Importance of Hardness?

[MagicAfra]

Whenever I go to the LFS they tell me that hardness is important for a planted tank. They are selling Reverse Osmosis water and I was wondering how important you might think this is?

Currently, my newest plants are at least two months old which means that they can survive in my tank. They are not dying, but they are not growing very fast either, in fact they look like they hardly change. Might it be the hardness of my water?

I do not really want to pay for water every time I do a water change. I have thought of using:

Dehumidifier water- but they might have copper and airborne toxins.

Rain/Snow water- air pollution, although this seemed better I am still not sure about it.

I have:
Java Fern
Java Moss
Amazon Sword
Cryptocoryne Windtii
Vallisneria
Sagittaria
Myrophyllum Tuberculatum- red water milfoil

 

[Rivercats]

Have you ever done a GH or KH testing on your tank? That is what tells you exactly how hard or soft your water is. You really don't need RO for the plants you have. I have some plants that won't grow well if at all without soft water so I have my own countertop RO unit. Don't waste your money. One thing tho... what is your lighting, how many hours do your run them, do you use any fertilizers, and lastly do you use liquid carbon (Excel)? All these things can be reasons that your not seeing any growth in your plants.

 

[MagicAfra]

I do not remember the results I got when I did the test at the LFS but it was really high.
I have test strips and the water maxes them out which means that they are at least 425 ppm hardness. Marked very hard, although I don't know what that equates to and I'm pretty sure it is quite higher than that.

I have a large piece of driftwood but it didn't seem to change much. I received Myro without roots quite a while ago and none of it have grown any roots at all. They just float at the top.

I am using:
Natural Gold fertilizer- at somewhat higher than the prescribed dose.
Liquid Carbon Excel
Homemade light- two 5000k daylight spectrum, 100watt equivalent each, lights on for 9hrs

What does this mean?

 

[Daxhua]

I purposely keep my planted tanks hardness at 500+ with wonder shells that slowly add calcium and magnesium that is beneficial for fish health and plant growth. At one time my plants weren't doing much either but I discovered it had to do with the lack of macro and micro ferts. Straight RO water can be bad for both plants and fish unless it is replenished with minerals and nutrients. Don't get coned into buying an RO unit because of their misunderstood info. I'm not saying you can't have a successful planted tank with RO water but there's more to it than having pristine water.

 

[BBradbury]

Your Tank Water Chemistry

Whenever I go to the LFS they tell me that hardness is important for a planted tank. They are selling Reverse Osmosis water and I was wondering how important you might think this is?

Currently, my newest plants are at least two months old which means that they can survive in my tank. They are not dying, but they are not growing very fast either, in fact they look like they hardly change. Might it be the hardness of my water?

I do not really want to pay for water every time I do a water change. I have thought of using:

Dehumidifier water- but they might have copper and airborne toxins.

Rain/Snow water- air pollution, although this seemed better I am still not sure about it.

I have:
Java Fern
Java Moss
Amazon Sword
Cryptocoryne Windtii
Vallisneria
Sagittaria
Myrophyllum Tuberculatum- red water milfoil

Hello Magic...

Plants prefer acidic (lower pH) water, but like fish, will adapt to most public water supplies. Your plants will do best if you keep the water pure, by removing and replacing large amounts of tank water weekly. This will maintain healthy levels of nitrates, phosphates and sulfates.

Check your lighting to make sure it's enough for your particular plants and dose a good plant fert a couple of times a week. I generally dose when I top off the water lost to evaporation.

I don't get creative and use special water or anything. Doing this might cause a sudden change in the water chemistry and that could cause problems for your fish and plants.

Just a couple of thoughts.

B

 

[tim_s]

Reverse Osmosis is going to strip the water, you will need to add elements back into the water. Others have touched upon - low pH etc.

My question is, are they recommending you reduce how hard the water is or they would like you to increase it?

perhaps their is some confusion with GH?

 

[Rivercats]

Okay first off your Myrophyllum Tuberculatum just needs to be planted in the soil and it will develop roots. Then as it grows taller you can cut it, replant the cut tops to get more plants, and the bottoms will grow and often times split into 2 stems at the cut site making it bushier.

The swords and crypts especially need to have root tabs as they draw most of their nutrients from thier roots. It also won't hurt to put a couple root tabs by the other plants. Val's at least in my tank grow slow so that doesn't worry me.

Test strips don't tend to be very accurate IMO. It's best to use liquid test kits. API makes a test kit that includes liquids for doing both KH and GH testing seperately. That is a much more accurate reading to go by. None of the plants listed are ones that have to have soft water to grow. I try to keep my KH and GH both around 4. That is mildly soft and all my plants grow well in this range. A couple things you can try is depending on what type filter you have you can add some peat moss, also using blackwater extract, Indian Almond leaves, and to a point DW (which works exceedingly slow if at all depending on the age and type of the wood).

Another thing is up your Excel dosage slightly. Use about an extra 1/4 more than your using now. It is safe and if you read the bottle it actually says you can up dosages slowly for heavily planted tanks or high light tanks. I have to use a higher dose in my 220g due to high lights and tons of plants.

Try some of the above suggestions and see if your plant growth improves. Can you read your liquid fert and see if it has both macro and micro nutrients in it. It should but different brands often times use different ingredients. But keep dosing how your doing it. Do add root tabs and plant your stem plants. Also when planting them leave about a 1/2 inch or alittle more between each stem you plant. I have Myro T and the leaves can open fairly big so you don't want to crowd the stems when planting so they get light in their lower stem.

 

[aqua_chem]

Some high demand plants will require soft water, but most will do fine in liquid rock, assuming your fundamentals are sound (light, carbon, ferts, etc).