• Hello guest! Are you an Apistogramma enthusiast? If so we invite you to join our community and see what it has to offer. Our site is specifically designed for you and it's a great place for Apisto enthusiasts to meet online. Once you join you'll be able to post messages, upload pictures of your fish and tanks and have a great time with other Apisto enthusiasts. Sign up today!

Any apistos for harder water?

Joshaeus

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
42
Hi everyone! Here's my question...do all apistos need near-distilled, low PH water, or will some thrive and breed with a few degrees/tens of ppm GH and KH in the water? I was thinking about hardier species like A. borellii, cacatuoides, etc. Thanks :)
 

MacZ

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,958
Location
Germany
You can acclimate the usual suspects basically every LFS sells to harder water. Especially the colour breeds. Only downside is they tend to not be very healthy in hard water and sudden deaths can happen.
 

Joshaeus

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
42
You can acclimate the usual suspects basically every LFS sells to harder water. Especially the colour breeds. Only downside is they tend to not be very healthy in hard water and sudden deaths can happen.
Even at only a couple degrees GH and/or KH? (I'm leaving TDS out for the moment). Any better dwarf cichlids for water harder than rainwater?
 

Mike Wise

Moderator
Staff member
5 Year Member
Messages
11,201
Location
Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.
Many apistos from the great plains of South America (Llanos & Pantanaal) are highly adaptable to varying degrees of pH and hardness. How alkaline and hard is the water you are considering?
 

Joshaeus

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
42
A few degrees GH, KH is not mandatory. TDS can easily be 150 ppm or less (my tap is 40-50)
 

Joshaeus

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
42
Most white- and clearwater apisto species should breed at this hardness.
Can you give any examples? For example, is A. borellii such a clear water species? (EDIT; My tap is less than 1 GH and KH...I have to add minerals to increase them above 1).
 

Mike Wise

Moderator
Staff member
5 Year Member
Messages
11,201
Location
Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.
A. borellii is a white- & clearwater species, as are A. trifasciata, commbrae-complex species, many macmasteri- and alacrina-group species. I don't understand why you harden your basically distilled tap water unless your plants need it. Natuaral processes feeding, waste, plants, etc. will raise the hardness a bit.
 

Joshaeus

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
42
A. borellii is a white- & clearwater species, as are A. trifasciata, commbrae-complex species, many macmasteri- and alacrina-group species. I don't understand why you harden your basically distilled tap water unless your plants need it. Natuaral processes feeding, waste, plants, etc. will raise the hardness a bit.
Don't bother hardening it? When I first moved here I lost a lot of fish to this uber soft water - danios, desert gobies, a dwarf gourami, a mystery snail...I guess it's just habit. The tank has a lot of artificial plants, so I guess I have no need to harden it?
 

MacZ

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,958
Location
Germany
Desert gobies and mystery snails need a certain mid to high hardness level, danios and dwarf gourami are overbred these days and tend to die when looking at them funny. I have the suspiscion that you simply picked the wrong species to keep in that water.
Try blackwater species like Apistogramma with that water, you will probably see that these thrive in such low hardness.
 

Joshaeus

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
42
Would passing the water through carbon reduce the TDS a little further? Since KH and GH are both less than 1, most of the TDS is probably not useful to fish. From what you guys are saying, an RO unit or ion exchange resins would be excessive.
 

MacZ

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,958
Location
Germany
The TDS are for most species in the trade not important and with that low KH and GH it will likely be very low aswell. You might want to read this thread to get the water chemistry correctly:
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
When I first moved here I lost a lot of fish to this uber soft water - danios, desert gobies, a dwarf gourami, a mystery snail...I guess it's just habit. The tank has a lot of artificial plants, so I guess I have no need to harden it?
I don't know why they died, and they are organisms that prefer harder water. It is horrible when your fish die, but I would say to you the single factor that makes fish keeping easier is the presence of growing plants.

