How do you use RO water for apistogramma

[Aqualon]

How do you prepare your RO water for Apistogramma. Do you reminerslize it or use it straight.
Thanks for your time. Just want to get other peoples ways.
Lonny Langione
Dover,Pa

 

[Apistoguy52]

How do you prepare your RO water for Apistogramma. Do you reminerslize it or use it straight.
Thanks for your time. Just want to get other peoples ways.
Lonny Langione
Dover,Pa

Usually, I’ll cut RO with tap water in a ratio that gives me the desired hardness. Less frequently, I’ll remineralize. In my experience, water that’s too soft, is less forgiving than water that’s a bit too hard

 

[MacZ]

Straight, brought up to temp (25-26°C in my case) with added humic substances (aka tannins) e.g. from alder cones, leaf litter and rooibos (my combination). Instead of that mixture you can also use peat, which is usually placed in the tank in a filter media bag or in one of the filter compartments.

Result in my case EC 50µS/cm, TDS 25-30mg/l, pH around 5.

Please be aware that
a. with humic substances there is absolutely no danger of a pH crash and
b. pH is not as important as EC and that it is hard to reliably measure in these conditions. Drip tests and strips usually show results below detection range, for pH-meters you have to raise conductivity in the sample. Normal salt (no additives) works ok.

Hope this helps.

 

[anewbie]

I would think it depends on the species; as some prefer softer more acidic water and others actually do better with a bit of hardness (relative to aboslute ro). While most are blackwater species not all love blackwater.

 

[MacZ]

While most are blackwater species not all love blackwater.

The readings posted above are not actual blackwater. It's clearwater and the readings are okay for most species that are not decidedly whitewater and domestic strains.
It takes additional steps and massive amounts of humic substances to produce actual blackwater. We can only do approximations of different degrees in our aquariums.