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  1. Ben Rhau

    Help me choose an RO filter

    Agree with all of above. I use a 4-stage unit from Buckeye Hydro. I think they offer a good value for the price, compared to a lot of vendors. SpectraPure is also high quality.
  2. Ben Rhau

    blackwater tank cycling?

    I don't know how to answer on pH. SF recommends keeping wc bitaeniata "at the lower end of the range," which I interpret to be below 5.5. But I'm not an expert here. I suspect pH 6 is not a big difference, and that it's fine to decrease pH slowly over time. Your water sounds viscous due to...
  3. Ben Rhau

    blackwater tank cycling?

    Air is not being "trapped" in your water. It's bubbling out. But the water movement is a good thing. The tannins in the water are good for your fish. When you say it's "thick", do you mean it's viscous? That sounds like some mixture of protein, lignin, bacteria and fungus. All normal. It will...
  4. Ben Rhau

    blackwater tank cycling?

    I think 8 us/cm is OK for RO. Mine is lower, but I use the DI stage after RO. You could test the low end of the range by verifying that the meter reads basically zero for distilled water. The EC in your tank (68 us/cm) seems high given your input water. The pH in your tank is rising because...
  5. Ben Rhau

    blackwater tank cycling?

    This is for the tank? Did you verify the EC of your RO water?
  6. Ben Rhau

    blackwater tank cycling?

    When you use your Hanna meter: To measure pH, I recommend first adding salt (NaCl) to your sample until the TDS > 100. I usually keep a small container of kosher salt with my equipment and add a few flakes to about a 30 ml sample. The sample container needs to be plastic, since glass can cause...
  7. Ben Rhau

    blackwater tank cycling?

    More accurately, your TDS pen says the water has a TDS of 2 +/- 64ppm. ;)
  8. Ben Rhau

    blackwater tank cycling?

    That is the baseline for your RO output, but if your remove the sample from your tank after a water change, will you get the same number? Also you don't know your TDS yet.
  9. Ben Rhau

    blackwater tank cycling?

    It sounds like you haven't been able to neutralize all of the carbonates. I'd recommend doing a water change and then measuring your baseline water parameters (EC/TDS and KH). If it's quite high, you may need to dilute it out first. Then, take water samples and do your pH lowering experiments...
  10. Ben Rhau

    Apistogramma Agassizii Fire Gold Breeding

    And also, agassizii and sp. Tefe are different species.
  11. Ben Rhau

    blackwater tank cycling?

    I think the reason you were seeing 2.7 EC is because that's the calibration standard. Probably wasn't clear what was being displayed. For lower range EC and pH, many people recommend the <Hanna Combo meter 98129>. If you don't need pH, you can get <HM Digital COM-100>, which is cheaper.
  12. Ben Rhau

    blackwater tank cycling?

    According to the technical specs, the meter is accurate to within 0.1 EC, so +/- 100 uS/cm. https://s3.amazonaws.com/zcom-media/sites/a0i0L00000VJHGsQAP/media/mediamanager/GS4_Combo_Pen_gen_II_User_Manual-EN.pdf...
  13. Ben Rhau

    blackwater tank cycling?

    Unfortunately, I don't know how to interpret those numbers. Maybe it's 27ppm? But then I don't know what units the EC is, which is actually what the pen is measuring.
  14. Ben Rhau

    blackwater tank cycling?

    It doesn't make sense to me. Since the pens are measuring EC (and not TDS directly) you should be able to derive the ppm TDS from the EC, full stop. 27/500 - 0.054. Is it close to 0.07? Yeah, but since it's a calculation and not a measurement, I'd want to know why the two values don't jibe. You...
  15. Ben Rhau

    Agassizii trio aggression - should I reduce to a pair?

    Honey gourami are also soft water fish.
  16. Ben Rhau

    blackwater tank cycling?

    The 500 and 700 scales express EC in mS/cm, not μS/cm. So, ppm500 = EC * 500, which is still not what you’re reporting. I would verify what units your EC is and then calculate the TDS yourself. If EC is reported in μS/cm (most common) then multiply by 0.64.
  17. Ben Rhau

    blackwater tank cycling?

    Ah, right. It also removes nitrate. I remember I heard of a hobbyist with a smaller tank who would shake his water in DI resin beads in order to clean it instead of making new water. Same idea. In my case, I wouldn't replenish the salts, since my fish natively live in practically deionized...
  18. Ben Rhau

    blackwater tank cycling?

    Not a criticism, I just don't quite understand... You add salt, and then remove it through DI. What is the net effect on the water?
  19. Ben Rhau

    blackwater tank cycling?

    Of course, strong acids are ions, but if you're starting with RO water to begin with, you don't need to add much acid, so the contribution to conductivity is negligible. If you started with a very high KH, you would need to add a lot of acid to neutralize it, driving up the conductivity even...
  20. Ben Rhau

    blackwater tank cycling?

    I ml is 20 drops. How much you add will need to be determined empirically. I wouldn’t add more than 1 to start, perhaps less.
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