Ro Water

[boebrummie]

Does any one use ro and can you give me some advise. i have just set one up my self but strugling to understand the basics. so any help would really be appreciated. my tap water is 70 tds and gh around 13 to 18. kh about 5. now theing im mostly struggling with is. what type of readings i need after i have mixed ro with hma or tap water. my ro is set up to produce ro and hma but with a low tds out of tap. i think the hma method wont be needed so hope you can help. and many thanks

 

[boebrummie]

anyone

 

[DrRob]

Depends what sort of fish you're keeping to be honest. I use all sorts of water, including RO, what are you planning on keeping in it?

 

[boebrummie]

i have corydora metae. some apistogramma cacts double reds. zebra plecs and some l260 queen arabesue. i also have some wild l260 on order but waiting for them to be delivered so im trying to lower ph a bit has its around 7.6 at the moment. ph is high from tap. my ro gives me an ro of around 6.8 but i want to use something to mix with ro has i was told never to use pure ro wate, and to either mix it with hma,tap or some of the waste water from the ro unit. and get a dts of 100. but my tap water is only around 70 tds
but it's getting a bit confusing lol, i need to get my ph to around 7 or under. but

 

[gforce17]

I wish I knew what all the abbreviations mean? Perhaps someone on here with more knowledge of water chemistry will come to your aid. Good luck.

 

[boebrummie]

right. my goal is to soften the water. then readd the minerals to make ist more acceptable to the fish i have,

 

[drobbyb]

Try a 50/50 mix with tap and see what your tds turn out to be. Watch your KH though you don't want it to drop out too low or you might get wild pH swings. You may need to buffer it a little or try mixing 75% tap to 25% RO.

Your waste will always have a higher TDs than your tap. It's the removed solids + tap.

 

[Tonyb111111]

I use to use 100% RO due to my tap water been too high a pH and too hard. I added Esha Mineroll to ensure the right minerals and micro nutrients were in the water, and the fish were all fine. Currently I'm using 3 to 1 ratio of RO to tap and all is good. Is the RO your are getting remineralised or not?

 

[Tonyb111111]

I use to use 100% RO due to my tap water been too high a pH and too hard. I added Esha Mineroll to ensure the right minerals and micro nutrients were in the water, and the fish were all fine. Currently I'm using 3 to 1 ratio of RO to tap and all is good. Is the RO your are getting remineralised or not?

 

[boebrummie]

thats the thing. my tap water has a low tds. of only around 70. but with me trying to get the tds of my ro after mixing to around 100 to 150 tds how would i achieve that with a mix of tap or hma and ro

 

[DrRob]

That's Birmingham water for you, it's not actually all that bad for keeping amazonian fish in.

To start simply. Ignore the pH for now. It's important, but it won't stay put so I'd quit worrying about it at the stage you are. RO water is almost always just on the acid side of neutral.

If you get the hardness right, mainly the kh, then your pH will buffer nicely. The tank will have a whole pile of organic acids that will bring that right down once you add your tap water, which is how bog woods and peat tend to lower pH. So set the kh to what you want, the gh will generally follow suit and the pH should stay where you want it so long as your maintenance regieme doesn't drop off.

Are you using a hand held tds meter? Or is it inline?

If it's hand held then take a look at the TDS of the tank water, if you want 100-150 then start working towards that, gently, by adding RO water. It'll often keep rising as the gap between water changes progresses.

I use RO in some tanks with remineralisation salts, but that's because my water looks like limestone in comparison to yours.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I do not trust the numbers you have reported. You can not have TDS as low as you claim and a GH and KH of those numbers. Each dg of hardness and KH translates into about 18ppm of TDS. And they are more additive than independent. So a GH of 18 dg should be reading about tds over 300ppm. Even 13 should read well over 200 ppm/ Are you sure your TDS meter is properly calibrated?

I have and RO/DI unit I used to help with simulating dry and rainy seasons for spawning plecos. My tap ranges from 58-83 ppm depending on recent rainfalls ( more rain = lower numbers). At 83 ppm I am reading my GH at about 5dg and KH at about 4dg. My ph runs between 7.0 and 7.2. Multiple plecos spawn in that.

When I first got my zebra colony, my params were highers- GH 6, KH 5 and pH 7.4. That worked fine. Got lots of babies over the next few years. Hypancistrus are pretty forgiving of water parameters. And they spawn in response to parameter changes.

I suggest you keep your zebras in a species tank.

 

[gforce17]

I am genuinely interested! Could you explain DI GH KH If it's a pain don't worry.

 

[DrRob]

I do not trust the numbers you have reported. You can not have TDS as low as you claim and a GH and KH of those numbers. Each dg of hardness and KH translates into about 18ppm of TDS. And they are more additive than independent. So a GH of 18 dg should be reading about tds over 300ppm. Even 13 should read well over 200 ppm/ Are you sure your TDS meter is properly calibrated?

I have and RO/DI unit I used to help with simulating dry and rainy seasons for spawning plecos. My tap ranges from 58-83 ppm depending on recent rainfalls ( more rain = lower numbers). At 83 ppm I am reading my GH at about 5dg and KH at about 4dg. My ph runs between 7.0 and 7.2. Multiple plecos spawn in that.

When I first got my zebra colony, my params were highers- GH 6, KH 5 and pH 7.4. That worked fine. Got lots of babies over the next few years. Hypancistrus are pretty forgiving of water parameters. And they spawn in response to parameter changes.

I suggest you keep your zebras in a species tank.

I'll freely admit I didn't add up any numbers. Birmingham water is annoyingly soft in places. May well be worth checking the calibration.

I am genuinely interested! Could you explain DI GH KH If it's a pain don't worry.

GH is general hardness, KH is carbonate hardness. The latter is basically limescale and comes out when you heat water (hence also being called temporary hardness) and is made up of carbonate ions. That's generally what helps to keep your pH stable. GH is the general level of calcium and magnesium in the water.

Where did you see DI?

 

[boebrummie]

the last gh test kit i had i have had to throw away. it wasnt correct. so i am waiting for an api one. which hopefully should be tomorrow with some tds calibration fluid. the reason i put 13 to 18 is because when i had malawis thats what i used to get after doing what i used to do. so you are more than likely correct. ill wait untill tomorrow now , and hopefully ill have the gh/kh test kit.
the tds pen is about .3 out i tested some ro water from my lfs who also tested it for me at the shop. then i compared it against my pen when i got home. so if the tds is out its only minute amounts