RO right and otehr RO additives

[degrassi]

I have been having some problems trying to get my ph down low enough. I have a 15gal planted tank with rams and cardinals, right now my ph is 7.8 gh11 kh 8. I have been trying to use RO cut with my tap water but my ph is still always too high. I was thinking of jsut using RO and adding some additives to jstu increase the kh and ph to about 6.8. But the proble is i have never tried RO additives(ex. Ro right by seachem) does anyone have experiences with them?

I have also tried peat filtering, DIY co2(still on teh tank) and adding blackwater extract but they haven't helped lower the ph. A lady from my aquariu club says she uses RO/tap with acid buffer added to it and it works for her but i want soemthing simpler(if there is such a thing with fishkeeping).

I want to be able to jsut add the right amount of additive to a 5gal jug of RO to give me the readings i want. Is this how the RO additives work?

 

[farm41]

If you can't get any results using RO, then maybe your substrate has something in it causing the problems. What do you have for substrate? What ratio RO to tap have you tried?

 

[degrassi]

I haven't tried staright RO before. I tried using a ratio of about 4 gals RO to 1 gal tap and that gave me a ph of about 7.2. Then i added that to my existing tank and it didn't even show a change in teh tank over all ph. I have been doing that for about 1 month now and the ph of the tank hasn't gone down. The girl from teh club i was talkign about was having the same problem of the ph bouncing back after a while using just Ro/ tap, that is why she also uses the buffer. I don't think it is the gravel since it is jsut quartz and i emailed the place i got it from and the LFs said it wouldnt' cause any problems.

Any ideas about the ro right additives? I know some of you even jsut use straight RO in some of your tanks.

 

[farm41]

I use straight RO in some breeding setups, but not in a planted tank. The plants really do need the stuff the RO is filtering out. I really don't know why anybody uses RO right, I think the same thing can be acomplished by adding a little tap back in.


For instance: I use a 9:1 ratio of RO to tap on my A. inca growout tank, that is giving me 5.5 Ph and a EC of 80. My normal aged tap water is Ph 7.4, EC 300, Kh 5, Gh 9. That's great for my planted tanks, I don't use any water modifications on it at all, just add co2 and ferts.

My results with trying to do water modifications by using RO on a planted tank with my parameters have been unsuccessful. The softening I was doing with adding the RO was just being undone every time I added ferts.

If you want real soft water, RO is the way to go, but the plants will suffer.

I have both at my home, planted tanks just for display with just tap water, and breeding tanks with soft water and no plants for those fish that need it.

 

[degrassi]

I"m not that concerned with the plants since they are jsut weekly cuttings i got from my other tanks, nothing special. So if i continue to use RO cut with tap water(i will change my ratio to have less tap) will my tanks ph eventually come down? Why didn't it work teh first time i tried, you think i would have seen some drop in ph?

 

[cootwarm]

Hi,

I'll soon be setting up my first Apisto tank. I've seen many, many references to RO filters and filtration, but none explain what exactly it is.

What does RO stand for?
What is an RO filter? Something I would purchase at the LFS? Or is it some sort of biological filter that I would put together myself?

I'll be looking to purchase the 'Baensch Cichlid Atlas' by Dr. Romer soon, I'm sure that will explain a lot. I figure I should purchase an electronic water tester as I plan to have 6 to 8 tanks going by the end of September housing trio's of a variety of Apistos.

Michael

 

[farm41]

RO aka Reverse Osmosis It is a water purification system. For detailed information I suggest you try the SpectraPure site. I use the 60gpd MPRO unit made by SpectraPure.

 

[cootwarm]

Hi Matt,

Found it. Thanks for the tip. I was thinking the 60 gal one would work for me as well. I figured if I got a smaller one, I would probably have to change the filters more often. I've been discovering a few 'hidden' costs in the Apisto hobby that I hadn't expected (between the RO & combo tester abt $325!). But I figure if I'm serious about doing this, I should do it the right way. It'll probably also be cheaper in the long run to do this right from the begining, anyhow.

I expect with Apistos, I probably need to mix my water up days before hand to allow it to condition. I have a 55gal with a crack up the back that I patched by sandwiching it between 2 panes of window glass and some silicone. I could probably use it to hold my water while the parameters are brought into proper range.

How many days ahead should I mix my water?

Thanks Again,
Michael

 

[Randall]

Water Chemistry

Dear Michael,

If you're using an R/O (reverse osmosis) unit to filter your water, you can use it straight away, providing you're not adding any clorinated tap water to it. If you are, then wait two days or dechorinate it chemically to use it immediately.

Dear Degrassi,

Are you sure there is nothing in your tank that is contributing to the high pH? Quartz substrate is good, but are there any rocks/stones containing limestone or marble, corals, shells, paver stones, etc.? Anything containing calcium carbonate (CaCO3) will bleach into the water and raise pH. I've also found that some brands of substrate fertilizers tend to have the same effect.

If there is something that you can identify that is maintaining a high pH, eliminate it from the system and proceed with your regular water change regime. If not, changing water with pure R/O water until the desired parameters are achieved should do it for you.

Good luck!

Randall Kohn

 

[degrassi]

There is nothing in my tank except for a peice of driftwood for decoration and the plants. I don't use any ferts(liquid or tabs). COuld it be that the Ro/tap water i was adding was a small percentage of the tank total volume that by the next week the tank water buffered the RO/tap back up?

