calcium and nothing else. General hardness measures calcium plus magnesium, so a tank can read a perfect GH number while the mineral split is entirely calcium. Aqua N3rdz carries both, in the ratio they are supposed to arrive in, and prints the split.

Join the waitlist See the chemistry

Shrimp, snails and planted tanks. Two powders, split by carbonate. Caridina and Neocaridina do not want the same water, and the difference is carbonate chemistry, not a single hardness number.

Concept diagram, not a photograph. Calcium and magnesium dosed together into RO water at a stated ratio rather than left as an unknown split behind a single GH reading.

A different ratio

Hardness tells you the sum. It never tells you the split.

General hardness is calcium and magnesium added together. A tank can sit at a textbook GH made of one hundred percent calcium and zero magnesium, and every reading on the test kit will look correct. Streams where these shrimp occur naturally run about five parts calcium to one of magnesium; the best remineralizer on the market tests near two to one. We formulate to three to one, and print it.

Caridina
GH 4-6, KH 0-1

Neocaridina
GH 6-14, KH 3-5

Snails and plants
GH 6-12, KH 2-6

carbonate hardness, dKH general hardness, dGH

The two zones do not overlap on the horizontal axis. That is why there are two products, and why the difference between them is the calcium source rather than the amount.

01 / The element pair

Calcium against magnesium

Every other product we make corrects calcium against phosphorus. Here phosphorus is not part of the remineralizer. The controlling ratio is calcium to magnesium, and none of our other work transfers.

02 / The failure mode

Both minerals are in the water chemistry

The product statement is about the water: calcium and magnesium concentrations, and the ratio between them, at a stated dose. Hobby literature often discusses molting failures when magnesium is missing from a calcium-only hardness source; that observation is theirs, not a claim about what this powder does to an animal.

03 / What we print

Both numbers, not one

Calcium 36.9 mg/L and magnesium 12.3 mg/L at the dose stated, giving three to one. A product that tells you only its hardness is telling you the sum of two things while withholding which.

The line

Two SKUs. One ratio. Split by carbonate.

Calcium to magnesium at 3:1 across the line. Both powders build water from reverse osmosis. AN-01 holds carbonate at zero. AN-02 builds carbonate with general hardness.

AN-01 · Powder

Caridina GH+

Builds GH 5 with KH held at zero. Calcium sulfate only. No carbonate at any inclusion, because buffering substrates do not forgive it.

Dose 0.67 g / US gal Ca:Mg 3:1

AN-02 · Powder

Neocaridina GH/KH+

Builds GH 8 and KH 4 for Neocaridina, snails and planted tanks. Carbonate and sulfate blend, with 77.6% of the calcium from carbonate so GH:KH lands at 2.00.

Dose 0.88 g / US gal Ca:Mg 3:1

Why two powders

The split is carbonate, not species.

Carbonate raises general and carbonate hardness together. Sulfate raises general hardness alone. Caridina keepers build their tanks on a buffering substrate that carbonate defeats, so for them carbonate is not a preference to weigh, it is a component that must not be present at any inclusion. That single fact decides which calcium source each powder uses.

	AN-01 Caridina GH+	AN-02 Neocaridina GH/KH+
Target	GH 5, KH 0	GH 8, KH 4
Calcium source	Calcium sulfate only	Carbonate and sulfate blend
Carbonate content	none, at any inclusion	77.6% of the calcium
Magnesium source	Magnesium sulfate	Magnesium sulfate
Calcium to magnesium	3 : 1	3 : 1
Dose	0.67 g per US gallon	0.88 g per US gallon

The carbonate share is not a rounded number. Taking all the calcium from carbonate lands the ratio of general to carbonate hardness at 1.55 to 1, against a target near 2 to 1. Splitting it at 77.6 percent lands it at exactly 2.00.

The gap

Read the label on the block already in your tank.

Crushed coral, cuttlebone, mineral rocks, mineral balls. Every passive article on this market is a calcium source. As hobby literature states it: they are excellent sources of calcium, but they contain no magnesium, so the water chemistry is incomplete unless magnesium is already present or dosed separately.

The current fix is to buy a second product

Most passive articles carry calcium alone. A keeper who wants magnesium with a calcium-only hardness source has to dose it separately, which reintroduces the guesswork a single printed ratio was meant to remove.

