water hardness and pH problems

[Fishcatman]

Hello all. I am new to the hobby and new the to forum.
I have a wter quality question

so.. I have a 55 ga tank that I am preparing to have some rams and apistos in. I got the tank, established with 3 big cichlids that were fighing so I game then away and an preparing to start a new community. Right now I have some plattys, guppies and a few cardinal tetra, many plants.
I believe my tank has appropriate bacteria because my readings are

Ammonia 0-0.25
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20

OK my problem is water pH and hardness.

I live in the ohio river valley and the tap water is very hard (400+ppm) lots of ca++, the alkalinity is ~120, and the pH is 7.2.

so I would like softer, more acidic water for my dwarf cichlids coming soon, so I have been working on water chemistry.

originally my tank
pH 6.8
alkilinity 80ppm
total hardness ~400

I am glad the pH is on the low side (however I have no real good reason why)
but I wanted to decrease the gH, and possible increase the kH

so I did a 20% water change, which I thought would give me more kH,
I also go a "softener pillow" and put in the filter

today, by gH came down to 120, but alkalinity dropped to 0!! and pH dropped to 6.4

QUESTION- how do I gert my gH to be down. without dropping my alkalinity to 0??
I understand this is difficult to do especially with my tap water,
should I add pH up buffer stuff? or do more frequent water changes?

 

[chris1932]

Is this city water or well water? The pH dropped because the alkylinity is you're buffering capacity. It seems to me that the alkylinity has beed added at some time to raise and stabilize the pH "soda ash, caustic, anything with hydroxil ion" if the softner pillow resin is working on a sodium cycle it will have a prefrence for calcium this is a strong acid cation resin, if the resin is working on a hydroxil cycle it is going to have a prefrence for hydrogen first.
Did the conductivity change? Is it well or city?

 

[Fishcatman]

city water, and the pillow is on a sodium cycle.
Im just not sure why my pH drops to ~6.4 when my tap water is 7.2.
I know apistos like a pH of around this, but I dont want a crash either, I would like to keep the pH the same and jsut add a little buffer so if there is a changes, I wont drop. But I think if I add some buffer, wont my pH come up?
thanks fo the reply..

My the way, this is they guy you just sold apisots to. got them today, all intact and well!! thanks!

 

[chris1932]

Another possibility is that your buffering capacity is bicarbonate and carbon dioxide. If the carbon dioxide content is higher than the bicarbonate content, warming up the water and airation will drive off the carbon dioxide content and leave only bicarbonate behind. As the carbon dioxide os driven off it becomes carbonic acid in minute ammounts, thus the pH begins to drop. Test a sample of water right out of the tap. Then heat the sample of tap water and airate to 100f or so and run the same tests you would on the aquarium, on the water in the pot once it has cooled. If there is a change you're question answered itself. I would not worry about the water if it was me unless you plant to breed blackwater wild fish. Again if it was my tank I would add Caribean Sea "Agramilk"it will balance things out without adding a ton of carbonate hardness.

 

[chris1932]

Was the water in the bags still warm. I made the best insulated box I could?

 

[dw1305]

Water softener

Hi Fishcatman,
I'd much rather start with your hard water, rather than running it through the water softener. I can't see that exchanging the calcium ions (Ca2+) for sodium ions (Na+) is going to be anything but harmful to your fish, and I don't think it will make it any more suitable for soft water cichlids. As an analogy you've started with Lake Malawi and you've ended with something closer to Lake Victoria.

If you don't want to keep Central American or African lake cichlids? I think you need a source of less alkaline metal rich water, my tap water is similar to yours and I use rainwater for my Apistogrammas.

If I had to rely on my tapwater I'd keep some of the small (shell dwelling) lamprologine cichlids from L. Tanganyika, they're really interesting and show much of the same behaviour as the SA dwarf cichlids.

With your hard tap water, to breed even the less demanding Apistogramma sp. I think you need rain or RO water, which can be buffered with a small amount of your tap water (if necessary) when you change the water (I change 10% of the tank water every day).

cheers Darrel (in Bath)

 

[tjudy]

In my opinion and experience the only consistant way to reduce GH and KH is to use RO water. Your water is not too bad really. 400 ppm TDS is not 'off the scale' as far as hard water is concerned. THe pH of 7.2 is also very reasonable, especially with a KH of 12 which is buffering the pH up. I agree that the watr company is probably adding something to increase the KH. Your softener pillow pulls that out and the pH drops to 6.4... which is not bad either.

