I'm back! And I've got issues...

[Watcher74]

Hi everyone!

Well, I'm finally settled down in good ole Texas and I've got a few problems.

First one is that my main tank got smashed in the move. Bummer. No terribly big deal though cause I'll just get another one.

My big problem is this:

The water here is hard and full of nutrients.

KH is around 304 ppm.

PH is 8.5 or so.

Drastically different than what I'm used to. At first I'm like "Gah...oh well."

But the LFS here keeps all of their fish in R/O water. And makes tons selling the stuff to their patrons. I have "heard" from several independent sources that the local water has so many nutrients in it that Algae is a nightmare. One individual said that they put their tank in blackout conditions to kill it off, but it returned the next day after he brought back the light.

I'm willing to test that for myself.

But with the LFS using R/O water I've got a problem.

Every time I buy a new fish I have to buy 10 gallons of R/O water, lug it back to the house, set up the 10 gallon QT tank, and slowly acclimatize the fish to tap water. That's a pain, don't you think?

Also I read that the vast majority of plants don't do well in water anywhere near that hard.

Is that true?

I'm thinking it will be much simpler on me if I simply buy a decent R/O unit and "go with the flow".

I know everyone will say there is nothing wrong with the tap water, but acclimatizing every little plant and fish and lugging water all over town sounds like more work than I would like to do.

So I beg for all of your opinions on this matter.

P.S. Good to be back guys.

[daveedka]

First of all welcome back!!!!!! it was good to see your name show up. secondly, I have dealt with water like you describe, and in retrospect ( in other words I did things wrong back then), I would suggest mixing tap with RO to find a hardness level you like. Just figure out how much of each it takes to hit the desired level and then go with that. If you go RO only you end up adding stuff back in, while mixing can target a certain level with little or no additive cost.
dave

[Watcher74]

Thanks for the reply Dave! Good to see ya.

I thought I'd get a few more responses to this.

Guess no one noticed I was gone. :(

Any more opinions about having plants in this type of water? Or any other ideas?

[texas]

I was just wondering where you are in texas? I am in Denton and the water here is terrible.

[HarmonyMahi]

My water is insanely hard as well. My pH out of the tap is 8.5 , and KH and GH are both about 9 (I'm not sure how that relates to ppm, I'm just repeating what the test tells me :D). I was thinking of getting an RO unit, but they are too expensive and too much trouble to hook up and such.

From what I understand, plants dig hard water because of all the extra stuff in it. Hard water doesn't have everything you need, but it has quite a bit. :)

Oh and a good way to control algae that I recently found out about might help you if you decide to stick with normal tap water. I can't remember the exact terminology for everything, so pardon me if I sound like an idiot. :p Basically, plants can photosynthesize for a while even after the light has been turned off, and algae can't. It won't hinder plants at all if you, say, turn the light on at 7AM, turn it off at 11:30, turn it back on at 2:30, and then turn it completely off at 7PM. This will starve the algae of light, but the plants won't know the difference. I can't remember where I read that... might have been here. :dance

OK sorry I went off on a tangent there... uhh moral of the post is, if you can afford and successfully hook up an RO unit, go for it! I would if I could. Good luck living in Texas (I lived there for a while... didn't like it much, but I was in the middle of nowhere), and don't miss out on seeing the Eiffel Tower with the cowboy hat! ;)

[Watcher74]

I read that plants are much better on quickly turning on photosynthesizing, where as algae it takes them a while to start. So turning on the light for short periods of time will give the plants an advantage on making more food.

And the Eiffel tower is up in Paris, Tx. I was born there, grew up just south of there, but now live in a more central Tx area. Bryan/College Station.

[RTR]

Plants as a rule do not mind hard water. Your KH of ~17 degrees it pretty hard, no joke. I have not worked with water that hard myself, nothing beyond KH ~11, which was fine. Tom Barr is likely to say it is fine - he has had experience with hard waters.

But it also matters what else is in there - high nitrates and high phosphates can be a management issue, no question. Have you gotten a read-out of the analysis yet?

EDIT: I am not convinced of the light cycles as a controller of algae. I suspect that of being myth.

[Watcher74]

No, I have not called for an analysis from the water company yet. Though I have considered requesting one.

I guess that should be my next step.

[cdawson]

I would definately invest in an RO unit for your tap, they may be a little on the pricey side for a good one but they're definately worth it. You'll have clean water for drinking and cooking and your fish will be happier =)

[Aescleah]

not sure what sort of set up you are going to have you can put them in a sump or a open top aquarium. mangroves can live in all sorts of conditions from saltwater to freshwater they can clean up No3 and phosphate troubles in no time not sure about the laws about keeping them in texas though you might want to do some research on it.

[TKOS]

Is it going to be a large tank setup? For small tanks I have mixed britta water with tap water with good results, but that would be a pain for a large tank. At the very least you could use britta water to do the acclimation to get them used to hard water.

And perhaps it is time to try cichlids?

[amosf]

And perhaps it is time to try cichlids?

We're starting to think cichlids these days as well. Our water is very hard and difficult to do much with. kH 260ppm and gH 400ppm I think I tested recently. The pH in the tank was holding at 7.9-8.0 but seems more like 8.5 these days. But at the moment there are still 10neon and 3 glowlight and some guppies in my 40g tank, so I'm looking for a bigger tank to set up for the cichlids maybe. Then gradually convert the 40g over later if the tetra can't cope with the water here. They do seem happy enough at the moment, but the long term is another matter.

Did try to soften the water in the past but got into trouble as we are out in the bush in australia and with the drought we don't have a lot of choice in water. Was using some softer rainwater to try and soften the tank only to find there was an off scale nitrite spike in the water I was using - decaying leaves in the storage tank maybe that I didn't catch due to not testing the supply often enough. Lost a few fish over that so went back to the hard well water which is otherwise 'safer' and more consistant...

[cdawson]

not sure what sort of set up you are going to have you can put them in a sump or a open top aquarium. mangroves can live in all sorts of conditions from saltwater to freshwater they can clean up No3 and phosphate troubles in no time not sure about the laws about keeping them in texas though you might want to do some research on it.


Mangroves need a high content of calcium to stay healthy, so unless you were keeping african cichlids or something requiring a high calcium content mangroves wouldn't last long. They also require high lighting. Fast growing plants would be a better solution.

[RTR]

My experience w/mangroves was that (even with high light) they are not very good nutrient sponges. Lots of other emerse plants are far superior - even spatiphyllum at a fraction of the light.

[cdawson]

My experience w/mangroves was that (even with high light) they are not very good nutrient sponges. Lots of other emerse plants are far superior - even spatiphyllum at a fraction of the light.

I agree, mangroves do a good job on nitrates in large numbers, but in aquaria they need other helpful sources of nutrient export to keep water quality good.

[Captain Hook]

Like others have said maybe you should consider keeping cichlids. I'm wondering if CO2 will help by bringing down your PH levels.

[Watcher74]

Actually, yes, I have strongly considered cichlids. And surprise, surprise, they have a very good selection of Rift Lake cichlids at the LFS's. Even though the LFS uses R/O water in their tanks, aparently the local fish breeders realize what they are dealing with.

I honestly like the look of those types of fish...but I am dying to do a planted tank. I would like to have a cichlid tank in one of my smaller tanks, but jeeze... But I still may surrender to the local conditions and put planted aside for now.

[Captain Hook]

Here's what I think is probably the nicest planted cichlid tank I've ever seen.

http://www.aquahobby.com/tanks/e_tank0411.php

Note that it has CO2 injection and isn't a natural cichlid environment. Nevertheless I'm sure the fish are very healthy.