This is the same gap we found everywhere else. Across parrots, pigeons, laying hens and insectivorous reptiles the pattern held: the market supplies the element and leaves the ratio to chance. It holds underwater too, with calcium and magnesium instead of calcium and phosphorus.

We print the split. AN-01 and AN-02 state calcium, magnesium, dose, and the resulting GH and KH targets. The product claim is the water analysis at that dose, not a story about animals.

Powder or block

One builds water. One maintains it.

AN-01 · Caridina GH+

Dosed into RO before it goes in

Builds GH 5 with KH held at zero. Calcium sulfate only. Mandatory where carbonate must stay at or near zero because buffering substrates do not forgive it.

AN-02 · Neocaridina GH/KH+

Dosed into RO before it goes in

Builds GH 8 and KH 4 for Neocaridina, snails and planted tanks. Carbonate and sulfate blend, with 77.6% of the calcium from carbonate so GH:KH lands at 2.00.

Where this stops

If you keep brackish, you do not need this.

Brackish water is made by diluting a marine salt mix to a target specific gravity, and that salt already carries calcium and magnesium in seawater proportions. It is the reason the hobby insists on reef or marine salt rather than plain aquarium salt in the first place.

Setup	Calcium	Magnesium
Neocaridina tank at GH 8	36.9 mg/L	12.3 mg/L
Brackish tank at SG 1.010	158.9 mg/L	497.6 mg/L

Four times the calcium and forty times the magnesium. There is nothing for us to correct. Seawater also runs magnesium dominant, roughly the inverse of the freshwater target, and that is correct for animals adapted to it rather than a fault to fix.

The boundary is not fresh against brackish. It is where the mineral profile comes from. Water built from zero is a formulation problem and it is ours. Water made by diluting a manufactured seawater analogue is a dilution problem, and dilution is not something anyone improves on. If you keep opae ula, your crushed coral substrate and your salt mix have already solved this.

Development status

We publish the open questions too.

This is a research program, not a finished shelf product. Items stay flagged as open until bench data or a certificate of analysis closes them, and nothing goes on sale while a safety item is still open.

ClosedHardness conversions and the calcium to magnesium target verified against published values and hobby consensus.

ClosedDose cross checked against a market leading remineralizer and agrees to the same order of magnitude, derived independently.

ClosedLine settled at two SKUs: AN-01 Caridina GH+ and AN-02 Neocaridina GH/KH+. The former passive aqua block SKU is cancelled.

OpenFDACS confirmation whether the aquatic products are feed. Nothing about nationwide shipping is published until that answer is written down.

OpenWhether three to one is the right calcium to magnesium target. Natural streams run five to one and the hobby has converged nearer two to one, an unexplained spread of more than double.

OpenSulfate loading. Both powder formulations are sulfate heavy, sulfate accumulates in tanks topped up rather than changed, and we have not investigated the long term effect.

OpenWhether planted tanks need potassium, which shrimp formulations conventionally omit and planted tank products conventionally include.

OpenTrace elements. Ours is calcium and magnesium only, and we have not evaluated whether the trace packages competitors include are necessary.

OpenHeavy metal screening on every input. Hard quality gate, unchanged across the whole platform.

Get the first run

Shrimp keepers and snail people first.

Join the list and you get told when the first run opens, what the analysis showed, and what was still open on the register the day it shipped.

N3rdz beta program

We can only keep so many tanks running at home and in the lab, and one shrimp room only generates so much data. The beta program extends the testing to yours.

Selected testers receive products free of charge to trial, a discount code, and coverage of their tanks alongside ours across the N3rdz channels.

Registering sends you one email covering the testing rules, the format we need feedback in, and a few questions about your water.

Your details are used for beta testing and feedback only. We do not sell them and we do not share them.

Part of a platform

One method, many species

The same calcium system runs through companion parrot blocks, a loft pickstone for racing pigeons, a two fraction poultry amendment for small flocks, a reptile dusting powder and an aqua remineralizer. Built for small keepers, not large commercial herds. The species change, the husbandry changes, the delivery format changes, and the underlying defect does not. Everywhere we looked, the market supplied the element and left the ratio to chance. This is the one line where the element pair is calcium and magnesium rather than calcium and phosphorus.

See the bird blocks See the reptile line