Soft/acidic water and plants

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Pyramid_Party

Pyramid_Party

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Aug 6, 2008
4,916
4
68
Monterey, CA
Hey guys,


How would plants react to soft and acidic water? All my plants live in hard/alkaline. But I was thinking of turning one of these tanks into a breeding tank. And I am thinking about breeding some ram cichlids. Also whats the best way to achieve lowering the PH and hardness? What would be a good way to keep it stable? And what about water changes? Oh and will soft and acidic be bad for MTS?
 
With hardness like that RO is the most consitant way to avoid fluctuations. Pre-mix it like saltwater. Makes WC's a pain but it's not that bad on tanks under 125 gallons. If you go too far acidic you will start killing off certain species of plants. There is very little aquatic plant growth in blackwater systems.

BTWI've bred rams in PH 7.6. Farm raised rams (99.9%) of blue rams in the hobby are far less affected by hard water. Quality is another story. High temps 82+ and very low disolved organics are mandatory if you want them to spawn often.
 
Sorry I am unfamiliar with RO water and the process. Could you explain what a routine might be like? At what range should I avoid that is too acidic/soft for plants? Given my pH and harness listed, do you think I can breed and raise rams? And what's the difference with quality?
 
You will need an r/o unit obviously and a large place to store water. What size tank? I had a population explosion with mts in my discus tank. Ph 6.8. A mix of ro/tap 50/50 would probably level your ph to a decent parameter. My tap is 8.4 nad a 50/50 blend drops it to about 7.4ish. I get the rest of the ph drop from an Indian almond leaf extract i make and driftwood. I love lots of dw. Ram quality is a good strain to start with just like any other fish. Look for young rams with loads of color. My typical water change for my discus consists of a 55 gallon drum with a float valve at the halfway point. then the rest is topped with tap. I have a well so no need for prime etc. Mix the water let it sit a few hours with a airstone, temp it and pump into tank via submersible pump after adding my extract and stabalizing ph. This is only for my discus tank. With my SA tank I drain and fill with tap its a 180 so its a slow process. 50-60% wc doest crash the ph too much a few 10ths of a point. I think most plants have a broad enough range and can accept most ph. Thats what I found anyway. Your biggest problem is going to find plants that can take the high temps rams need to thrive. Heres a link from simply discus that has plants that have worked for such temps.
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showt...ve-worked-for-me-in-a-discus-tank...-(photos)

I agrre with JK47. Rams we can get are happy in ph of 7.2-7.6ish
 
The tank is a 29 gallon. Thanks for all the info so far. Recently JCardona added some discus to a planted tank. He raised the temp and I guess is waiting it out to see how his plants react. I am just wondering with my PH and Hardness if I could get away with keeping and breeding rams. Also whats an ideal temp to keep them at? Like 83-85F?
 
ideal is 84-86. I went through loosing a lot of plants from discus/ram temps. They slowly rot away. When I headed the advice of the link I gave you all went well. 29 gallon should be easy as pie to get the parameters good prior to wc's. I hated trying to have a planted discus tank. It was way to much work. Now I just keep anubias and Java fern species. Its the only thing my Severums and Uaru wont eat in the SA tank. In my discus breeder tank I just have drift wood for cover and the minimal ph drop it gives. You can get a garbage can and prep your water via RO and a tap mixture of what ever is mix is needed to keep it stable. Its suggested to keep the ph from 5.5-7.0 for breeding and a well established aquarium seems to be needed. Of coarse some will say you can breed them in a higher ph but as you know every fish needs some kind of special treatment
 
I don't know if I will try it. I got some wisteria, java moss, dwarf hairgrass, onion plant, red tiger lotus, rotala indica and java fern in this tank. But I don't feel like dishing out all this extra money for an RO unit. I may just go with a CA cichlid. But the problem is they have to get along with plants, not too difficult to breed, stay kinda small, and babies be worth the hassle. I am doing this largely to make some spare cash.

I thought rams or even apisto's would be nice. But I don't know if I can handle it at the moment. I don;t wanna put this money forward to get some nice rams or apisto's and have a disaster and lose all my money.
 
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