JK47;4115583; said:The RO essecially strips the incoming water including minerals your fish need to survive. That is why you must mix with treated tap to reconstiture (replenish the minerals) the RO water. It will not leave a color in the water but IMO that is a shame. I love tannins and throw out wood when it stops leaching.Remember though, PH is only an indicator of overall hardness. (kh, gh, TDS). Most people do not test for these values so they have been taught to use PH as the goal. In a true blackwater environment, the PH can drop as low as 3.5 - 5.0 very easily because the hardness is so low. It's up to you to decide how "black" you want your system by researching the needed PH range of your stock and mixing around those needs.
I ran some test strips of Las Vegas tap water. Considering the strips are not extremely accurate nor do they have acute measurements the following are the results:
Nitrate: 0
Nitrite: 0
PH: 7.8 (I even called multiple LFS just to get a range of readings from their tests. One reported a PH of 8.6!)
Alkalinity: 240 ppm
Total Hardness: 425 ppm.
Vegas water is HARD as heck. I think I have decided on Oscars, Silver Arowanas, knife fish, and a shovel nose cat. Foster and Smith's Liveaquaria website gives most of these fish a general ph range from 6 to 7. Sounds like lowering my PH and hardness with RO water would be beneficial if I can keep it constant. I think I may also use peat moss to get some color. JK47, I previously kept salt water and clear water looks best there. However I have been adding some almond leaf extract to my Fluval Edge with my betta and the look is beginning to grow on me
.I preveiously referenced wet web media and they told me that denitrifying bacteria begin to diminish when ph is lower than 7.5 and is non-existent under a ph of 6. Anyone experience this with really low ph blackwater?
