Catappa Leaves / Indian Almond Leaves

[Andrew C]

Mindy
Great Panduro pictures.
I read an article at The Krib ,about A. Cacatuoides breeding in a grow out tank at 5 months of age.
Another pair i had, had some fry and the mother was leading the fry around the tank.
She had some stragglers not staying with the group, so she went and seperately sucked each one up in her mouth and went back to the group and let them out of her mouth, amazing stuff

Des
I get soft water from my tap, PH - 7.8, KH - 1, GH - 1.
The water authority must buffer the water for the PH to be so high, and also, the tap water is full of phosphates.

I would not get any buffering mixing my tap water with the RO Water to add some buffering back to it, normally use some Bi-Carbonate Of Soda for the KH and let my GH be.
The Bi-Carb buffers my waters PH at 7.8, whether i use a small drop or whether i use a lot, depends on the amount of KH i want in the water.

How would you treat my tap water after it came out of a RO Unit, to get my water to read; PH-7, KH-4, GH-4 ?
I know i would need RO Right, but what do you use for adjusting your KH ?
Waterlifes Humaquat can lower my tap waters PH to 6.6, but the water then has no KH, so i add some Bi-Carb to get the KH to one, but this then raises the PH to 7.3, so to get the buffering to at least three, my PH would be back up at 7.8.
PH-7, KH-4, GH-4 is what i am hoping i can possibly get with an RO Unit

[Des]

Andrew,
Here in London, the water out of the tap is approx ph 7.5-7.8, gh 16, kh 8 so it is ok to mix with RO, however with too much RO , you still get a ph crash, therefore the need for regular checks with the ph pen, which then means adding more tap water or doing more water changes with the RO mixed with tap water.
However in your case with the tap water almost offering no buffering capacity, I would use some form of ro-right instead.
A friend of mine who breeds a lot of different fish including catfish, uses the sera mineral salts AND sera Kh/PH plus to his RO water, which is mixed in a large water butt and aerated prior to use in his tanks. I have both but have not needed to use them. A lot of companies do the RO mineral mix but most are lacking in the KH buffering capacityand therefore require kh plus in addition.
Sera kh plus is comparitively expensive and have already suggested to my friend the use of Bicarbonate of soda. Will ask him, if he has used it instead , with the Sera mineral salts and whether this was sucessful.
Normally a gh of 4 would give a kh of 2, as kh is a constituent of gh. Why would you want both to be 4?. It would not be possible, unless the kh of 4 is the ONLY hardness in the water.
Discus breeders who use a gh of 1 find that their kh is approx 0.5.
Talking about apistos, I have a lovely pair of Aggassizi which should spawn soon (hopefully).
The other possible alternative is just to filter your soft tapwater through a carbon filter ( as used prior to the RO unit )and add kh plus and /or gh plus to it if required.

Regards,
Des.

Regards,
Des.

[Andrew C]

Des
Sorry, i never meant to put an emphasis on GH.
If i do adjust my GH, i use Epsom Salts, but wasn't sure what other people use.
I should have left the GH value at 1, i only put the value at 4, to see what you use to alter your GH as well.
Having a GH of 4, your KH should be about 2, didn't know that, will see what my zebras water storage tank is tomorrow.
So to get a low PH reading, you never have much buffering capacity (KH) in the water, even when using RO water.
Its just over time, kept reading articles about people keeping a low PH and also having a decent buffering capacity (3 to 4 KH) as well, which i have never been able to do

When i first started lowering the PH of my tap water, a fishkeeper i knew, told me that a minimum KH of three is needed to stop PH swings in the water, that 4, is actually better and that GH dosn't matter that much for keeping and breeding freshwater fish, so have always watched my KH, only occasionally checking the GH.

Been trying for a while to get a neutral PH reading for my tanks water, but with some decent buffering of around KH 3.
Can get one or the other, but never both together

Agassizii are nice apistos, i'm positive you'll get them to spawn.
Look forward to seeing photos of the fry.

Forgot to mention, i do any water tests in a storage tank

Thanks for all the help
Andrew.

[Andrew C]

Normally a gh of 4 would give a kh of 2, as kh is a constituent of gh.
Why would you want both to be 4?.
It would not be possible, unless the kh of 4 is the ONLY hardness in the water.
Discus breeders who use a gh of 1 find that their kh is approx 0.5.

Des
Measured my Zebras tank to night and the results are: PH - 7.8, KH - 5, GH - 5.
I didn't think there was a GH/KH relationship, and had a look around the net.
GH tells us how much Calcium and Magnesium there is dissolved in the water, where as, KH tells us how much Carbonates there is in the water.
Adjusting the Calcium and Magnesium, dos not affect the Carbonates, and vice versa.

http://www.aquariumpharm.com/articles/gh-kh.asp

Andrew.

[Des]

Hi Andrew,

Here is another link that might be useful
http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/hardness.htm
I have seen lots of Discus breeders/retailers use Limestone/calcium chips as that used in Marine Aquaria, in their filters to maintain the ph and hardness therby preventing a ph crash in soft water.

Regards,
Des.

[Andrew C]

Des
Thanks for the help.

Andrew.