I bought a younger pair (male and femal) of german rams almost amonth ago and put them in my tap water which has a pH over 7.5 and is fairly hard. I slowly acclimated the rams to my water and after seeing them in my tank for a day, they seemed to be behaving and eating normally. The second day I had them, they spawned! I was excited about that 'til I read many posts on ac where people said their ram pair spawned shortly after having them. 
It was still cool though, seeing the female guard the eggs (even from my hand 
). Half the eggs were eaten by my ramshorn snails while a few others turned white. I'm sure that at least some of the eggs were viable, but never got the chance to. I read a post on here where someone said gbr eggs won't hatch in hard water because the water hardens the egg shells not allowing the fry to break out, so here are my questions:
1: Is there truth to that statement?
2: If true, can I just acclimate the eggs to water with a neutral pH before they hatch?
I would love to raise gbr's, but don't want to have to get an ro unit and tamper with my water to soften it to a pH of 6 or 6.5 if a more attainable pH of 7 will be fine for the eggs. Any advice is welcome!
It was still cool though, seeing the female guard the eggs (even from my hand ). Half the eggs were eaten by my ramshorn snails while a few others turned white. I'm sure that at least some of the eggs were viable, but never got the chance to. I read a post on here where someone said gbr eggs won't hatch in hard water because the water hardens the egg shells not allowing the fry to break out, so here are my questions:1: Is there truth to that statement?
2: If true, can I just acclimate the eggs to water with a neutral pH before they hatch?
I would love to raise gbr's, but don't want to have to get an ro unit and tamper with my water to soften it to a pH of 6 or 6.5 if a more attainable pH of 7 will be fine for the eggs. Any advice is welcome!
