Re: WATER pH/hardness/conductivity

[joel and angie wasdyke <joel_ang@visi.com>]

Bill,

I can tell you what I am doing for rams I am keeping.  I pull all of the
eggs so some of this information may be of limited use.

The tap water here in Minneapolis hard with a pH of about 8.2.  I mix
straight RO with about 5% tap.  Adding the tap water provides a little bit
of buffering capacity to the water.  I have found that any more tap pulls
the pH of the RO back up to 7.8 and is just about impossible to get down
without a lot of acid added. With the 5% mix I can keep the pH of the tanks
at about 6.0-6.5 with little difficulty.  This is maintainable even while
doing 10%-15% water changes on the pair tanks every 2-3 days.  On tanks that
I have ignored for a week or two the pH stays at the 6.0-6.5.  

On a side note, with a little intervention I was surprised to find out how
high the pH can get and still have a batch of ram eggs hatch.  I mixed too
much tap into the water of one of the pairs and the pH drifted up to 7.8.
Pulling the eggs and adding a double dose of meth blue allowed 30 to hatch
and grow out.  This result knocked a hole in the pH testing I did last year
to find the best pH for hatching rams.  At that time I was getting pretty
much a zero hatch, and survival rate, above 7.0.

Joel WasDyke



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