RO/tap water mix for vieja?

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FishKing5

FishKing5

Aimara
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Oct 24, 2013
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So I have some central and south Americans growing out together in the same tank for a while longer in my 125 and was wondering if doing an RO/tap water mix would be fine for the vieja. I'd like to get the water a bit more soft for the geophagus winemilleri and true parrots I have in the tank and thought getting the pH more around 7.0 would be good. Just want to make sure if I gradually do this to the tank, would the vieja melanura lago peten strain and vieja maculicauda do well in a tank with a pH around 7. My water is quite hard and want to provide the best for my fish. I have a RO unit that makes 55 gallons per day so was thinking of doing about a 70/30 RO to tap water mix. Any thoughts?
 
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Your vieja will prefer harder water, too soft it could cause them issues later on.
 
I would try and get them in separate tanks, trying to do a compromise is never the best thing
 
I agree with dan518 about a separate tank, Vieja are comfortable in liquid rock with pH above 7 into the high 8s, and may suffer when osmotic pressure is not high enough.
I also believe Vieja can be too boisterous, and may become too aggressive to be with Geos, especially the maculacauda, these are known to be very aggressive, and often enter the sea to feed on algae. Their aggressive attitude and tolerance for sea water may be some of the reasons they are one of the most wide spread Vieja (geographically) in Central America. I have never found them to be a good community cichlid, unless the tank was over 300 gallons.
 
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duanes said:
I agree with dan518 about a separate tank, Vieja are comfortable in liquid rock with pH above 7 into the high 8s, and may suffer when osmotic pressure is not high enough.
I also believe Vieja can be too boisterous, and may become too aggressive to be with Geos, especially the maculacauda, these are known to be very aggressive, and often enter the sea to feed on algae. Their aggressive attitude and tolerance for sea water may be some of the reasons they are one of the most wide spread Vieja (geographically) in Central America. I have never found them to be a good community cichlid, unless the tank was over 300 gallons.
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Ya these fish are actually just all juvies in a 125 growout tank at the moment and were going to be put in their own tanks when I'm able to set up the 300 gallon for the vieja and 180 for the South Americans but I have decided I'm going to be selling all my South Americans such as the geos and true parrots to a guy that would like to buy them and hopefully breed them and I'll just buy some fry off him sometime next year if he is successful. I definitely goofed up trying to grow all these fish out together in the 125 since the vieja are freak growers so I'm going to just raise the melanura and maculicauda in the tank and get rid of all the south Americans. I wish I could just set up a separate tank for them right now but am not able to at the moment but all is good. Really hoping this guy will be able to get some fry out of the true parrots since they're F1 generation fish and are looking awfully nice so far. But I'm not liking having to raise these fish in this busy of a tank and would rather someone raise them in their own tank with some softer water. Thanks you guys. Definitely have learned quite a lot this past few months. I've never raised juvenile fish like these, and was always a discus breeder or just had bought adult fish in the past but it's been a great experience thus far. I'll be just raising single species in their own tank for now on for the most part at least.
 
If it were me....personally.....I"d make the water right for my Vieja, and the SA cichlids could just hope for the best. But, that's me. :)

I have always steered well clear of altering water chemistry to keep fish. The only 2 types of water I would consider are 1--my water as it comes out my tap, and 2--pure RO/DI water as it comes out of a well maintained RO/DI unit.

Anything in between is VERY difficult to maintain consistently over long periods of time.

If you are going to do what you're asking about, mixing RO/DI water, you need to test water. A lot. Consistently. Both the water you're adding, and the water in the tank. Probably daily.

And more than just pH, too. Probably TDS, and GH, and other things, too.
 
I honestly think I proved a big reason for HITH developing as well. Overloading a fish tank with multiple species. Almost all my fish developed early signs of HLLE and I jumped on treating it ASAP with metro. They have now showed signs of the disease not worsening at all so that is good. I'm not treatint them with nitrofuracin green powder for the next 10 days to heal the wounds left from the HLLE bug my point is I truly believe these fish all developed this from being in a overcrowded tank. The weird part was that they all never acted sick and constantly ate every time I fed them so they never got to the stage of ever being truly sick or anything. Big time learning experience though.
 
ragin_cajun said:
If it were me....personally.....I"d make the water right for my Vieja, and the SA cichlids could just hope for the best. But, that's me. :)

I have always steered well clear of altering water chemistry to keep fish. The only 2 types of water I would consider are 1--my water as it comes out my tap, and 2--pure RO/DI water as it comes out of a well maintained RO/DI unit.

Anything in between is VERY difficult to maintain consistently over long periods of time.

If you are going to do what you're asking about, mixing RO/DI water, you need to test water. A lot. Consistently. Both the water you're adding, and the water in the tank. Probably daily.

And more than just pH, too. Probably TDS, and GH, and other things, too.
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Ya I'm definitely not going to mess with it. In actually going to just sell the winemilleri and true parrots to a breeder and hopefully buy the fry down the road. I do have F1 gymnogeophagus Rio Uruguay balzanii with Mt centrals that have been thriving so I'm going to keep them for now at least. They're actually tough little bastards. I'd rather make the tank space for my centrals rather then my South Americans anyways and will get the geos and true parrots again once I'm able to set up the 180 I have for them.
 
How many Vieja are you talking about? Just a melanurus and a BlackBelt? You have some other Vieja growing out, too?
 
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