We're moving into our new house this weekend (which means I can start making serious plans for my next big tank!!!), I've just checked the tap water (which is collected on the roof and stored in a large plastic tank, and it is as follows;
ph: <6
KH; <20mg/L
GH; <60mg/L
TDS; eight. (yes 008!)
Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate; 0.
I'm planning a tank around 1800L with a mix of plecs (L190,L014,L128,L81), Geophagus, Black aro and a few other SA cichlids. Soft water is a nice problem to have with these fish. but I'm aware that such low TDS water can be devoid of all sorts of trace elements which can lead to problems for the fish later in life. At the moment the plecs and aro are in a 400L tank, and I've got plenty of old coral I can use to buffer the water to stop it from crashing with the large amounts of driftwood I have in the tank.
I know there are commercial buffers available, Seachem do a few different ones, but given the large volume of water I'd rather not be using off-the-shelf products that are fairly expensive here. Does anyone have any 'recipes' for trace elements that they dose when using rainwater or RO water? Or am I worrying about nothing, and the coral/driftwood combo will add enough "stuff" back into the water?
ph: <6
KH; <20mg/L
GH; <60mg/L
TDS; eight. (yes 008!)
Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate; 0.
I'm planning a tank around 1800L with a mix of plecs (L190,L014,L128,L81), Geophagus, Black aro and a few other SA cichlids. Soft water is a nice problem to have with these fish. but I'm aware that such low TDS water can be devoid of all sorts of trace elements which can lead to problems for the fish later in life. At the moment the plecs and aro are in a 400L tank, and I've got plenty of old coral I can use to buffer the water to stop it from crashing with the large amounts of driftwood I have in the tank.
I know there are commercial buffers available, Seachem do a few different ones, but given the large volume of water I'd rather not be using off-the-shelf products that are fairly expensive here. Does anyone have any 'recipes' for trace elements that they dose when using rainwater or RO water? Or am I worrying about nothing, and the coral/driftwood combo will add enough "stuff" back into the water?