Here is one solution your can try. Age your water externally with the softener pillow... I would put it in an air-driven box filter in a 10 gallon carboy. Once the pillow has removed the excess GH and KH you do not want, remove the pillow and reconstitute the KH up to 2KH with a product like Kent Marine's Cichlid Buffer, which adds KH but will not change the pH. Adding a little KH will keep that 6.4 pH in place so there is a lower chance of a crash.

Or get an RO system and mix with your tap about 50/50... you would end up with about 200 ppm, KH 6 and a pH near 7.0.

 

[viejo]

I'm with Ted on this one.. There may be certain cases where messing with the pH & hardness is needed but for normal circumstances, it is much safer to use whatever water you have & do regular water changes. Breeding of some fishes can be problematic in water which is hard & /or alkaline, but I am thinking more & more that the problems are more related to a higher bacterial population than to actual water chemistry.

 

[Fishcatman]

thanks for all the great ideas, this is a great forum. I will dabble a little and let you know what happens!

Viego, could you explain a bit about what you meant about 'higher bacterial population'?? thanks

 

[Fishcatman]

Was the water in the bags still warm. I made the best insulated box I could?

Yes!!! perfect temp actually, not much different at all to my tank water. great idea with the heat packs

 

[KDF]

Interesting that this thread started just recently. I have a well established 36 gallon bowfront and am thinking about some triple red cacatuoides or some trifasciata (LOVE the crested dorsals). My problem also is hard water. I just bought an (API) KH kit last night (they didn't have one for GH) and the included chart shows 11 dKH and "ppm KH/GH" is 196.9....not sure what that means...
Fishcatman said his(?) was 400 and tjudy stated that that is not so bad. My pH is 7.4 from the tap.
So would these parameters be good for the above fish, or would you still suggest using RO/DI water? Is a DI system as effective as RO? I found this one on-line and also at some local chain pet stores:
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+4395+4484&pcatid=4484
OR am I completely crazy even wanting to put them in that size tank? I would love them to breed, but really just having a pair or more of them would satisfy me.
I am fine with keeping up with water changes, and could use RO/DI or rain, but not real keen on doctoring the water with additives, as I know this can make it harder on the fish and a pain to keep stable.
Thanks in advance, great site here!
Chris1932---I just emailed you today about your fish...just realized it was you! I am Kathy--also in PA

 

[chris1932]

Its funny that everyone thinks that the Na++ is going to kill fish. Its a simple replacment of ions as free radicals. I set up the water treatment for one of the most successful breeding operations in my area for Bev N and she is keeping Altum and breeding Discus and Apistogramma and Corydoras and the list goes on and on. I also would worry more about bacterial count. In a closed system bacteria multiply to cope with excess waste. In nature nitrification is almost absent because of the sheer capacity and turnover of the water bodies our fish live in when wild. Think of it as a 100% water change 1440 times per day.
The host / parasite relationship is thrown to the favor of parasite in a closed system as its life and reproduction cycle is many times greater than the fishes.

 

[chris1932]

KDF
I sent you an e-mail about the mixed bed canister.

 

[tjudy]

KDF... Your water chemistry is fine for Apistogramma cacatuoides 'triple red', which is a well established tank-strain color form that does well in harder water.

 

[dw1305]

De-ionised, Reverse osmosis and distilled water

Hi all,

KDF wrote: "Is a DI system as effective as RO? I found this one on-line and also at some local chain pet stores:
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...84&pcatid=4484"

The answer to this is involves a little bit of chemistry, when we talk about "water", we are not usually talking about pure H2O, the "solvent", but really about a dilute solution of various "salts" or "solutes", (often not just "salt" - sodium chloride - NaCl.)

"Salts" (A salt, in chemistry, is defined as the product formed from the neutralisation reaction of acids and bases. Salts are ionic compounds composed of cations (positively charged ions) and anions (negative ions) so that the product is electrically neutral (without a net charge)), many of these are soluble in H2O. When salts are dissolved in water, they are called electrolytes, and are able to conduct electricity. (all straight from Wikipedia)

D.I., R.O. and distilled water are all similar, in that what has happened is the ions, cations - Ca++, Na+ and anions PO4---, NO3- etc. have been removed.

R.O. water is created using a very fine semi-permeable membrane, the membrane is designed to allow only H2O to pass through this dense layer while preventing the passage of solutes, this happens across a pressure differential so that the solutes pass from a high solute concentration through a membrane to a region of low solute concentration (the reverse of the process of osmosis that would occur without the pressure differential, and therefore "Reverse Osmosis") .