I don't want to change the ph and other parameters too much to fast, that is why i brought the RO/tap down to only around ph 7. I was going to further lower when i got down to that point.

 

[farm41]

I have moved some of my fish from Ph 5.5 to Ph 7 in a matter of a few hours. No ill effects observed.

YMMV

 

[degrassi]

ok I will try to do a few water changes using jsut Ro and see if it comes down.Thanks for all the help

 

[Woodsy]

When we get fish from overseas at the shop, to get the quarantine tanks down to the same pH as the bags we just use Sera pH Down. It's liquid, so you don't have to worry about waiting for it to dissolve. Quick and easy.

 

[Neil]

degrassi,
I think that there is a possibility that you are keeping your KH too high to give the desired pH reduction and maintenance. If you do water changes (say 30%) with 1 part tap and 3 part RO, it will be doing very little to reduce the KH. The KH of 8 and GH of 11 will be much easier manipulated with 2 large water changes or 1 really large water change of straight RO. For breeding tanks, I usually use 90% RO and 10% tap (and my tap is softer than yours). I would go for a large water change (75%) with straight RO). Once this has happened, check the KH. If it is about 2 -3, then use something like acid buffer (in small amounts). Your driftwood should be adding tannins, so I don't think that you need to use peat extract. But you may want to use a little peat filtering on you prepared water change water. This may help to keep your pH down over the long term. You need to play with the various elements until you find a combo that works well for you. But the first thing is to reduce the hardness of your water. There is always other elements that add a touch of hardness to the system (food, substrate, etc.) You won't need to add alot of hardness from other sources. The addition of your tap into your apisto tank should be small.
Neil

 

[degrassi]

Thanks neil. I will be getting more RO water tomorrow so i will try doing my water change with just RO.

 

[skwelch]

first post woohoo 8)

ok ive basically got the same prob as you degrassi, in that my tap water is very very hard, which is great for my big malawi tank, but not good for the little apisto's i love keeping too.

now the trouble with the very hard water is the BUFFER effect the carbonate has on any new water added to it, any new h+ ions (which is what effectively makes RO water acidic) are just mopped up straight away, and the carbonate will in the tap water buffers out the soft RO water too
its not as simple as adding 50% RO and 50% tap water will reduce the pH and hardness of the water by half, if you really wanna know why this happens just go and learn the basics of water chemistry and the effects of hardness, its not that difficult to learn the basics, but a bit boring to post up on a forum

like some others suggested you need a lot more RO water compared to tap water to have an effect on the hardness, so if ur doing a water change with 3/4 RO and 1/4 tap, and placing that in a tank which contains tap water, the carbonate will buffer the the pH and KH/GH and u'll notice very little difference with your test kits

and also, plants do not have to suffer in a very soft water tank, how do you think people set up beautifull planted tanks with discus in them, which uses similar very soft acidic water, and have no problems with growing amazing plants, just have to pick the right ones

 

[Christine-FishGrrl]

My tap is very hard here in San Jose (it's been called liquid rock), so I have a similar problem for my tanks. For water changes I usually fill a gallon jug up until an inch or two is left at top. Then I top up with tap. You do need to monitor the pH and KH pretty closely because with so much RO, once the KH is used up the pH can crash. I use Kent's RO Right to add to the KH or you can just use baking soda. Baking soda however, doesn't add any calcium to your water which can be problematic if you have shrimp.

 

[SoCalSar]

R/O Water

Degrassi, I'm doing the same thing right now. I bought an RO/DI unit this weekend and started making my own water. I'm experimenting with Kent RO Right and PH buffer to get the h2o parameters right before it goes in the tank. I am using co2 injection, which complicates it some. I've already got some good info. With 5 gallons of straight RO (ph 6.0 and kh 0) the RO Right product didn't make any difference in the kh- with twice the recommended dose. That bucket went down the sink. I tried again with the recommended dose (1/2 tsp in 5 gallons), let it sit for a few hours, and the same thing happened. I then bought the a ph buffer product that adds carbonate hardness back to the h2o. Using that and 1/2 tsp of RO Right I got ph 7.5 and kh 2-3 degrees hardness in 5 gallons. I'm betting on the co2 injection to lower the ph to 6-7 with a kh that low. I'm adding to the tank at 10 gallons per change every two days. I'll get back to you with the results. Let me know what you're getting too.

 

[SoCalSar]

Update on H2O results....

Well, everything seems to be working as planned. I'm using 1/2 teaspoon each of RO Right and PH Stable in 5 gallons of RO water and the ph in the tank is staying at 7.0 with a kh of 3-4 degrees. This was what I was shooting for. CO2 levels are a little high but the plants are pearling heavily indicating the water is O2 saturated. I thought about lowering the ph a little more but it's really not necessary and I'd like to keep a little buffer. The fish are fine except for the loss of 3 rummy nose tetras. They're supposed to be sensitive to water changes so that might have done them in although the change occurred over the course of a week. Now this is all in the 60 gallon. In the 15 gallon with the agasizzis I'm only adding RO Right to the water 'cause there's no CO2 injection and the ph should not fluctuate. The RO Right is supposed to add a little buffer anyway but, like I said before, I didn't get any kh with it using triple the recommended amount. Again I lost a couple of fish, this time otocinclus (sp?). And again, they were apparantly healthy fish. The otos were fairly new though and I will usually lose a few out of 10 or so. Maybe just regular attrition. Oh, and the plants are going great. Degrassi, please post with the results you are getting.