Do any of you dwarf keepers use...

[valerie]

I was wondering if any of the dwarf cichlid keepers use RO right to reconstitute your RO water?

I would jsut like to learn a bit more about this product. So it gives you RO water a kh and gh reading? How much do you have to add?

[Dwarfnut]

I have actually never put anything into any of the RO water I have gotten and never had any problems at all. My fish all seem happy and spawn regularly. I finally quit using RO water as it was getting to be a regular PITA, and didn't notice any change. Now I use some peat or peat nuggets in the filter to soften and condition the water. Works good and gives that nice tint to the water.

Good luck,
Bill C.

[valerie]

So you used straight RO? I'm trying to see if i can get my rams to spawn. I have tried peat and mixing Ro with tap but i can't get it to work. Plus its alot of adjusting each week, Too much work messing witht he ph. Thats why i'm curious about Ro right. I could jstu find out how much it takes to bring the Ro water to certain levels then each week i would only have to mix up a bottle of water.

I tried peat and it didn't change any of my tap waters parameters. And mising tap/Ro took too much fiddling each week. So i'm hoping to try this or i'm jsut going to forget it as my fish are living fine in my water now, they just aren't spawning.

[Dwarfnut]

So what are the tank parameters? What size tank and what all do you have in it?

One thing I think that adds to the successful spawning ritual is not changing the water parameters too much too often. When you say a lot of adjusting each week, it scares me that you are stressing the fish too much and that's part of the problem. Also, what type of Rams? Blue rams are hard to breed in just about anything but their own tank. IME, they like privacy when spawning and either having them alone or in a big tank with lots of plants and space and such. I also had better luck keeping the temp up close to 80 degrees F.

Good Luck,
Bill C.

[valerie]

They are in a 15g with a few cardinals(which hide behind the driftwood all day). The tanks ph is 7.8 kh 8 gh 11. When i said too much fiddling, most of that was in buckets of water trying to figure out waht raio i would need to make the parameters waht i wanted. The tanks ph and other stuff never changed much. I got it down to 7.2(after a few water changes) but since i didn't do any big changes the water would go back up by the end of the week. I found mixing RO with tap was just too much work and was scared of lowering the parameters too much at one time so it made it difficult. Plus i have to buy my RO so experimenting with it was getting expensive.

That is why i was wondering about Ro right(or similar products) as i would have to fiddle too much.Jsut find out how much i nee dthen add it at every water change to the RO to get the parameters i need.

[Dwarfnut]

Well, IMO, your ph is still way too high for them to breed... I'd suggest you need to get it below 7 if you truly want to breed them.

Again, I can't help with the RO Right as I never used it, I just simply used straight RO water and did my water changes with it. I figured from topping off between water changes and thawing the frozen foods in regular tap water and then adding it to the tank would give them minerals they need. I have never run into a problem doing it that way. If your ph and kh climb back up that fast, you need some serious buffering agents or such to keep it low and KEEP it low! That will be the first key step IMO. Again, I'd suggest you get some decent peat and put it in a bag and place it in the filter and leave it there. Do that and then check the ph and kh and see if they have gone done at all. Then I'd start with the RO water changes. Try not to let the ph drop too much at one time, keep the RO changes to about 20% at a time, give it a day or two, then check params again.

Good luck,
Bill C.

[valerie]

Thanks