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Jeremy Anderson

New Member
Messages
24
Sorry for the long post, I didn't have time to write a shorter one.

I'm not an owner of any Apistogramma just yet, but I'm fully geeked on them already. Until recently I hadn't even had an aquarium since I was 8 or 9 years old, and my parents took care of it. I'm more than 40 now. I have a fair bit of practical expertise with exotic animal husbandry and have produced a couple dozen different species of herpetofauna, mostly snakes, over the years. I'm also a decent gardener, which doesn't hurt.

My girlfriend and I stumbled into the aquarium game because we thought we wanted Dart Frogs, that idea quickly became a paludarium, then that became an Orinoco biotope paludarium.

Then I remembered; I don't even know if I can keep fish alive! So I convinced her we should have an aquarium first, to figure out how to keep fish, and work out a paludarium down the road.

We started a Craigslist-score 75 gallon several weeks ago, manufactured in February 1991 by All Glass. I think it technically qualifies as a vintage piece. The tank and stand came with a big Fluval 405 that was clean but still wet inside, which I took as a good thing. I left the ceramic rings and biofoam in it, added a bunch of Seachem Matrix, some new filter floss and peat granules. I used some "play sand" from Home Depot, a couple pieces of Mopani driftwood from ZooMed, I washed the heck out of it and added a bag of red Flourite from Seachem for the plants, but I think that was a mistake. Despite washing it like mad also it clouded up the tank for quite some time, it has been ugly and still isn't very clear. A couple weeks ago I planted Amazon sword, some kind of Lobelia sp, and Dwarf Hairgrass, made some caves with flat slate type and granite river rocks and threw in a handful of Oak and Poplar leaves. It is lit by 6x54w T5s at 6500K, from about 24" above so it doesn't blast everything with too much light and heat. We added a dozen Glowlight and a dozen Black Neons a week ago, I think I'm probably overfeeding them, a bit, they are fat as heck today. I'll have to back off a bit. which There are five cherry shrimp in there too, they will be moving out soon until I can breed a bigger colony. Currently the whole mess is running 27-28C, 7.2pH and 133ppm TDS, with a kH close to 3. I'm slowly changing the water out, but allow me to digress.

Today I purchased a lone M. ramirezi, mostly to save him from the seven grumpy Angelfish he got tossed in with at the local feed and pet store. So now I have a dwarf SA cichlid! I want to get another small group of rams for that 75, but not sure what else. I'm going to move the Glowlights and Black neons elsewhere over time and move some Rummynose Tetras in with the rams. I think I have everything somewhat solid, for my first tank.

I must breed Apistos, I'm not even sure why, but I must. I plan on getting a few species, eventually, but I'm interested in A. hongsloi and macmasteri mostright now. I'd love to get my hands on some elizabethae and baenschi when I have more experience. I really like wild types, but some of the selectively bred cultivars are simply gorgeous, so I'm split on that.

We bought a small RO machine, and I just filled a 20 gallon with it and some CaribSea SuperNaturals silica sand for substrate, a couple days later I'm running about 14ppm TDS, at 6.4pH, which seems adequate for breeding. There's a sponge filter in there bubbling away. I'm turnt up, as the kids say, on these fish. Stoked, chuffed, giddy.

My water quality is much better than the LFS, I'm at 7.4 from the tap, about 140ppm with very little chlorine, but they are closer to 9! I think the Ram I bought is probably used to a little more hardness, but I'm doing 5-7 gallon water changes per day to slowly bring it down. I'm a little concerned about acclimating fish from hard high pH water to extremely soft RO water at 6.4. Should I drip acclimate?

Two pics are attached, one is the most clear it has ever been a day or two before adding the tetras, after a 50% water change, the other is after a few days with tetras in there. The Seachem clay crap is coloring up the water again, despite the gradual water changes. It looks sort of like tannins and some of it could be the Mopani wood, but the majority of it is red clay mud. :(

I guess I'm rambling again...
 

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gerald

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
1,491
Location
Wake Forest NC, USA
Rams don't need ultra-soft water; they do fine (and breed) in moderate hardness. Your source water TDS and KH are pretty low, so I'm guessing your GH probably is too, and should be fine as is for the majority of soft-water fish except for those few obligate blackwater species that really need very low hardness (none of which you're likely to find in a pet shop). Using RO to make ultra-soft water when you don't really need it could create problems, since ultra-soft water is much less chemically stable and challenging for fish to maintain their internal ion balance.

Welcome - glad you found us!
 

Jeremy Anderson

New Member
Messages
24
Thanks for your thoughts, Gerald, you make good points. I am not overly worried about a little swing but I will mix some tap water in occasionally to give it some buffer. I also have some sea chem acid buffer I may use. I am pretty comfortable with water chemistry and pH swing from experience with hydroponic systems. The specifics are different but the chemistry is the same. The Rams (4 now) are doing well, at 50 tds or so. I am very interested in breeding some species like A. elizabethae, hongsloi and baenschi in other tanks, so I feel like the RO was still a good move. I really do appreciate your input, and I will not fret too much about hardness. Thanks for the reply, glad to be here
 

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