De-ionised water has had the solutes removed in a physical process which uses specially-manufactured ion exchange resins which bind to and filter out the mineral salts from water. Because the majority of water impurities are dissolved salts "solutes", deionization produces a high purity water that is generally similar to distilled water, and this process is quick and without scale buildup. However, deionization does not significantly remove uncharged organic molecules (again straight from Wikipedia).

Distilled water has been heated, driving the H20 off as it's vapour ("steam"), and leaving behind the solute, (which may come out of solution "crystallize" as the volume of water falls, if the initial concentration was high enough "salt" - NaCl + traces of other compounds if its sea water, and "scale" CaCO3 if its hard "limestone" water). A distillation unit collects the steam and condenses it by cooling (usually a distillation unit splits the incoming water into 2 streams, one which is heated and distilled, and the other that flows around the outside of the condensing unit, cooling it). Also the sun heats oceans and the condensed water naturally distilled falls as rain, which may pick up solutes from the atmosphere, - C02, O2 etc.

There we are, enough chemistry and we can answer the question, yes the Dr Foster Smith unit will work, but if you have hard "solute rich" water it won't function for very long before the membrane is worn out and needs replacing.

cheers Darrel (in Bath)

 

[dw1305]

Sodium

Hi all,
I'm also interested in this one from chris1932.

"Its funny that everyone thinks that the Na++ is going to kill fish. Its a simple replacment of ions as free radicals. I set up the water treatment for one of the most successful breeding operations in my area for Bev N and she is keeping Altum and breeding Discus and Apistogramma and Corydoras and the list goes on and on."

Chris as you say this is a really successful operation with difficult soft water fish, but does it change a really large volume of water every day? or is it a drip through system? because otherwise I can't see how you can stop the conductivity (and Na+ ion conc.) from inexorably rising over time.

Here in the UK I do some work as a horticultural consultant, and softened water is a really common source of "unexplained" house/office plant death, where the levels of sodium and conductivity rise rapidly in the potting compost after the introduction of water softener unit, leading to plant death (nearly always Gardenia, Orchids and Azaleas initially), rather than the nutrient deficiency problems (chlorosis) you get with carbonate rich water. (This is the same effect you get in arid areas when the irrigation water is salt rich)

cheers Darrel

 

[Apistomaster]

I think as TJudy recommended that it is best to use RO water and tap water blend raather than simply using the cation water softener pillows. Accumulation of sodium is as detrimental as the magnesium salts.

The combination cation and anion filters may produce water as purified as that from a RO unit but at much greater cost per gallon.

 

[Bev N]

My two cents worth. Since your setting up a community tank and it doesn't sound like breeding is a priority I would not worry about the parameters. Keep it simple and just enjoy the fish. They are tank raised and should be quite happy in your tank. They may even breed. I have my 125 that just gets water that has been softened but I could not even tell you the ph. I haven't tested it in some time. I have some wild rams I got a year ago and catered to them with low ph, tannins, live food. They never spawned. Tossed them in the community tank and they and my domestic rams are spawning one after the other in there. I have a few other apistos and wild angelfish in there and they are all just fine and I have a few discus that may get added there also.

I would say that more important that hardness or ph for you would be water quality and good food. I would put more effort into giving them a varied diet than I would messing with the water.

That is just my humble opinion.

Bev

 

[bubbasnooki]

Hello all. I am new to the hobby and new the to forum.
I have a wter quality question

so.. I have a 55 ga tank that I am preparing to have some rams and apistos in. I got the tank, established with 3 big cichlids that were fighing so I game then away and an preparing to start a new community. Right now I have some plattys, guppies and a few cardinal tetra, many plants.
I believe my tank has appropriate bacteria because my readings are

Ammonia 0-0.25
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20

OK my problem is water pH and hardness.

I live in the ohio river valley and the tap water is very hard (400+ppm) lots of ca++, the alkalinity is ~120, and the pH is 7.2.

so I would like softer, more acidic water for my dwarf cichlids coming soon, so I have been working on water chemistry.

originally my tank
pH 6.8
alkilinity 80ppm
total hardness ~400

I am glad the pH is on the low side (however I have no real good reason why)
but I wanted to decrease the gH, and possible increase the kH

so I did a 20% water change, which I thought would give me more kH,
I also go a "softener pillow" and put in the filter

today, by gH came down to 120, but alkalinity dropped to 0!! and pH dropped to 6.4

