The Question of Buffers

[vialznk]

Hi everyone,

This is a question to all you experts out there.

I own a 29g freshwater heavily planted tank, low tech, with 6 harlequin rasboras (so far, stocking slowly) running for about 6 months now. It's going to have a soft water SE Asian fish and plants, pretty much a SE Asian biotope. My tap water is a stable 7.6 hardwater with quite a bit of phosphate in it as evidenced by the battle I have been fighting with algae in my tank .
All my time as an aquarist I have been using dechlorinator conditioned tap water in all my tanks, and I do own a Coralife ro/di unit that I haven't found the time, to set up and figure out, but I figured it should do the trick in this situation.
Now my decision is to use 100% rodi water with a comercial buffer. The problem is that most buffers I've seen on the market have PHOSPHATE as the primary buffering agent. Can you guys tell me what you do on your planted tanks? Do you use a comercial buffer w/o phosphate that I haven't been able to find or do you alchemy your own formula?

Thanks you all! Cheers

 

[Keybler]

i'm also having trouble buffering my water. can't seem to find any good information sources. Seems like alot of people don't use rodi water for fresh water, I have no choice but to use it.

 

[BillD]

Baking soda will buffer water at an alkaline pH. Most people who use RO water mix it with tap, so don't need to use a buffer.

 

[jetajockey]

i just add a sprinkle of dolomite powder CaMg(Co3)2 to bump up the GH

 

[adeebm]

If you're using pure R/O you'll need more than just a buffer. you'll have to replace all the micronutrients lost as well. I'd look into the Seachem line if that's what you want. They have a good phosphate free buffer, etc. Most people don't want to deal with the hassle of using full RO water though.

Are you sure your water contains phosphates? Most phosphate test kits are inaccurate, and algae can by caused by any number of things. If phosphates really are your problem, another choice is running a phosphate remover in the filter, like chemipure elite or phosban. It's usually used in SW tanks but would help here too.

--Adeeb