louis_last
Member
I used to live in an area where we had well water that was essentially liquid rock, I would run about 5L at a time through a distiller for the misting system on my emersed setups and even from that little water a thick mineral gunk was left behind after all the water had evaporated. I kept Boraras in the well water just fine and they even surprised me by producing a single fry that survived to adulthood but now I'm living elsewhere and I have really soft water. I never realised just how soft until today but out the tap it's 7.81mg Ca/L, 0.46mg Mg/L and 21.38mg CaCO3/L.
Fortunately all of the fish I have at the moment are soft water fish but is there such a thing as too soft? Would I or my plants and fish notice any benefit from raising the hardness just a bit? I haven't noticed any of the fish or plants I keep showing any signs that they're struggling other than some Bucephalandra that had much prettier colours in the hard water where the leaves had a sort of blue sheen and in the soft water they are a much duller greyish green - but it grows fine.
It seems I could double these parameters and still consider my water to be "soft" though - might there be any benefit in doing so?
Also am I right in thinking cherry shrimp pretty much won't breed in water this soft? I've had a few amanos and some cherries for a couple of months that seem to be OK, I give them a small amount of cuttlebone as a calcium source but they are all adult size and there's no sign of the females getting berried. Would something like shrimp king mineral food or the shrimp mineral balls allow them to breed in such soft water? And would offering them a mineral rich supplement like that have much impact on the overall hardness of the water to the detriment of my soft water fish if I moved the cherries in with any of the fish?
Are there any other considerations with such sot water that I might be overlooking?
Fortunately all of the fish I have at the moment are soft water fish but is there such a thing as too soft? Would I or my plants and fish notice any benefit from raising the hardness just a bit? I haven't noticed any of the fish or plants I keep showing any signs that they're struggling other than some Bucephalandra that had much prettier colours in the hard water where the leaves had a sort of blue sheen and in the soft water they are a much duller greyish green - but it grows fine.
It seems I could double these parameters and still consider my water to be "soft" though - might there be any benefit in doing so?
Also am I right in thinking cherry shrimp pretty much won't breed in water this soft? I've had a few amanos and some cherries for a couple of months that seem to be OK, I give them a small amount of cuttlebone as a calcium source but they are all adult size and there's no sign of the females getting berried. Would something like shrimp king mineral food or the shrimp mineral balls allow them to breed in such soft water? And would offering them a mineral rich supplement like that have much impact on the overall hardness of the water to the detriment of my soft water fish if I moved the cherries in with any of the fish?
Are there any other considerations with such sot water that I might be overlooking?