Do you cull?

[plunket]

@BallAquatics wrote:

@plunket wrote:

One of the changes I’ve introduced on my method is that I’ve invested in an RO unit – I was a bit concerned to find that my tap water TDI is over 300 so I’m going to try using RO for all my system water. Do you have an opinion on this?

My water here is also very hard with a high TDS reading, but I use rain water rather than RO to soften it up a bit. For breeder set-ups, I often use a 19:1 ratio of rain water mixed with tap water. I always add just a bit of tap, even for my softwater plecos. The rain has NO buffering and will pH crash very easily. Just a splash of tap and all is good.

@plunket wrote:

At what point do you start this feed?

I normally feed the 5-50 micron size along with green water for the first 7 to 10 days. Once the fry are large enough to eat newly hatched brine shrimp I feed the bbs along with daphnia moina and sometimes micro worms. At around 30 days old, I move the fry into larger tanks and start feeding more prepared foods along with the live foods.
Dennis

Ref water, this confirms my instincts really – even with very high TDS, my fish have been fine. I will say though, that gradually reducing the TDS in my main tank by introducing RO with every water change (it’s sitting around 185 now) seems to have benefitted them – colours seem to be stronger and they just generally look good at the moment. I’ll try and post a photo tonight – would be good to get your opinion.

That’s great Dennis, thanks – I’m on it!

[plunket]

Hi Dennis

I know this is off topic, but continuing the discussion on water parameters:

I’ve just checked and my RO comes out at a TDS of 8ppm. Water temp from the tap is 14 C. If I add 1.5 litres of boiled tap water to a 25 litre bucket of RO (16.5:1), this brings the temp to 21 C which is spot on my tank temp, and raises the TDS to 40ppm. This also raises the RO pH from 5.5 to 6.5. This would make for a very easy recipe and procedure for water changes – am I missing anything and are those parameters within a good range? Sorry about the metric

[BallAquatics]

@plunket wrote:

…..am I missing anything and are those parameters within a good range? Sorry about the metric

Well when U Tin Win of the Hein Aquarium visited the site where they were collecting CPD’s in the wild, the water tested at a pH of 7.3 and the conductivity of 250 microS/cm. 250 microS/cm = roughly 160.25 ppm. That said, you could even go with a bit more tap to RO ratio and make it just a bit harder. It would give you a bit more buffering capacity and thus a more pH stable water. You are definitely on the right track to work up a repeatable formula for mixing… it will make water changes so much easier.

Dennis

[plunket]

Thanks Dennis – fantastic information as always

I can remember life before the internet….and also how hard it was back then to find good answers sometimes! Something like this may well have taken weeks of research and testing…

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