Water trouble!

[seangee]

Yeah @essjay said you use 100% osmosis water. Did you buy your own RO filter or do you buy it somewhere? Is it expensive for to do waterchanges? My water is also very hard so maybe diluting it with RO water could help lower it or using RO and adding aquasafe to remineralize it a bit maybe?

I started buying it and mixing it with my tap water. This only lasted a few months as I got tired of carting 25 litre cans of water around (my weekly water change is over 200l). So I bought my own unit. I don't know how much it costs but if your water is on a meter this could be a factor as most home units produce a lot of waste. I do remineralise one of my tanks. This is the product I use https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06Y5QZBTL/?tag= its not the cheapest but I only need one product and the results are very consistent. I add one scoop for every 10 litres I change and this gives me dGH=6, dKH=3, pH=7. It also dissolves instantly with no residue or colour change.

 

[utahfish]

I use RO water, seachem makes a powder that will remineralize the water to GH of 6 called equilibrium
Ive never used it because i can get the exact ingredients a lot cheaper.
Calcium Chloride can be purchased in buckets at most swimming pool stores. Its about 10 bucks for about 2 pound bucket.
Calcium chloride is what seachem uses in their calcium products.
Magnesium sulfate. Is just epsom salts that can be bought in a 1 gallon carton at any drug store.
Seachem also has potassium in it which isnt necessary for raising GH but is still good especially for plants. I use K2SO4 or KNO3 which is potassium sulfate or potassium nitrate. In your case if you are mixing with ypur high nitrate tap water id go with potassium sulfate. Most tap water is void or very low in potassium which can be detrimental to plant growth.
I use rotola butterfly dosing calculator to get my tank between 6-7 DGH.
Word of caution mix the calcium chloride in a container of RO water first before mixing the magnesium. The sulfate in the magnesium bonds with the calcium chloride and turns hard. Good luck. If one doesnt want to dose oneself then one can always get the seachem equilibrium.

 

[Byron]

Seachem make two re-mineralization agents, one called Equilibrium and the other called Replenish. They are not interchangeable, but intended for different purposes. I discussed this with a technician at Seachem a couple of years back as I was then using Equilibrium and wondered about Replenish.

Equilibrium is solely intended to supplement certain minerals for plants to take up. Primarily calcium and magnesium, though it contains iron, potassium, and one or two others if memory serves me. Those of us with zero GH/KH tap water, or who use RO water, and have live plants, need to provide sufficient minerals for the health of the plant. Liquid comprehensive fertilizers provide these but the "hard" minerals calcium and magnesium are minimal because these occur in the source (tap) water of most areas. There are also substrate tabs that provide comprehensive nutrients. Depending upon the plant species and number, both the liquid and the substrate may still be insufficient with respect to the hard minerals, and that is what Equilibrium is intended to rectify.

The Seachem technician explained that Equilibrium does not provide the minerals fish require, it is solely plant-oriented. So for those like me who might have heavily-planted tanks of very soft water fish species, Equilibrium is the better product to increase the calcium, etc for plants.

Fish that require moderately hard or harder water, and where the source water is like mine very soft, will be deficient in certain minerals. These are provided in Replenish, not Equilibrium, according to Seachem. So if one is keeping hard water fish like livebearers where the source water is very soft or soft, Replenish added to the tank water should provide the necessary minerals for the fish. Plants may or may not be present, and I have no idea if one can use just the Replenish to provide minerals for both fish and plants. I didn't go into that with Seachem as it was not my issue.

 

[seangee]

I tried equilibrium before I switched to the product I mentioned. I did not like it for several reasons. It did not dissolve fully and turned the water yellow. Seachem also recommend using it with another product but could not provide exact proportions and recommend testing to achieve the required results. Classic marketing tactics. SInce I had no desire to become a home chemist and wanted an easy life I opted for the simple solution. If you do have aspirations to home chemistry @utahfish fish is absolutely right and you can just mix your own

 

[Retired Viking]

I still buy my RO water in 5 gallon jugs from my local water dealer (Caligan) and mix it with treated tap water. I use a pen meter to test the hardness and another one to test the PH level.

 

[StevenF]

Seangee uses 100% RO water in his tanks (or most of them at least) That means no minerals in the water at all; zero GH and zero KH. The natural tendency of a fish tank is to become more acidic. Usually the KH in the water stops the pH dropping but if there is no KH at all, the pH will slowly drop as in seangee's case. And he is quite happy to have this situation.

