Which Water Source???

[lelover]

I'm looking for some advice on getting the right water quality. Here's my dilemna:

My tapwater has a ph of 8.6 and a hardness of 8 GH.
I also have an RO unit (for drinking water) witch lowers the PH to around 7.0, but completely wipes out any minerals in the water - 0 GH. (this makes the ph pretty unstable)

I obtained a sample of water from my LPS and their water has a ph of 8.0 and a hardness of 16.

I would like to breed my danios and rasbora. The danios are rather forgiving, but the rasbora require rather acidic water conditions.

I have also started keeping some live plants. Very simple plants (anacharis, hygrophylia, and java moss)

As I see it I could use my tap water and add a ph buffer (chemical or peat?), or use my RO water and add some sort of remineralizer. (I have heard of these, but haven't seen them)

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

 

[tstenback]

What are the final parameters that you are looking for? Any playing around with chemicals to alter the ph could cause probs over the long haul but for a breeding tank for a few weeks it should be fine.

 

[lelover]

I guess ideally I would like my ph to be about 6.8 and my gh to be 5. I don't want to shock any fish by transfering them from an alkaline living to an acid breeding tank>

 

[tstenback]

Here is an article that may help but remember if it is just for a short time use your tap water and then ph down or something along those lines to bring it into specs. If it is for the long haul be very careful altering the water chemistry as i have seen this lead to a very unstable environment. the Article HTH

 

[njparton]

An RO unit will also reduce the carbonate harness (KH) to around zero. It is this type of hardness (not GH) that buffers pH.

My RO water is pH 4.5 and GH 0/KH 0. I add some Kent RO Right/Seachem Fresh Trace to it to raise the GH and half a teaspoon of baking soda to raise the KH slightly. This gives it a pH of 6 with 24 hours of aeration.

To maintain pH stability in the tank I have some limestone chips in one of my filters. It's trial and error for how much to add and they must be kept clean so as to be in contact with the water flowing past.

My fish seem happy at pH 6.0

 

[Tenko]

My tap water is ph 8.3, with a gh and kh of well over 200 mg/l. For ages all my fish seemed happy with it, although I did notice the guppies tails got a bit tattered and have seen a few people say that very hard and alkaline water will cause this.

I added peat granuals to the filter, this has lowered the gh and kh a bit but it's still very high, I'm not to bothered about this though as the fish seem to cope fine. The ph has lowered to 7.4 though, which has to be better for them.

The only worry I have though is during water changes. Every 2 weeks I change about 20%, which means I'm adding tap water ph 8.3 to tank water ph 7.4. I do this slowly to minimize the rate of change.

 

[lelover]

Yesterday was a wonderful day for my fish. My tank completed its cycle! Ammonia and Nitrites are 0! I did a water change to lower the nitrates and tonight I'm going to go get some rasbora. Will I mess my cycle up if I add five at once? It would probably be better to only add 2-3 at a time but they are pretty low waste fish.

I also did some experimentation with the RO to tap concentration. If I do 3 parts RO to 2 parts tap I get a ph of 7.3 and a hardness of 5. I feel like this is pretty good. What do you think the ideal conditions would be for the fish in my sig? As mentioned I'd like to breed them. (not the yoyo's) I still don't know what my kh is. Those tests are so expensive!

How long do you think I should take to acclimate them? The LPS water parameters are described above.

 

[tstenback]

You might get a small spike by adding 5 at once but as long as you monitor carefully and do water changes as required it should be fine. You will love the rasboras they are great schoolers. After that i would wait until the spike is over (if there is one) then wait 2 weeks to ensure everything is stable and no disease has been brought into the tank before adding anything else. If you follow that procedure everytime you add fish you should have better success with your new additions. good Luck and have fun

 

[G_Sharky]

Try aging your water with the same temp of your tank and make sure it's agitated...Most Discus breeder has a barrel of water for water changes that's been airated and heated to stabilize their ph....I don't use RO water but I do aged my tap water and it's been stable ever since....GOod Luck...