I'm not trying to be funny, but just ignore what LFS, forums web sites etc tell you about pH stability and hardness, it is nearly all wrong and often based upon a desire to sell you a useless product.

cheers Darrel
 

Joshaeus

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
42
Hi all,

I don't know why they died, and they are organisms that prefer harder water. It is horrible when your fish die, but I would say to you the single factor that makes fish keeping easier is the presence of growing plants.

I'm not trying to be funny, but just ignore what LFS, forums web sites etc tell you about pH stability and hardness, it is nearly all wrong and often based upon a desire to sell you a useless product.

cheers Darrel
I'm pretty confident the snail and desert gobies, at least, died from how soft my water is. I wound up adding a small (1/4th tsp per gallon) amount of marine salt per gallon once I realized how soft my water was, and that ended the unexplained deaths (I even spawned Microctenopoma fasciolatum in such salty water, though the resulting fry died at the 2 month mark of an ammonia spike due to me missing some water changes). My black paradise fish that I had raised from birth before the move suffered no losses from the uber soft water...not bad for F1, not really domesticated fishes :)

I've kept and bred licorice gouramies (specifically P. 'sentang') in PH 4, TDS in the teens water before, so it's not PH stability I was worried about - just paranoid about having too few minerals for fish that are not blackwater specialists. That admittedly is a moot point with many apistos...
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
I wound up adding a small (1/4th tsp per gallon) amount of marine salt per gallon once I realized how soft my water was, and that ended the unexplained deaths
OK, there could have been a number of reasons for that. Marine salt is alkaline because of the bicarbonate (HCO3-) content, and has some dGH from dissolved Ca++ and Mg++ ions. The sea "salt" (NaCl) doesn't add any hardness (either dKH or dGH), or change the pH, but it does raise the conductivity, when it dissociates into Na+ and Cl- ions.

I've kept Parosphromenus "Bintan", but not the Macropodus or the Microctenopoma, and I didn't successfully raise any fry from them, although they did spawn.
fry died at the 2 month mark of an ammonia spike due to me missing some water changes
I'm not a salt fan, mainly because I only keep planted tanks and only a small range of plants tolerate elevated sodium levels. One of the reasons for having plants is that they give you a lot more wriggle room when nitrification is potentially compromised.

cheers Darrel
 

Joshaeus

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
42
Hi all,

OK, there could have been a number of reasons for that. Marine salt is alkaline because of the bicarbonate (HCO3-) content, and has some dGH from dissolved Ca++ and Mg++ ions. The sea "salt" (NaCl) doesn't add any hardness (either dKH or dGH), or change the pH, but it does raise the conductivity, when it dissociates into Na+ and Cl- ions.

I've kept Parosphromenus "Bintan", but not the Macropodus or the Microctenopoma, and I didn't successfully raise any fry from them, although they did spawn.

I'm not a salt fan, mainly because I only keep planted tanks and only a small range of plants tolerate elevated sodium levels. One of the reasons for having plants is that they give you a lot more wriggle room when nitrification is potentially compromised.

cheers Darrel
The aforementioned fry tank had heaps of duckweed and substantial amounts of java moss and hornwort. It still wasn't enough to control the spike (the fry tank was overstocked and overfed in retrospect).
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
The aforementioned fry tank had heaps of duckweed and substantial amounts of java moss and hornwort. It still wasn't enough to control the spike (the fry tank was overstocked and overfed in retrospect).
They are all <"plants I like">, and ones that are <"tolerant of hard water"> and some salinity, but even with plants you eventually reach the tipping point, if you have enough bioload.

We have a <"few moss and fry threads">.

cheers Darrel
 

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
17,915
Messages
116,199
Members
13,027
Latest member
tonc61

Latest profile posts

Josh wrote on anewbie's profile.
Testing
EDO
Longtime fish enthusiast for over 70years......keen on Apistos now. How do I post videos?
Looking for some help with fighting electric blue rams :(
Partial updated Peruvian list have more than this. Please PM FOR ANY QUESTIONS so hard to post with all the ads poping up every 2 seconds….
Top