I agree with that for sure. I was unaware until after the fact that the pH affected this species so much. My own failing to research beforehand since I assumed they’d be the same or similar enough to other Heros I’ve had that it would be fine. Hence why I’m doing everything I can to fix it and maintain a better environment now. Luckily it’s not bad on my guy, just need to lower those parameters and promote healing.
Severum Care Help
- Thread starter Attic_Octopus
- Start date
My GH and KH are nearly undetectable with a reading of 2 using the API liquid tube kit.
If you have hard water or moderate hard with some alkaline, peat moss can help lower your pH unless you have a rodi system
If you have hard water or moderate hard with some alkaline, peat moss can help lower your pH unless you have a rodi system
That’s good to know. I’m gonna have to buy peat moss to add. I don’t have a system but I do have a lfs nearby that I get ro from at least once a week.
If, like Roger, your GH and KH are very low, peat, or the addition of leaf litter, can really have positive effects.
If like mine, your water GH and KH resist changes, that's another matter.
At one point, as an experiment, I added almost a bushel of almond leaves, to my 300 gal system, almost totally covering the subsrate,
yet the pH and alkalinity barely budged.
Even though the hard water in my tank turned the color of strong tea, the pH dropped from 8.2 to orly 8.
I also use lots of driftwood, that would supposedly alter water parameters, but if alkalinity is high enough, that water with fight tooth and nail to resist any and all suggestion of change.
This is where an RO unit become crucial, coming in handy, for many fish keepers that want species like Altum angels, Uarau fernadenseepezi or Heros liberifer, from low mineral content rivers such as the Rio Negro of Orinoco.
For me, with such high hardness, and high alkalinity, an RO unit would seem too wasteful, so I opt for species that are already adapted to liquid rock.
I sometimes amazes me that cetain rivers where I collect in Panama, look like they should be low pH, and soft water, but yet test out to be quite the opposite.
If like mine, your water GH and KH resist changes, that's another matter.
At one point, as an experiment, I added almost a bushel of almond leaves, to my 300 gal system, almost totally covering the subsrate,
yet the pH and alkalinity barely budged.
Even though the hard water in my tank turned the color of strong tea, the pH dropped from 8.2 to orly 8.
I also use lots of driftwood, that would supposedly alter water parameters, but if alkalinity is high enough, that water with fight tooth and nail to resist any and all suggestion of change.
This is where an RO unit become crucial, coming in handy, for many fish keepers that want species like Altum angels, Uarau fernadenseepezi or Heros liberifer, from low mineral content rivers such as the Rio Negro of Orinoco.
For me, with such high hardness, and high alkalinity, an RO unit would seem too wasteful, so I opt for species that are already adapted to liquid rock.
I sometimes amazes me that cetain rivers where I collect in Panama, look like they should be low pH, and soft water, but yet test out to be quite the opposite.
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