What is your water???

[ferreter]

Hi all,
It seems that noone has actually shared the best water perameters for these little fellas yet.
I’m still new to it all but here’s mine since I started adding a bit of RO to the tap water. I don’t know if its the right water but thats how I have it A.T.M and since noone knowledgeable has left any info it’ll stay that way unless anyone say’s different.

pH: 6.8
KH: 10d
GH: 10d
NH3: 0
NO2: 0
NO3: 0-5

The water around here is incredibly hard which I found out the hard way with my Tetra’s but the pH is 7.3 out of the tap so the pH has to suffer for the hardness to be brought down unless I start using rain water??
Does anyone have any words of wisdom on rain water?

[BallAquatics]

@ferreter wrote:

Does anyone have any words of wisdom on rain water?

That’s all I use. Yes, I’ve heard all the horrors of pollution and collecting from a building roof.

My well water is off the charts, well not really but almost. An RO unit is not an option due to the cost of constantly changing filters and membranes.

So I use rain. Started out just collecting in 5 gallon buckets. Then moved up to 32 gallon trash cans. Now I have 100 gallon stock tanks.

It’s all plumbed up… down spout fills stock tanks, stock tanks connected to 1/2 hp water pump, pump moves water indoors and through filters into tanks on top of tank rack in fish room, from there I can gravity feed water into fish tanks.

Water parameters are 6.8 – 7.2 ph, near 0 gh & kh. I don’t own a tds meter.

You should be able to soften your water very easily by adding rain water. Just a little experimentation to find the ratio for the parameters you’re after.

If you’re letting those blue barrels fill with rain you’ve already got your water… start mixing!

Dennis

[Tom2006]

RO is the best way to regulate your water parameters. I personally would never use rainwater after a friend started using rain water in his fish house and after a few weeks started to lose fish. Nothing else had changed other than he was using rain water. The suggestion was that something was getting into the rain water be it in the sky or on the way to the collection point. He lived in the country as well so you wouldn’t have thought there would have been any problems

I must admit I’m very lazy when it comes to testing my tank water but last time I did it was around 6.7ph GH 8 KH 5 temp 26c

[BallAquatics]

Yes, definitely proceed with caution. It seems that every time the subject comes up the general consensus is that it’s a bad practice.

My only other option would be to run the rain through an RO unit to remove any toxins. Since it’s not loaded with dissolved minerals to foul the filters and membrane, I should get good service from them.

At the present, and for the past several years, I must just be extremely lucky, (knock on wood), as fish and plants are doing extremely well with rain water. We have abundant wildlife in this area and I’m only about 2 miles from one of the best trout fishing rivers in the mid-west of the USA. The rain that falls here must still be close to what nature intended.

Dennis

[ferreter]

Cheers, would it be wise to lower the GH even more then?
What I mean is do the CPD’s require me to lower the hardness or are they happy in moderately hard water (16d)

Things are kind of on hold A.T.M since I made a big boo boo and forgot to add tapsafe, now I’ve put chlorine in with everything and its crashed.
I’m doing 2 10% changes a day at the mo and the cory’s have started laying eggs. What a nightmare…..

[BallAquatics]

@ferreter wrote:

Cheers, would it be wise to lower the GH even more then?

Well when U Tin Win of the Hein Aquarium visited the site where they were collecting CPD’s, the water tested at a pH of 7.3 and the conductivity of 250 microS/cm. 250 microS/cm = roughly 160.25 ppm and your 16d = 284.8 ppm.

Now even with that, if I could spawn them in your water, I wouldn’t go to the trouble of trying to soften it further. I’d give it a go first.

I started using rain because on a good day my water comes out of the ground at PH – 8.4, GH – 25 / 445 ppm & KH – 20 / 360 ppm.

Dennis

[ferreter]

I’m gonna crack on with the 25% RO water even though its gonna be very expensive for a couple of weeks. It will benefit both species anyway.

I’ve done 2 x 30% water changes 1 last night, 1 this morning and the tests are matching up tonight with my ammonia stable at less than 0.5mg/l, the fish look pretty happy for a change & the snails are going back into the water.

