Spring water

[JamesC]

I've been using RO water with a bit of tap water added for some years now as I have found I always had problems with using Thames water straight from the tap. Now that my RO unit needs to be changed as it's getting a bit ancient I have decided to try fresh spring water. I am rather lucky in the fact that I have an underground spring in my own back garden that I have access to via a manhole. So far I've just used an old powerhead with tubing attached that is lowered down into the water and pumps the water out slowly into my 25l containers. If all goes well I'll get a small pond pump and have it pump the water into a large garden water butt that I currently use to store RO water.

With my cheapo test kits I get:

KH - 7
GH - 13
Ca - 90ppm (or as CaCO3 - 230ppm)
Mg - 0ppm
NO3 - 5ppm
PO4 - 0ppm
NH3/4 - 0ppm
pH - 6.6

For the past 2 weeks I've been using this water rather than the RO water for my water changes and so far all is good. I do add 10ppm Magnesium to the water as the water's GH is all Calcium. Be interesting to see what changes there are in the plants over the coming weeks/months. The tonina fluviatilis that I have is starting to look a bit sad, but I think I can live without that plant.

James

 

[LondonDragon]

Any updates James?

 

[JamesC]

Being it's summer holidays I've been away a lot and also very busy with family, so haven't spent as much time as I would like on the tank. I have noticed some changes with some of the plants though.

The ones that haven't faired very well and may well need to be ditched very soon:
Tonina Fluviatilis
Utricularia Graminifolia
Ludwigia Inclinata var. Verticillata ''Cuba''

First 2 no surprise, but the last one I am surprised at. Shame about the UG as I had a nice thick carpet across the whole 4 foot width of the tank. It's now going pale and falling apart.

The ones that seem to be doing better:
Limnophila Aromatica
Limnophila Sessiliflora
Alternanthera Reineckii
Rotala Macrandra

The R. Macrandra surprised me as I always thought of it as a soft water loving plant.

All the other plants don't seem to have changed. They are:
Blyxa Japonica
Ludwigia Glandulosa
Ludwigia Mullertii
Nesaea Crassicaulis
Rotala sp. ''green''
Rotala Rotundifolia
Willow Moss
Fissedens Fontanus
Cryptocoryne Wendtii ''brown''
Cryptocoryne Parva
Hemianthus Callitrichoides ''Cuba''
Lobelia Cardinalis


A fair few plants there as I experimenting at the mo.

Don't know if using the spring water is of any benefit over using tap water, but I quite like the idea of it so am going to carry on using it.

Thanks
James