If you were to prepare distilled/RO/etc water for a community aquarium ...

[trennamw]

... What would you do?

I ask because our LFS was saying "Wow your water is soft even for Portland" and that I'm "pretty much gonna have to do what RO users do", and I prefer to gather lots of info and opinions before I buy any (more) water treatment stuff.

I knew I had "extremely soft" water, but today I used distilled water to dilute things down and get a more accurate reading. At this point I know it's 0.1 degrees each GH and KH, if not less.

I'm cycling a 29 gallon and am not extremely confident I have a good plan for water quality, and particularly water changes. Especially as i learn more about osmotic stress and TDS.

I have reached some stability with a 3 gallon Betta tank but I still don't know what is making that work, and whether I'm handling water changes well.

Using acid & alkaline buffers led to wild swings, so I followed a suggestion to use Cichlid salts & buffer in a smaller dose. I still was getting big swings in KH and therefore pH. So the LFS who'd agreed the Ciclid products were a good first step suggested some coral. A handful of that stabilized the betta tank.

Since I don't understand it all well, when I change the water in the betta tank I add some of the Ciclid products, and I stick a tiny bit of coral in that jug and shake it all. Because it's a small amount of water and chemicals can get dangerous, before I pour it in I test the tank and the new water for matching pH, GH, and KH (don't have a TDS meter yet). He does get a touch of salt too; the time I tried to go without it he seemed unhappy and the fin rot began again.

But now it's a big tank and I'm pretty nervous. I keep seeing instructions to add the new water to the tank and then add whatever buffer to it. But for people using RO water, would you take half the tank water out, put in RO water, then dose it?

Or am I just going to have to keep Discus instead? LOL

(The sketch at this point is having danios, dwarf versions of Pencilfish Cories and loaches, pristella, and sparkling gourami).

 

[threnjen]

Just add in the new water and add any remineralization stuff into the filter. Like if it's an HOB just open the top and put it into the pump side and it will get pumped out and distributed.

Baking soda is a bad long term kH booster as it will be continually used up but only the carbonate part. The sodium part will remain and result in constant sodium buildup. Which is constant TDS buildup of something useless. The long term kH booster is crushed coral, limestone etc. The cichlid buffer is not a great idea.

When you do a water change just take half out, put in new water, and dose it.
You're not going to need much remineralization unless you go into plants. Even still I don't add much. I only add enough remineralization to go up to 100 TDS base which is still "soft". I don't like to alter water chemistry more than I have to. I know you're nervous and starting out but it's really not a big deal.
The usual recommended RO mineralizer is Seachem Equilibrium, not sure how it differs from the cichlid salts.

You're making yourself very stressed over things that are not a big deal And my water comes out at 12 TDS. It IS like RO water. You saw how healthy and active my fish are (with a little bit of remineralization). Everything is going to be fine.

 

[trennamw]

Good thank you. The Wet Spot guys I've talked to were acting like it'd be a lot to deal with. They looked surprised when testing my water both times I went in and told me even for Portland it's weird water so I got all stressed again.

How do you suggest I transition from the cichlid salts and buffer, to just coral? Especially for the betta. Also, there's no more room in the filters. The coral is in a sock in the main tank for both tanks.

You were telling me to shoot for 3 "drops" right? Is that both KH and GH? After the cycle is over.

 

[threnjen]

You should get a TDS meter. They are only $15 on Amazon and it takes 2 seconds instead of several minutes to tun a test. It's also a more comprehensive number than the gH test will give you. It is much less of a pain than running gH.
I don't know what is so weird about your water, our whole suburb area is from the same water table, so it can't be the first time. World of Wet Pets assuredly is on our water table.
If you have coral in the tanks already, you should be getting some "bonus" from that by now. Is it just not enough? You might just need a little more.

Also once you have a sense of how much to remineralize, you won't need to run checks all the time. You'll know exactly what to add with a 50% water change.

 

[trennamw]

Tds meter is on it's way. I'm very excited!

I'm in an odd little spot of the far west side, much of our utility systems aren't quite the same as everyone else's. Getting DSL was a nightmare lol. The most local Petsmart said our area is soft year round while others are less so? Who knows. I imagine none of the water in our area is that different.

Anyway. While I wait for the tds meter to arrive I'd like to see what I can manage with more crushed coral. No it doesn't do enough on it's own so far and my filter is really full but maybe if I take out the bio balls?

For me to experiment a little till the meter comes, what GH KH and pH do you suggest for a community tank with our water? My thought is it seems to "like" being under 7 pH. And the best temp will be 75 according to aqua advisor, based on the fish I want.

 

[trennamw]

And can I just mix some crushed coral into the substrate? I'd like to use it alone but this isn't pretty and again the filter is full ...

 

[trennamw]

Looked up the MSDS info finally, still not full info on what is in the Cichlid Salts & Buffer ...

Cichlid Salts, Calcium Chloride and a large percentage of unnamed "nonhazardous" stuff. Perhaps just fillers to make it easier to measure (and that probably raise TDS without any benefit to the fish?) http://www.apifishcare.com/pdf/470_...SVendors_2014_February_06_03-46-57-966_AM.pdf

Cichlid Buffer is 100% mystery product. Apparently it's not hazardous (to humans) so they don't have to tell us. The label says something about carbonates, bicarbonates, and borates.

http://www.apifishcare.com/pdf/420_...SVendors_2014_February_14_04-18-59-245_AM.pdf.

Equilibrium was something I originally read about but couldn't find as easily; I do like that I can see what's in it.

I cut off a chunk of the seeded filter media to make room for more crushed coral (and to give the betta tank a piece of the seeded filter; his water doesn't get ammonia-y but good bacteria are always welcome right). So now there's about half a cup in the HOB filter, just loose in the bottom, and another handful in the stocking in the tank. I may be able to do a big water change tomorrow night, so I have a few days to see what I can accomplish with just the coral. If Wet Spot has Equilibrium I can get that when I get fish.

 

[trennamw]

I changed water last night, pretty much all of it. Then added more coral. Think it's about 2 cups total now. I let the tank run overnight, KH was 3 drops this morning on API test. Good to know. That's with a lot in the filter and one sock in the tank dangling by the filter output.

So I dosed with buffer to get through the cycle, and I'll spill the sock on the aquarium floor because the sock is ugly, and if it goes up too much (hard to do at 3 degrees) I'll remove some from the filter.

I think the cichlid salts and buffer buffer are an ok answer to soft water as I'd been advised, but I get that you don't want to spend tds on stuff that doesn't seriously benefit the water, and the coral and equilibrium are better. Like swapping the cheap food for the good stuff.