I dont understand how the plants didn’t kick in removing the ammonia, there’s tons of plants in a 100l tank and only 4 cory’s & a handfull of tiny danio’s and I was feeding them next to nothing.
Usually when I set up a new tank I dont even get any spikes since the plants take care of it all. Anyway its under control so hopefully it will stay like that.
Won’t make that mistake again! :lol: :oops: :oops:

[Tom2006]

My water is very hard so I mix 50:50 RO and tap.

[AquaGirl]

@ballpc wrote:

@ferreter wrote:

Cheers, would it be wise to lower the GH even more then?

Well when U Tin Win of the Hein Aquarium visited the site where they were collecting CPD’s, the water tested at a pH of 7.3 and the conductivity of 250 microS/cm. 250 microS/cm = roughly 160.25 ppm and your 16d = 284.8 ppm.

Now even with that, if I could spawn them in your water, I wouldn’t go to the trouble of trying to soften it further. I’d give it a go first.

I started using rain because on a good day my water comes out of the ground at PH – 8.4, GH – 25 / 445 ppm & KH – 20 / 360 ppm.

Dennis

Good Lord! If you threw a glass of that at someone’s head you would kill them.

[BallAquatics]

@AquaGirl wrote:

Good Lord! If you threw a glass of that at someone’s head you would kill them.

:lol: It makes good water for RL cichlids. I would have thought your water would be similar.

It’s great to see you here, welcome to the forum!

Dennis

[AquaGirl]

@ballpc wrote:

@AquaGirl wrote:

Good Lord! If you threw a glass of that at someone’s head you would kill them.

:lol: It makes good water for RL cichlids. I would have thought your water would be similar.

It’s great to see you here, welcome to the forum!

Dennis

Hi Dennis,

Thank you for the welcome, you have a great forum and I’m happy to be here!

My water is actually not similar at all. PH 7.4, GH 7, KH 3, TDS 150. I also have Phosphates and Silicates which makes nice brown tanks if too large of a water change is done. :evil: I use a 40/60 RO/tap mix for the soft water tanks.

I add some crushed coral to bring up the PH for the shell dwellers and it works out good! :wink: I wouldn’t know how to cope with your water perimeters. :shock:

[BallAquatics]

@AquaGirl wrote:

…. PH 7.4, GH 7, KH 3, TDS 150….

That sounds like fantastic water for your new CPD’s right out of the tap!

I dilute my well water with rain water and keep the result as close to neutral as I can.

Dennis

[AquaGirl]

@ballpc wrote:

@AquaGirl wrote:

…. PH 7.4, GH 7, KH 3, TDS 150….

That sounds like fantastic water for your new CPD’s right out of the tap!

I dilute my well water with rain water and keep the result as close to neutral as I can.

Dennis

I sure am looking forward to receiving them. My friend bought me 6, at $6.00 each! :shock: Is that expensive? She said if that was too much to pay she would keep them herself…..fat chance! :lol: I will get them the end of next week, I’m stoked!

I had a chance to buy some around 6 months ago but the friend I was with wanted them more than me so I let him get them. They were $3.00 each. Sadly, he lost them all……knew I should have kept them myself. :twisted:

I remember reading that you used a rain water/well water mix. Did you have to register your water as a lethal weapon? :lol:

[BallAquatics]

@AquaGirl wrote:

My friend bought me 6, at $6.00 each! :shock: Is that expensive?

I have spent more, but that’s about the average price in the states.

I just got a dozen wild ones last week for $65 shipped. They were very young and very starved when they arrived. One DOA & another gone in the first 24 hours. They have been getting lots of daphnia & banana worms and are starting to look much better… 10 fish for $65 = $6.50 each

Dennis

[AquaGirl]

@ballpc wrote:

@AquaGirl wrote:

My friend bought me 6, at $6.00 each! :shock: Is that expensive?

I have spent more, but that’s about the average price in the states.

I just got a dozen wild ones last week for $65 shipped. They were very young and very starved when they arrived. One DOA & another gone in the first 24 hours. They have been getting lots of daphnia & banana worms and are starting to look much better… 10 fish for $65 = $6.50 each

Dennis

Hi Dennis,

Wild stock. :mrgreen:

Sorry to hear that you lost some. :cry: In the big picture it is good that most survived! I hate to hear that they were starved looking. Not feeding most likely means no waste…..less ammonia, better survival rate.

Banana worms? I never heard that name before. Could you please educate me?

I’m just glad to finally get some of these exquisite fish. Thank you for letting me know that the price was average retail rate.

[Author]

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