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Who uses R/O RIGHT salt additions how much you using?

I just recenty bought some RO RIGHT.
http://www.aquariumguys.com/roright250gm.html

At suggested levels ...1 teapoon/10 gal my my gh is only 1 and KH is 0.
The directions cautions you not to greatly exceed the recomended levels, even if you test kit says otherwise.

My tds indicates 210 ppm at 1 tsp/10galof RO right

I currently keep my tank at 180 - 200 tds with tap and RO water mixed. I want to use striclty RO and add my own salts, as my water here very hard and alkaline.

I have never tried RO right so I don't know. I use RO water to which I add back a bit of tap water and use a mineral additive mixture that a shop down in Dorset make up. It works OK for me. I also keep a small amount of crushed coral in a net bag near the filter to help maintain buffering capacity in the water.

My tapwater has 0 GH and 0 KH. The adults cope well with this, but the babies do not!

See What's wrong with my baby

As for too hard water, we still don't know if certain deformities comes from this...

CDNAqua wrote:I want to use striclty RO and add my own salts, as my water here very hard and alkaline.

I wouldn't use only RO, is has no minerals in it at all from what I understand. Seems to me your tapwater sugests a mix of the two.

Barbie uses RO, I'm sure she can fill in with correct information. Otherwise there's plenty of threads discussing RO on the forum already.

McEve wrote:My tapwater has 0 GH and 0 KH. The adults cope well with this, but the babies do not!

As for too hard water, we still don't know if certain deformities comes from this...

CDNAqua wrote:I want to use striclty RO and add my own salts, as my water here very hard and alkaline.

I wouldn't use only RO, is has no minerals in it at all from what I understand. Seems to me your tapwater sugests a mix of the two.

McEve Perhaps you misread my statement. I stated I was going to add my own salts. This would not be using strictly RO.

I live in the Canadian Rockies. (lots of limestone in them ROCKIES)
My PH/KH/GH are through the roof. I have seen my TAP water raise from 7.8 - 8.9 in 24 hours.
I have been mixing tap with RO for quite sometime. It takes about 3 days to stablize with rebounds and corrections with about 200 ml of acid/50 gal barrel.. to bring down the ph to 6.5 - 6.8 This is too much Toiling, acid and time for me.
THis is why I want to reconstitute my water from scratch with salts/RO right or a similar product. I certainly wouldn't use straight RO for any fish.

I can see I misread your post. Maybe this link could help out? I can see there's a lot of hassle with what you have to do now

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/pic/artic ... 21&aid=842

Barbie wrote:You could always just stop lowering the pH . Your zebras will not care, honestly. If you're using a tiny amount of tap water to raise your kH to 1 degree and allowing it to stabilize for a day or two in advance before you use it, it should stay relatively low. You can use RO Right and other pH "setting" products but I am not sure that anyone on the forum is using them with any success, it would be interesting to hear about if they were...

Barbie

Hello again,
Glad to see your 2 cents worth Barbie.



I agree it would be interesting hear about, and its something Im working on. Perhaps once Dom gets his Ebay TDS he will be able to shed some light on the subject further. Cheers Dom

Plastic Mac is currenty using R/O Right and it is working for him. He did mention he added a little Bi-carb to raise kh a bit. He was unable to comment on TDS due to not having a meter at the time.


IMHO..using todays technology of PH/TDS meters in conjuntion with other reliable tests kits +++n EXPERIMENTATION... I see no reason we can't come up with a simple Salts Formula/recipe for RO or demineralized water to represent each season.

After all R/O and Demin.. water is nearly the same where ever you live, whether it be UK, Canada or the USA.

After reseaching R/O right and some TDS mesasurements of my own.
My R/O water starts at 10 -20 ppm.
Im thinking along the lines of somewhere between 250ppm- 300ppm TDS @ 85° -86° for the dry season.
Rainy season @ 78°- 82° with TDS around 90ppm-125ppm.
These TDS figures are just ball park and would be only for Kent R/O RIGHT salt additive.

Of course the above TDS measurements are/would be for Zebs that have NOT yet spawned and perhaps need the big swing in TDS to get them going.
As we all know that once Zebs have spawned, a cooler W/C is usally all it takes.

One last Note:
Going from the dry season to rainy season(stimulating) should be done over a few water changes when toying with salts.

Anyone else care to chime in? The more input the better.


Troy

I've heard varying suggestions; but most say perform a cool, low pH water change and that should do it. Even better if you do it on a rainy day as the atmospheric pressure should drop also. But my only concern is that should you raise the temperature right away or wait a couple of days after the cool water change?

For the TDS, I think you should wait until it goes to about 400 or more. Use 300ppm water and then stop doing WC's for a month, let the water slowly evaporate, raise the temperature and even slow down the flow (stop the powerheads). This is your typical dry season. Leave the aquarium for maybe two days. Next take out 50% of the water and then fill it with cool (6-8 degrees cooler than tank temperature), low TDS water, increase circulation and oxygenation. There's your typical rainy season. Maybe you should leave the temp at 76F for a few days and then slowly raise it to 85F. Then just hope for the best.

But don't take my word for it, I was just contemplating this idea as I was planning on using it when I get my breeding colony someday.

BTW, RO Right only increases gH. Aim for at least 3 gH and 5 kH using baking soda. Then use 1 kH and 1 gH water for the rainy season water. Just keep an eye on the kH, that is what fluctuates the most and it could cause problems if it goes too low. Especially since it slowly decreases overtime from the biological processes in the aquarium.

Good luck!