GoldsGuy
Aquarium Advice Freak
Hello Everyone, First a history, I won my comets at a fair over a year ago. I didn't know anything about fish keeping and wanted to ensure I didn't do anything wrong, so I only used spring water in the tank. This wasn't a big deal as I initially had a ten gallon tank until I learned that would be too small. I upgraded to a 55-gallon. I continued using bottled filtered spring water. When I started to get diatoms I started to add RO water from the LFS. The RO is buffered to ph of 7.0. To add minerals I would add a few liters of bottled natural spring water. During my weekly water changes I used 15-gallons of the RO, the 3 liters of natural spring water and the remaining 5 or so gallons of filtered spring water. Using above my parameters have been consistent: Gh- over 200ppm Kh- 89.5 or higher Ph- 7.6 Ammonia - 0 No2- 0 No3- ranges from 5ppm to 30 ppm (Tank is planted) I plan on upgrading to a 150-gallon and using spring water will be expensive. I see on here that most use tap. I tested my tap and here is what I found: Gh- 125.3 Kh- 71.6 Ammonia - 1ppm No2- 0 No3- 0 My ph from the bathroom tap which I would attach a Python is 8.4 If I tested tap from my filtered kitchen tap the ph is 7.6 Question, does a filter really affect ph like that? And if I use the bath tap which is 8.4 would I run into issues? I would likely still use the RO. But use 20 gallons which again is buffered at 7.0. I would use Prime, but seems 1ppm of ammonia is high to start. Appreciate your expertise. My fish have never (knock on wood) had any issues and have grown beautifully. The biggest now is 5" excluding tail. The smallest is 3" excluding tail. I have four comets in total. Pond isn't an option as I live in a condo. Can I safely use my tap in place of the bottled spring water?
