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Spotless water...help me understand

Kaliilo

Member
Joined
13 Jun 2021
Messages
123
Location
Hertfordshire
I just found out about spotless water from another thread, I live in an area that has 19 degrees of hardness. If I was to use this spotless water how and what do I add to make it suitable for fish/plants??
Lowering the hardness in my water would mean I could actually have fish that I like rather than what can live in liquid rock! As its a nano tank its a very cheap option for me.
My understanding of the science behind it is shaky so if anyone could explain what I would need to do to get a hardness of around 7-8 degrees hardness in a 64l tank in the simplest terms possible I would appreciate it.
Also how would I switch over to using this? I have no livestock in the tank, just plants (hygrophilia, valls, pennywort etc)
DOnt want to kill my plants and would be a lot easy to change over before I stock my tank with fish.

Thanks in advance
Amy
 
Those who are not proficient in aquarium chemistry often choose a simple way - they 'dilute' liquid rock with some share of RO or distilled water. (Also rainwater is sometimes recommendable.)
 
Those who are not proficient in aquarium chemistry often choose a simple way - they 'dilute' liquid rock with some share of RO or distilled water. (Also rainwater is sometimes recommendable.)
Hi thanks Maq, rainwater is a faff for me as my garden is so sloped water butts fall over lol.
So I can just mix the water from the Spotless Water pump with my tap water to reduce hardness?
 
Spotless Water pump
I don't know what it is.
If it's a commercial machine removing water hardness, it's quite possible that it's not suitable for aquarium.

EDIT: I did some googling. If you mean this, it seems perfect for the purpose.
 
I can give you some actual first hand experience since I use Spotless Water.

You can use it as it is and remineralise it with something like Salty Shrimp. They have remineralisers for increasing only KH or both GH and KH. You could take your pick depending on the parameters you'd like to achieve.

Alternatively you could mix it with your tap water. I do this in one of my low tech tanks (50:50 tap to RO) and I get a KH of around 2 because there's also aquasoil in there and I'm not sure of the GH but it's largely irrelevant.
Either method works well!

Spotless is also very convenient if you can't install an RO unit for whatever reason. I use it to make saltwater for my marine tank.
 
We had alot of people who bought the RO and added x2 scoops of the Discus Buffer for their planted tanks.
 
Yes, you can just mix it with your tap, which is the simplest option. It will lower your gh by the proportion of tap you mix, so if you use 40% tap your GH will by 40% of the orginal to give you 7.9. In otherwords, mix 4 litres of tap with 6 litres of spotless water to get 10l of water at your prefered GH.

If you are topping up evaporation you can use straight spotless water.

I'd suggest making the change gradually, don't drop the gh that much in one go!

A TDS pen is cheap and handy for quick measuring, as the TDS also drops proportionally.
 
I can give you some actual first hand experience since I use Spotless Water.

You can use it as it is and remineralise it with something like Salty Shrimp. They have remineralisers for increasing only KH or both GH and KH. You could take your pick depending on the parameters you'd like to achieve.

Alternatively you could mix it with your tap water. I do this in one of my low tech tanks (50:50 tap to RO) and I get a KH of around 2 because there's also aquasoil in there and I'm not sure of the GH but it's largely irrelevant.
Either method works well!

Spotless is also very convenient if you can't install an RO unit for whatever reason. I use it to make saltwater for my marine tank.
This is seriously helpful thanks, think mixing may be the way to go
Yes, you can just mix it with your tap, which is the simplest option. It will lower your gh by the proportion of tap you mix, so if you use 40% tap your GH will by 40% of the orginal to give you 7.9. In otherwords, mix 4 litres of tap with 6 litres of spotless water to get 10l of water at your prefered GH.

If you are topping up evaporation you can use straight spotless water.

I'd suggest making the change gradually, don't drop the gh that much in one go!

A TDS pen is cheap and handy for quick measuring, as the TDS also drops proportionally.
Finally I understand - thanks for explaining so simply. Ill have a look for a tds pen :)

Think Ill go with the suggestions here and try 50/50 as it seems that would suit my low tech tank needs. Thanks for the input guys. Much appreciated

Amy
 
I think quite a few people around here use spotless... It's a perfectly fine alternative if you run a small tank and absolutely do not have space for a small RO system (that you can plug onto a tap when needed) or can't collect rainwater. As far as diluting RO and tap water, that is also perfectly viable, and often the only practical approach if you're running larger tanks - many people around here, including myself in the past, use this approach. However, if you want to be in 100% control of your water chemistry there is no way around using 100% RO preferable RODI water.... nice, but absolutely not a requirement to be successful with a planted tank.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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I think quite a few people around here use spotless... It's a perfectly fine alternative if you run a small tank and absolutely do not have space for a small RO system (that you can plug onto a tap when needed) or can't collect rainwater. As far as diluting RO and tap water, that is also perfectly viable, and often the only practical approach if you're running a larger tanks - many people around here, including myself in the past, use this approach. However, if you want to be in 100% control of your water chemistry there is no way around using 100% RO preferable RODI water.... nice, but absolutely not a requirement to be successful with a planted tank.

Cheers,
Michael
Thanks for the advice. I'm on thin ice already with how much space I've taken over with tanks and plants...I think if I start messing with the taps my husband will rehome me :lol:
 
@Kaliilo these threads might be of interest.

 
Yep, used Bournemouth station for 5 years and the quality of water was always consistent. By the way I found that Bournemouth station was the cheapest. Luckily now I have moved to the area where water is 2 GH and 1 KH straight from the tap 😍
 
By the way I found that Bournemouth station was the cheapest.
The UK is naturally ahead from my region. Just out of interest, can you tell me the price? Just to know what to expect when the business arrives in my country...
 
Hi all,
Those who are not proficient in aquarium chemistry often choose a simple way - they 'dilute' liquid rock with some share of RO or distilled water.
Yes, <"that is me">.
Yes, you can just mix it with your tap, which is the simplest option. It will lower your gh by the proportion of tap you mix, so if you use 40% tap your GH will by 40% of the orginal to give you 7.9. In otherwords, mix 4 litres of tap with 6 litres of spotless water to get 10l of water at your prefered GH.

If you are topping up evaporation you can use straight spotless water.
Perfect.
RO and added x2 scoops of the Discus Buffer for their planted tanks.
@Gill what is in the <"Discus Buffer">, do you know? Was it the <"Seachem one">?
........ Contains phosphate buffers and conditioning agents. Safe for all freshwater fish acclimated to acid pH.
Finally I understand - thanks for explaining so simply. Ill have a look for a tds pen :)

Think Ill go with the suggestions here and try 50/50 as it seems that would suit my low tech tank needs.
Have a look at <"conductivity datum">.

cheers Darrel
 
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The UK is naturally ahead from my region. Just out of interest, can you tell me the price? Just to know what to expect when the business arrives in my country...
From top of my head Bournemouth price was 1.6 pence/L + VAT and any other place usually starts from 3.5 pence/L. On average I was paying £0.80 for 40L in Bournemouth
 
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