Soft tap water

[SMIGUMZ]

I tested my tap water with an API gh/kh test kit and both test are 0-3. Is there any reason I would use R/O water or is my tap water ok? It also test neutral and I have driftwood and some moss balls to lower it to 6.5. I don't want to be over zealous but I think I'm really lucky. My tank (30g) should be done cycling in 3 more weeks or so. Are there any other things I should be looking out for? I'm planning on keeping a pair of cacatuoides. Thanks any input and advice is greatly appreciated. This is my first time keeping apistogramma

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I tested my tap water with an API gh/kh test kit and both test are 0-3. Is there any reason I would use R/O water or is my tap water ok? ........My tank (30g) should be done cycling in 3 more weeks or so. Are there any other things I should be looking out for? I'm planning on keeping a pair of cacatuoides. Thanks any input and advice is greatly appreciated. This is my first time keeping apistogramma

Have a look at <"Dwarf Cichlid Aquarium Care"> & <"All the Leaves are Brown">.

Your tap water is OK "as is".

If you mean cycling in terms of adding ammonia to the tank? stop doing it, if you mean letting the tank establish? just carry on.

If you don't have established filter material, with a new tank you can add some leaf litter and plants (floaters are ideal), make sure you have plenty of oxygenation and and after a couple of weeks your tank will be ready to add the fish too.

Plants and microbes are much more efficient then "microbe only" systems for biological filtration.

Have a look at <"Dwarf Cichlid Aquarium Care"> & <"All the Leaves are Brown">.

cheers Darrel

 

[SMIGUMZ]

Thanks for the info the articles are really good. I do have leaf litter in there already and I'm happy to know my tap water is not too good to be true. Thanks again

 

[SMIGUMZ]

This is how im looking so far

 

[themountain]

More wood and plants !!

 

[SMIGUMZ]

Okay I am adding more wood and plants. I was wondering are there anything inside my tank that would cause tds or gh/kh to increase?

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Okay I am adding more wood and plants. I was wondering are there anything inside my tank that would cause tds or gh/kh to increase?

It could only really be the gravel.

You may find that TDS will increase slightly over time if you don't change very much water.

What is the TDS at the moment?

I'm not a great gravel fan. Apistogramma are "Geophagine" cichlids and spent time sand sifting, making sand a better substrate, than gravel, for them.

cheers Darrel

 

[SMIGUMZ]

I was going to do sand but the book i was reading on apisto said very fine gravel is okay, I wanted to use sand but the owner of my LFS said do the gravel its better for the plants and there color will show better against the gravel. I guess I will chalk that one up to expierence and when I get my 120g up in running i will use the sand. The gh/kh API test i use says the tank is currently between 0-5 ppm kh and 50-100 ppm gh. Ph 6.6. Nitrite .25-.50 ppm. My tank is still cycling. My nitrites just spiked a few days ago and I'm just starting to see trace amounts of nitrate. I've been changing the water everyday sometimes as much as 70% to keep everything in check. I've made some changes to the landscape and added more plants and wood. I enclosed a pic of my tank and the book i boughtc. Thanks for helping the new jacks -SMIGUMZ

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I was going to do sand but the book i was reading on apisto said very fine gravel is okay, I wanted to use sand but the owner of my LFS said do the gravel its better for the plants and there color will show better against the gravel. .........

Sand is fine for plant growth, neither sand nor gravel has any nutrients in it, but you can always liquid feed the plants if growth ceases. I see you have some floating plants (every tank should have them), and you can use these as a visual indicator of when your plants need feeding. Details here <"Duckweed Index"> (towards bottom of the thread).

The gh/kh API test i use says the tank is currently between 0-5 ppm kh and 50-100 ppm gh. Ph 6.6. Nitrite .25-.50 ppm. My tank is still cycling. My nitrites just spiked a few days ago and I'm just starting to see trace amounts of nitrate.

Not every-one will agree, but I'd throw the test kits away.

I'm not "anti-testing" quite the opposite in fact, but the problem is that very few of the kits you can buy give you accurate and repeatable values. Nitrate is a particularly problematic to measure, even with lab. scale equipment.

The tank looks fine, keep on with the water changes, but a thing to bear in mind is that plant / microbe biological filtration systems can deal with much higher bio-loads than "microbe alone" ones. As long as your plants are growing you tank is "cycled".

"Linke and Staeck" is a good book, but it was published over 20 years ago. There is a review here: <"American Cichlids I: Dwarf cichlids">.

cheers Darrel

 

[gerald]

That's odd that your KH is now only 5% of your GH. I guess the acids produced by nitrifying bacteria must have used up most of the KH. What are the UNITS in the KH & GH measurements in your first post: "I tested my tap water with an API gh/kh test kit and both test are 0-3". I assumed they were in German degrees ( 1 degree ~ 18 ppm or mg/L). Is it possible that in your latest measurements (post #8) you gave us the KH value in degrees and the GH value in ppm (= mg/L)? If so, then GH and KH levels are still about equal, as they were in your 1st post.

If there's no gill-breathing animals in the tank (fish, shrimp) then no need to change water during cycling. You WANT ammonia and nitrite to stay high so that the bacteria that consume them will reproduce. (Or, just rely on fast-growing plants and forget the whole cycling thing).

Darrel - what's wrong with a 20-yr old book? My all-time favorite for reliable and practical advice is still William Innes's book from the 1930's.

 

[SMIGUMZ]

0-3 is 0-.50 ppm on the kh scale, I think the increase in kh was caused when I treated the water with a c02/carbonate additive, the water will soften up again as it depletes (Im assuming) I do have 10 zebra danios in the tank so that is why I am making water changes daily,

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

If there's no gill-breathing animals in the tank (fish, shrimp) then no need to change water during cycling. You WANT ammonia and nitrite to stay high so that the bacteria that consume them will reproduce. (Or, just rely on fast-growing plants and forget the whole cycling thing).

There are fish in the tank (Zebra Danio?).

Darrel - what's wrong with a 20-yr old book? My all-time favorite for reliable and practical advice is still William Innes's book from the 1930's.

It is a good book, I often refer to my copy. There is nothing wrong with the book in terms of the advice given, water parameters from the collecting sites in South America etc., it was only that it doesn't include all the newer species and some of the names have been updated.

I used to have a copy of "Exotic Aquarium Fishes", although probably an Axelrod edition rather than an Innes. I wouldn't mind an original Innes"Exotic Aquarium Fishes", although I suspect they are quite collectable now because of the plates.

cheers Darrel