For RO water you need to add a GH booster in order to have enough calcium and magnesium for the plants and fish. GH boosters are made by mixing calcium and magnesium sulfates and chloride. Plants need a lot calcium and magnesium but not a lot of sulfur and chloride. So as the plants grow chlorides and sulfates will build up in the water. Sulfates and chloride make the water acidic. If precautions are not taken the PH can drop as low as 4.5 (I have seen it that low in a plant only tank.

While tis low PH is generally not harmful to many plants and fish it can be very bad for snails and other invertabits. The low PH will dissolve the shells of snails shortening their life span.

Many people use potassium or sodium bicarbonate but too much will push the PH above 7. I instead use snail shells in ny filter. The magnesium and calcium carbonate of the shell will react with the sulfates and chlorides by dissolving in the acidic water. As the acids are neutralized bythe shell the the PH will go up to 7 but h it won't higher and KH stays very low.. A PH of 7 is not harmful to invertabrits and most plants and fish. A single shell can last months before it dissolves away.

I personally have my own RO system so using RO water doesn't really cost my anything for my small tank. Buying RO will cost money and you have to move it from the store to your home. At 8 pound per gallon (1 kilograms per liter) earring all the water be diffficult and or cause injury. So I wouldn't recommend buying RO water unless you only need a very small amount. When mixing RO with nturally hard water you may notice the PH drop since little to no GH booster would be necessary.

 

[seangee]

For RO water you need to add a GH booster in order to have enough calcium and magnesium for the plants and fish. GH boosters are made by mixing calcium and magnesium sulfates and chloride. Plants need a lot calcium and magnesium but not a lot of sulfur and chloride. So as the plants grow chlorides and sulfates will build up in the water. Sulfates and chloride make the water acidic. If precautions are not taken the PH can drop as low as 4.5 (I have seen it that low in a plant only tank.

While tis low PH is generally not harmful to many plants and fish it can be very bad for snails and other invertabits. The low PH will dissolve the shells of snails shortening their life span.

Many people use potassium or sodium bicarbonate but too much will push the PH above 7. I instead use snail shells in ny filter. The magnesium and calcium carbonate of the shell will react with the sulfates and chlorides by dissolving in the acidic water. As the acids are neutralized bythe shell the the PH will go up to 7 but h it won't higher and KH stays very low.. A PH of 7 is not harmful to invertabrits and most plants and fish. A single shell can last months before it dissolves away.

I personally have my own RO system so using RO water doesn't really cost my anything for my small tank. Buying RO will cost money and you have to move it from the store to your home. At 8 pound per gallon (1 kilograms per liter) earring all the water be diffficult and or cause injury. So I wouldn't recommend buying RO water unless you only need a very small amount. When mixing RO with nturally hard water you may notice the PH drop since little to no GH booster would be necessary.

For the 3 tanks where I do this I have exclusively soft water fish. In the 2 blackwater tanks the pH is constant at around 5.3. The clearwater tank is steady at around 6. The only inverts in these tanks are MTS and they are fine. The other tank has shrimps and a nerite - that is the one that I do mineralise. I have found the weekly water changes are sufficient to keep the pH stable.

 

[Byron]

I do not use RO but I have the same basic thing out of the tap. GH is officially 7 ppm, and KH zero. I never add anything to increase either, though back in the 1990's I did buffer two of my larger tanks with dolomite in the filter, and it kept the pH mid-6's without touching the GH and that was fine for the fish I had then. I now only maintain soft water fish, so they thrive in this. For plants, I do not attempt an aquatic garden but simply want some green plants growing, and I also have floating plants. I use a comprehensive liquid once a week, and comprehensive substrate tabs, and I have found this is just enough calcium for the plants I have. Nothing fancy, the fish come first. I mentioned using Equilibrium in an earlier post, and that was on the advice of whomever, but a marine biologist got me away from that for the sake of the fish.

The pH varies among my tanks, but each tank stabilizes and the pH has remained where it is for over a decade now. When I test prior to the weekly water change and find that every time, for more than 10 years now, the pH in tank "A" has been 6.0 or 6.2, and in tank "B" has been 5.4 or 5.6, and in tank "C" has been below 5...there is no doubt but that the tanks are biologically stable. Given that my fish all come from near-identical waters, this is not a problem at all. To suggest that fish species that have evolved to function best in such water, for some reason must have re-mineralized water in the aquarium, makes no sense.

Many of the so-called "rules" that have become established in this hobby have specific situations, and cannot apply across the board. What I do, and what @seangee does, obviously would be a death knell to fish species requiring harder water. This is why several of us on this forum are so insistent when it comes to GH as the starting point.