Water conditioning help.

[ErrorS]

My faucet water has a PH of almost 9, a GH of 400ppm and nitrates at about 20ppm..

the nitrates aren't too bad, most of my fish can handle it.. but what can I do about the PH and GH? I would like to have a planted aquarium but I know these conditions are no good. I have some plants in the aquarium now but they're not fairing so well.

This is an old established aquarium.. in fact, I just 'restored' it in a sense. Nitrates were at extremely high levels, I hadn't done a water change in months.. but with only a striped rapheal and a dragon goby, it didnt' make any difference (the two fish were healthy, strong and happy). Now that I've restocked my aquarium and added plants I'm really struggling with water quality.

I have lots of driftwood and it use to keep hardness relatively .. neutral? but I think it's been long enough it's nto going to help much longer.

Does anyone have any experience with using peat? I have an EheimPro2 and it would be simple to stick some in one of the media baskets.. but will it work really well? is there a better method to fix all my problems?

I had a hard time believing it but i read somewhere (cant remember where) Seachem makes some product that actually causes metals and calcium in the water to actually clump together so my filter can pick it up, is that true?

if anyone can help I would really appreciate it. I'm looking for a GH of no more than 150PPM and a PH of less than 8.

 

[Mgamer20o0]

how did you test it? i always been told is to get a cup of water and let it sit out over night and then test it. what kind of test did you use. i use the ap master test kit. i think the best around. test strips are not very accurate.

 

[jeffs99dime]

reverse osmosis filter

 

[liv2padl]

I have lots of driftwood and it use to keep hardness relatively .. neutral?

check your kH. i'll bet it's sky high as well and thus, neither driftwood nor peat will do much to lower the alkalinity of your water.

Seachem makes some product that actually causes metals and calcium in the water to actually clump together so my filter can pick it up, is that true?

it may or may not be true but regardless, you don't want to use it. adding chemicals to fix chemical problems is a very bad idea. it typically exacerbates the problem you already have and causes others you don't already have.

your best bet is to dilute your current tap water with Reverse Osmosis water .. say, 50:50 to begin with and see where the chemistry nets out. then adjust the dilution factor accordingly.

another option of course, is to leave your water alone and keep fish that appreciate the water chemistry you've got. think African cichlids from Lake Tanganyika.

 

[ErrorS]

They are just 'quick dip' test strips.. Even if they were off by 1.0 - 2.0 or 100-200ppm it would still make my numbers too high. I tested the water 4 times to make sure (twice from my tap, twice from the aquarium).

and you're right, KH is extremely high.. I think? test has a scale from yellow to dark green with no blue in the middle, my color showed up a deep blue.. I assume that means it's 'off the charts' (more than 300ppm)

I'll probably end up putting some RO water in here like I did with my SW aquarium.. that's one of the reasons I gave up with my reef aquarium though, having to move around 30 gallons of water every 2 weeks in big jugs isn't fun at all.. and it will cost me about $50 the first time, someone stole all my water jugs

I was hoping there was something I could do other than using RO water.

ooh, i have an idea. I'll run for mayor of the town and force the water company to clean up their water once I'm elected. It would probably be a lot easier

thanks anyways, off to the grocery store.

 

[RustyRay]

Most plants actually prefer hard water.

In Diana L. Walstad's book "The Ecology of the Planted Aquarium" it discusses the importance of gh and kh to plants, and that most plants do better in hard water. Even plants that come from soft water environments.

I keep large Amazon Swords in my tanks. They are very "greedy" for carbon from KH. I have to add salts to my RO water to keep them growing.

I don't see a problem using pH 9 water with a high GH. The pH will eventually drop if you add fast growing and "greedy" plants. And with plants the nitrates won't accumulate as in a fish only tank.

 

[ErrorS]

the plants are doing pretty poorly though. I'm not sure if it's just basic hardness or what but they seem to die within hours of putting them into my aquarium.. after some water changes things were better (i think it was the high salt content from when it was just my goby) but the leaves are turning brown and they're wilting. After moving a few plants around I noticed they were rooting extremely well though.. my sword had roots moving halfway across the tank and I only bought them 3 weeks ago, but that isn't stopping them from looking really bad.

I've done a lot since my last post. Running CO2 injection (the homemade method) and I just bought this Aquarium Pharmaceutical Tapwater Filter. The filter was $30 and I've been avoiding it for the past week thinking nothing so cheap would be any good. I had assumed it just use salt for the ion exchange, something that isn't acceptable.. but I went ahead and took the plunge today.

I was surprised, everything was at 0. No nitrates, no nitrites, low hardness, 0 chlorimine, etc. I've seen RO from the store with higher numbers .. I can't imagine it will last long but at only $16 a refill for 50-100Gallons it's cheaper than $.80 a gallon RO from the grocery store. Much easier to manage as well.. and from the tone on their site it does not use salt for ion exchange, I'll probably be able to clean it with bleach and not have to replace the filter.

At the very least, it's a good temp solution. It also came with PH stabilizer and a bottle of additives for DI water.. I can run it straight to my aquarium, so the 10GPH isn't a big problem (going to take 2hours to do this water change, ugh)

I do have a question if anyone can help. This water has literally 0KH and GH according to these quick test strips, should I use to additives or will I be ok for this one waterchange since I'm mixing with tapwater?

edit: Oh, I use flourite and some other plant substrate mix for bedding. A deep bedding of about 3'' and I've never graveled the bottom (looks pretty bad when you move the gravel around). This is part of my nitrate problem, I know.. but at the same time it means there are *lots* of nutrients for the plants. I dont think there is a defficiency problem, even if I used RO/DI, I honestly believe it's something in the water hurting the plants..

right now after adding the adjusters (i went ahead and read the instructions, they told me to use them) and adding about 10 gallons of DI water the fish look REALLY good, the most active i have ever seen them... It didn't take them long

 

[doox00]

Most plants actually prefer hard water.

In Diana L. Walstad's book "The Ecology of the Planted Aquarium" it discusses the importance of gh and kh to plants, and that most plants do better in hard water. Even plants that come from soft water environments.

I keep large Amazon Swords in my tanks. They are very "greedy" for carbon from KH. I have to add salts to my RO water to keep them growing.

I don't see a problem using pH 9 water with a high GH. The pH will eventually drop if you add fast growing and "greedy" plants. And with plants the nitrates won't accumulate as in a fish only tank.

Just curious, do you add anything to your ro water? (like kent ro/right or equalibrium) Do you pure ro water or mix with tap? I have been debating using ro/di water (have a nice ro/di unit for my reef) or tap (have pretty good tap water here) for my planted/invert/fish tank.

 

[vootsy]

Sorry Guys!!!!!!!

I am new to forums, and I am just learning how things work.
I have a new thread at vootsy's web page.
I really don't know how things happen! If anybody have a link to how it's done it would be very much appreciated.
Thanx,

Jim From Toledo, OH.