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Seen the benefit of lower KH - shall I cut my water with RO

K

keef321

Member
Joined
16 Oct 2021
Messages
112
Location
Doncaster
My 60P tank over the last couple of years has suffered Iron & Manganese Deficiency due to my hard water (GH 13, KH 8, Aquarium PH before co2 7.6, PH degassed 8.0-8.1, after Co2 6.8-6.9). A photo of my deficiency issues that I can induce freely.
1701618394223.png

I have got to a point where I have overcome the deficiency issues enough to grow a limited amount of plants via Full EI dosing (APT EI) and dosing DTPA + EDDHA + sechem iron + Manganese on alternative days. I found certain plants would grow (especially those that liked hardwater) and others would stunt such as Rotala, or struggle a bit such as Ludwigia Super Red.

A couple of weeks ago I did a full rescape, that included replacing my aquasoil (tropica). I have reduced APT EI dosing by half as there is less plant mass, but continued dosing iron & manganese. I had noticed that my previous plants that I had put into this new scape were now looking more healthier than ever, with the myriophyllum mattogrossense taking on a stronger shape, ludwigia super red growing less leggy and even Rotala Orange not stunting (yet). Today I had to trim the mattogrossense and was very suprised when I felt how strong the plant was, this has always been a very delicate plant for me, that had to be handled with care so not to damage it, whereas now it felt super strong, healthy and easy to re-plant stems.

So I decided to check my water parameters, and it appears the aquasoil (and wood??) have reduced my KH to 6. I am coming to the conclusion this is the reason for the plants improvement and wondering if other people here would agree. I used to have seiryu stone at one point in the previous scape and that caused my KH to rise to 10, and once I removed it and my KH reduced to 8, I found improvement in plant health, hence starting to come to the same conclusion. This buffering effect, I assume will slip away over the coming weeks / months, with my KH creeping back up.

With this in mind, I am thinking of cutting my water with 50% RO, with the hope, this will keep my KH in the lower levels and help with the plant health. In my thoughts I am thinking, the hassle of cutting the tap water with RO, may reward me in better plant health, which I have healthy plants = less algae. Will this slightly reduce my PH also, so I don't have to dose the iron anymore.

Any thoughts would be great :)
 
I came to a same conclusion/observation about kH/gH having scaped with very hard water and going to various shops like Green Aqua, Aquarium Gardens etc, reading Journals and chatting with folk who did them. Better/nicer plants/tanks/scapes can be done easier with soft water than hard water esp if going down the high tech/CO2 route.
Aqua soil last longer in tanks with lower kH/gH and fert regimes are easier, no scale building up on glass. No excessive amounts of Mg,Ca etc already in water which 'may' affect the uptake of other nutrients.
My next tank with be with soft/RO water, just not sure when that will be :(
 
Zeus. said:
I came to a same conclusion/observation about kH/gH having scaped with very hard water and going to various shops like Green Aqua, Aquarium Gardens etc, reading Journals and chatting with folk who did them. Better/nicer plants/tanks/scapes can be done easier with soft water than hard water esp if going down the high tech/CO2 route.
Aqua soil last longer in tanks with lower kH/gH and fert regimes are easier, no scale building up on glass. No excessive amounts of Mg,Ca etc already in water which 'may' affect the uptake of other nutrients.
My next tank with be with soft/RO water, just not sure when that will be :(
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Thanks Zeus interesting to hear your experience is similar. Yes my mattogrossense is now growing the same form I see in Horizon Aquatics, so like you I have visited places and overtime have managed to see what growth forms of plants are in aquascaping galleries. I have also been to Aquarium Gardens and seen the amazing plants they can grow in hard water, and either not all hard water is equal (I live in a different part of the country and our water is certainly hard, but totally different ratio of magnesium etc) and or I simply don’t have the skills they do 😂. I have also spoken aquarium gardens, and they have no issues with iron at all.
 
Green Aqua has Amazing plants/tanks and they use remineralised RO water, well worth the trip for city visit and go to the shop. Using water which has already got lots of minerals in it makes it harder as you don't 'truly' know what you have to start with and it varies from month to month with the seasons. Using RO water and remineralising it you know what you have and can keep it constant.
Aquarium Gardens have great displays with there hard water, but there not as good as Green Aqua IMO . A LFS near me had issues with there plants if they used the tap water neat.
 
Zeus. said:
Green Aqua has Amazing plants/tanks and they use remineralised RO water, well worth the trip for city visit and go to the shop. Using water which has already got lots of minerals in it makes it harder as you don't 'truly' know what you have to start with and it varies from month to month with the seasons. Using RO water and remineralising it you know what you have and can keep it constant.
Aquarium Gardens have great displays with there hard water, but there not as good as Green Aqua IMO . A LFS near me had issues with there plants if they used the tap water neat.
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Sounds like an excuse for a visit 😀
I’m in Doncaster and my LFS uses 100% RO remineralised for planted tank display for a reason 😂 and I have visited other hard water LFS in the region with similar water, and they have given up on planted displays using our tap water.

My tank TDS is 360 and end of week with EI dosing is 450 (0.5 scale). I’m thinking of aiming for a TDS of around 180 which should equate to 50% mix and see how I get on. I’m guessing if I move over to this slowly over a week, then fish and shrimp won’t go into shock. My GH should be around 6 and KH 4, although this may be lower at first due to aquasoil. I’m not sure what the PH will be. If anyone can confirm if I’m on the right track, that would be great.
 
You are one step from the discovery that if you use 100 % RO+DI water carefully mineralized (lightly, but in good balance), you don't need CO2 injection at all.
 

_Maq_ said:
You are one step from the discovery that if you use 100 % RO+DI water carefully mineralized (lightly, but in good balance), you don't need CO2 injection at all.
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I’m guessing at that level it’s a fine balance, but the addition of co2 gives you a safety net.
 
