Re: water hardness

[David Sanchez <barbax2@yahoo.com>]

Randy id like to further explore the use of chemicals
to get the right ionic balance. I have had this same
assumtion for many years as well. For me I use peat,
oak leaves, and chemicals to acheive this. I then let
the water sit or age. I find aging gives us the proper
ionic balance over time as it stabalizes.This you do
when your using RO, or other prepred water. But with
many Apistos they will still breed and produce healthy
fry.
 i OFTEN HEAR FOLKKS SAY YOU CANT USE PURE SOFT WATER
BECAUSE THE pH WILL BOUNCE ALL OVER THE PLACE. The
culprit poor ionic balance and lack of water changes.
So as your water ages it accumulates DOC's the
counductivity goes up and the pH tends to go down
because of the accumulation of Carbon. So to maintain
a stable pH we just have to keep things in balance. I
use very pure water an avg of 10-15 us/cm o DH, O KH,
and pH 4.5-6 but I change my water often so I dont
experience this problem. As more dissolved organics
accumulate over time they add more carbon and thus the
pH tends to go down because of this shift in the
balance of Carbon. As we recall from Biology 101 all
organic coumpounds have Carbon. Folks with a pH bounce
problem should check their KH as this controls their
pH a low o KH water gives us the ability to lower our
pH to 4.5 and so on. My suggestion is to get some good
meters and test your water and see what it does at
such and such a KH, what pH value do I get? etc. Learn
to work with your water and your limitations.


I have a well with 10-15 us/cm water, 0 DH, pH 4.5
this water gives me almost 100% success the first time
no egg eating. With Tetras and Killies this well water
is superior as is naturally soft water i have
collected from streams. I have a buddy that breeds
Apistos, Killies and Tetras and he is using pond water
from his back yard pond with great success. I allude
to what Randy said though folks dont worry to much
about this because Apistos spawn in spite of all this
there very easy to spawn. I do have evidence from my
own experiments that DOC's such as pollutants such as
nitrate, ammonuim, nitrite, decaying food, urine etc
cause the water quality to deteriorate. Keep in mind
the Nitrogen cycle only deals with protiens so theres
a whole lot more we dont know! Thats why I feel
measuring the counductivity is paramount. I have found
a direct correlation in my experiences to DOC's and
thus water quality for Apistos, Killie and Tetras
eggs. The hatch rate goes down as the DOC's go up and
I bet the bacteria levels go through the roof as well.
In nature our amazonian friends come from very pure
water with very little doc's and low bacteria levels.
I read an article on bacteria leverls in an aquarium
as opposed to nature and it was astonishing. So much
work to be done here. But I do feel this holds the
key.

Dave


--- Randy Carey <carey@spacestar.net> wrote:
> I'll add to what Mike and David said.
> 
> Yes, R/O Right adds the ionic content that its
> company has chosen.  For 
> Apistos, which are relatively easy to induce to
> spawn, this should not be a 
> problem.  I do know that some very challenging
> species (Rummy-nose) 
> requires the right combination/ratio of ions to
> increase the likelihood of 
> them spawning and of the fry surviving.  So I have a
> collection of basic 
> chemicals (CaSO4, MgSO4, CaCl, KCl,...) that, in
> theory, allow me to 
> produce just the right ionic balance.  I don't use
> this method often, but I 
> have played with it a bit.  But again, for Apistos,
> a little R/O right 
> should work for most species.
> 
> An R/O unit removes most everything, but it is not
> quite pure like DI water 
> is.  I, too, often use pure r/o water for certain
> tanks with no 
> problems.  The acclimation, though, should be
> somewhat gradual -- I've lost 
> fish from the abrupt change.  But I think that
> straight r/o works because 
> some of the "impurities" are still present.  What
> would be shocking is to 
> use straight DI water on a regular basis with no
> ill-effect.
> 
> David is right about the waters found in the native
> streams.  Look at some 
> of the charts in good aquarium books and you'll find
> super low 
> conductivity, and pH reading that, in some
> localities, fall to the low 4's 
> and even below.  Regarding my take on low pH: 
> http://characin.com/carey/articles/98/how_low.html
> 
> --Randy
> 
> 
> 
> At 04:50 AM 10/4/2001, you wrote:
> >Hi All,
> >just curious, How does one get their water down to
> a trace hardness 
> >without adding strait RO? I heard adding strait RO
> was a bad thing. My 
> >logic says that if there is already 150ppm then
> adding strait RO would 
> >bring it down. Is my logic wrong?
> >                                                   
>         JerryB
> 
> 
> 
>
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