QUESTION- how do I gert my gH to be down. without dropping my alkalinity to 0??
I understand this is difficult to do especially with my tap water,
should I add pH up buffer stuff? or do more frequent water changes?

hello there i have about 5 german blue rams in my 65 gal tank and my ph i try to keep below 7 nitrates you would also want to watch cause these fish can be sensitive to nitrate levels above 20 ppm hardness in the water should be sof acidic waters...KH should be above 50 ppm or in degrees about 3 or above but no more than 200 ppm or in degree about 12 ....well about GH which is your general hardness...should be keep low about no more than 100ppm best at 70-80 ppm or degree of 3-4....as suggestion about alkalinity or kh ...some use water buffers and some use baking soda or somewhat call it sodium bicarbonate .....i wouldnt recommend using baking soda becAUSE IT HAS THE TENDENCY TO BE UNSTABLE MEANING AT ONE TIME IT MIGHT BE AT A GOOD RANGE BUT EH=THIER DROP OR RAISE.. HAVE YOU TRIED PURCHASING AN RO SYSTEM...I BOUGHT A PORTABLE 150 GPD RO UNIT AND THE PRODUCT WATER COMES OUT AS ph 6.4/ gH 0/ KH 0...THE ONLY THING I DO IS ADD TRACE ELEMENTS AND MINOR TRACE ELEMENTS WHICH RAISES THE GH AND kH A BIT BUT NOT RAISE THE pH TO MUCH....AFTER ADDING THE TRACE ELEMENTS I GET ABOUT 6.6-6.8 IN pH AND A GH OF ABOUT 3 AND kH IS ABOUT THE SAME...THE WATER SOFTNER PILLOW ACTUALLY DID MORE WORK ON THE kH AND NOT ON THE gH...TO LOWER THE GH I WOULD JUST DO MORE WATER CHANGES AND USE ACTIVATED CARBON

 

[bubbasnooki]

hello there i have about 5 german blue rams in my 65 gal tank and my ph i try to keep below 7 nitrates you would also want to watch cause these fish can be sensitive to nitrate levels above 20 ppm hardness in the water should be sof acidic waters...KH should be above 50 ppm or in degrees about 3 or above but no more than 200 ppm or in degree about 12 ....well about GH which is your general hardness...should be keep low about no more than 100ppm best at 70-80 ppm or degree of 3-4....as suggestion about alkalinity or kh ...some use water buffers and some use baking soda or somewhat call it sodium bicarbonate .....i wouldnt recommend using baking soda becAUSE IT HAS THE TENDENCY TO BE UNSTABLE MEANING AT ONE TIME IT MIGHT BE AT A GOOD RANGE BUT EH=THIER DROP OR RAISE.. HAVE YOU TRIED PURCHASING AN RO SYSTEM...I BOUGHT A PORTABLE 150 GPD RO UNIT AND THE PRODUCT WATER COMES OUT AS ph 6.4/ gH 0/ KH 0...THE ONLY THING I DO IS ADD TRACE ELEMENTS AND MINOR TRACE ELEMENTS WHICH RAISES THE GH AND kH A BIT BUT NOT RAISE THE pH TO MUCH....AFTER ADDING THE TRACE ELEMENTS I GET ABOUT 6.6-6.8 IN pH AND A GH OF ABOUT 3 AND kH IS ABOUT THE SAME...THE WATER SOFTNER PILLOW ACTUALLY DID MORE WORK ON THE kH AND NOT ON THE gH...TO LOWER THE GH I WOULD JUST DO MORE WATER CHANGES AND USE ACTIVATED CARBON

what i would do is use r/o product water....add seachem cichlid salt not cichlid lake salt cause it is use for african cichlids....and see the water chemistry..it should raised the kh and gh a bit...keep ading unltil the desired levels show for kh and gh....making sure your Gh dont go higher than 5 or 100ppm..and keep your kh above 50ppm and no more than 200pm...if the the ph has increase alot above 7 then use seachem liquid acid buffer to decrease the ph level...another important thing to woory about is nitrates ..you said your nitrates are about 20ppm try to do a 50% water change the nitrates should be about 10ppm after..while doing this think about purchasing a portable ro unit...bought one and i just adapt it to my faucet...also if you water pressure is low on your faucet like below 35psi..i would recommend purchasing a booster pump to increase water pressure to about 50-80 psi...which is the recommended water pressure for most r/o units .....make sure when u buy a ro unit with a rating of 100 gpd to 150 gpd to purchase the 8800 series booster pump and not the 66oo booster pump made by aquatec