This is good to know I am only getting into this an all ready have 250lt of ro water sitting there for my marine tank . Can anyone point me in the right direction to how you minerals back into the water
 
the1dogbikes said:
This is good to know I am only getting into this an all ready have 250lt of ro water sitting there for my marine tank . Can anyone point me in the right direction to how you minerals back into the water
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Why not just try and cut it with tap water to remineralise it? Lots seem to have success here with this method.
 
Cor said:
Can you explain that? What about a high light setup?
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I admit lighting is not what I'm very focused on. Lighting experts would probably detest my DIY lighting composed of pretty ordinary (and cheap) LED bulbs. The question is, what we can consider "high light"? I'm unable to discuss that because I don't know and I've never measured illumination of my tanks.
The next question is what is high light setup good for? More reddish plants? Please, have a look here. There you can see Ludwigia Meta and Rotala wallichii taken from my tanks. To my eyes, their coloration is just fine. Or is the benefit in faster growth? As for me, I don't enjoy trimming; slow-growers suit my laziness better. I don't want to make my plants grow faster.
But in general, my point was that with well-prepared water and good maintenance, you can keep even very sensitive plants, with very few (if any) exceptions, without CO2 injection.
 
The light compensation point varies among plants (the LCP is where photosynthesis equals respiration, below the LCP the plants will eventually die and with too much light the plants will not thrive either and becomes algae magnets). We don't seem to have a whole lot of specifics for the various plant species we keep - some plants especially in the so-called easy category can grow and thrive with very little light (see pic below) some requires more for sure. No species I am aware of absolutely requires very high light intensity.

This is from a tank I used to run at a ridiculously low light level - you could barely see the plants :lol: ... the fish and plants appeared to be happy though.

1702320389975.png


Cheers,
Michael
 
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If possible, just go full RO and watch issues disappear one by one. As attested to above, it will make your life markedly easier and will open up previously "problem" plants to conditions favoring their best morphology and growth. Other than the hassle / cost of making / buying RO, of course. I typically remineralize to 120 TDS w/ Seachem Equilibrium, but I know there better and or cheaper options out there.
 
DeadFish said:
If possible, just go full RO and watch issues disappear one by one. As attested to above, it will make your life markedly easier and will open up previously "problem" plants to conditions favoring their best morphology and growth. Other than the hassle / cost of making / buying RO, of course.
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Very much agree with you @DeadFish... if your already down the RO route and the amount of WC water you need to produce is not impractical (which should not be the case with a 60P(?) 60L tank with 50% weekly WC's) you might as well go 100% RO and remineralize from there.


DeadFish said:
I typically remineralize to 120 TDS w/ Seachem Equilibrium, but I know there better and or cheaper options out there.
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With the crazy amount of Potassium you get with Equilibrium I would definitely not use that product. A bag a food grade Gypsum salt CaSO4 (or CaCl2 if you pre-batch) and pure Epsom Salt MgSO4 is all you need - will last a very long time for a 60L soft water tank and set you back less far less than Equilibrium - and give you full control over your Ca:Mg ratio with none of the collateral micros or macros that Seachem adds to Equilibrium.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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MichaelJ said:
Very much agree with you @DeadFish... if your already down the RO route and the amount of WC water you need to produce is not impractical (which should not be the case with a 60P(?) 60L tank with 50% weekly WC's) you might as well go 100% RO and remineralize from there.



With the crazy amount of Potassium you get with Equilibrium I would definitely not use that product. A bag a food grade Gypsum salt CaSO4 (or CaCl2 if you pre-batch) and pure Epsom Salt MgSO4 is all you need - will last a very long time for a 60L soft water tank and set you back less far less than Equilibrium - and give you full control over your Ca:Mg ratio with none of the collateral micros or macros that Seachem adds to Equilibrium.

Cheers,
Michael
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Thank you for this tidbit of info. I (lazily) wasn't aware how much potassium was in eq. I did also look at GLA gh booster but that is about the same. Guess I'll be moving to salts.
 
I am a huge fan of exclusive use of RODI water and its custom mineralization. You don't have to measure much and still you know fairly well what is in your water. Upon such conditions, with fewer unknowns, you can deduce much more info from observing your plants and the tank in general.
In the beginning, some 8 years ago, I've vigorously experimented with various amounts of nutrients and ratios among them. Now, it seems that these explorations are largely over, I'm mostly doing only small adjustments and seldom change the relative ratios.
I readily agree that other ratios deviating quite substantially from those of mine can work well - in given circumstances (esp. CO2 injection) for given species. Yet I maintain that if you follow my ratios to the letter, you will hardly ever notice signs of nutritional imbalance.
Yes, with my dietary approach, some species remain smaller that expected. That's not always a bad thing. Still, I can see here a space to explore and improve my formulas.
 
_Maq_ said:
Yet I maintain that if you follow my ratios to the letter, you will hardly ever notice signs of nutritional imbalance.
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May be a naive question but what are your ratios?
I am currently cutting my water 4:1 RO : hard tap (70L tank, 40% weekly changes) . If all I need is gypsum and epsom salts in my RO in a particular ratio I might go that route and ditch the tap entirely.
 
LFNfan said:
May be a naive question but what are your ratios?
I am currently cutting my water 4:1 RO : hard tap (70L tank, 40% weekly changes) . If all I need is gypsum and epsom salts in my RO in a particular ratio I might go that route and ditch the tap entirely.
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Unless the ratios are very skewed I think its hard to say if Ca:Mg ratios really matters... Personally I am about 3.2:1 (and less K than Mg) in both my tanks and that works well it seems... it probably matters more if you dose lean.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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