How to prepare my water

[Striken7]

Hello folks, first post here.

I'm in the process of researching for a new 20gal freshwater planted tank (my first setup since I had, and killed, a betta a long time ago). I'm going for low-tech & simple, since the tank will nominally be my young daughters. For now we'll be self-limiting to some hardy and easy to care for fish with some live plants. I will eventually be starting up the tank with a fishless cycle.

I live up in the Northeast and my water source is well water. I just received my Tetra EasyStrips Test Strips and am trying to figure what, if anything, I will need to do to my water.

I let the water sit out for about 6 hours and stirred it occasionally, based on recommendations I saw. The results showed no signs of Ammonia, Nitrates, Nitrites, or Chlorides. I have soft water (about 25ppm GH) with high pH (7.8-8.0). My alkalinity (KH) is also high, reading somewhere between the 180-300ppm marks on the strip.

Based on what I've read, I think I will need to regularly add nutrients to support the plants based on the softness (i.e. low minerals). I have read some problems with plant fertilizers spiking nitrates, which I will obviously want to avoid for the fish.

Ideally my pH would be a bit lower, but the high alkalinity means it will be very difficult to change, and most of the species I'm looking at seem like they will do fine in the range I have. It also does not seem like I will need a dechlorinator or any other chemical treatments.

So, what (if anything) should I be adding to my water? Am I correct about needing a good fertilizer? Any recommendations? Thanks!

 

[SaraB]

You can try some easier less needy plants (like anubias) to start off with, if they don't do well then yes definitely add a fertilizer. I use Flourish, it's high in iron (0.32%) with a lot of other minerals added. I think there's another one called Thrive you can try.
The majority of fish will adapt to your water parameters.
Good luck

 

[Striken7]

You can try some easier less needy plants (like anubias) to start off with, if they don't do well then yes definitely add a fertilizer. I use Flourish, it's high in iron (0.32%) with a lot of other minerals added. I think there's another one called Thrive you can try.
The majority of fish will adapt to your water parameters.
Good luck

Anubias is definitely on my list along with Java Fern. I'll take a look at both Flourish and Thrive, thanks!

 

[flitabout]

You can also add anacharis, amazon swords, crypts, vals and wisteria all do fairly well in low tech tanks. The strips are pretty crap you would be better off with an API master kit they are expensive but are accurate. I dose PPS-Pro for all of my tanks. I have city water but living in farm country we have super high nitrates straight out the tap. Which is why I like the PPS-Pro I just don't add the potassium nitrate to my macro bottle when I mix it. But honestly the truth is in my low tech set ups I only do root taps for the cryps and swords. I also dirt my tanks with a good organic soil mix that grows everything like mad and cap with sand.