Struggling to grow healthy plants

[Aqua Hero]

im getting german blue rams and actually want to try an breed them. form everything i read they dont really bred or even survive long in hard water. there have been records of rams breeding in hard water but not alot. RO units waste water and that is going to piss off my mum who doesnt like like bills lol. im gonna try the peat. the ada aqua soil was able to lower the ph to 6.2 and soften it. kept it down for 4 months. it would of stayed longer but i did weekly water changes because my moss was getting ammonia burns.

 

[bennell]

Ok so ive just measured my PH which is indicating slightly above 6 (not as yellow as when co2 is on) and this is 1hour before co2 is due to turn back on (been off for 14h) so im confused. Is my PH when my co2 is on lower than the api test kit can measure (below 6) if so why is it dropping so much from the tap which memeasures 7. As my water report shows my water is very soft but im yet to buy a KH & GH Test kit.i May be getting into the whole PH etc too much because i think my issue is too little co2 and too much light so i have dropped the light on time down to 8h and slightly increased co2 which i will continue to do untill safe levels are exceeded for the fish

 

[EnderUK]

Wouldn't bother with test kits, terrible at best. You're better getting a simple chinabay pH pen, they're not great but better then test kits. As Ian says don't worry about hard and soft water nor is it worth chasing an ideal pH as once again most fish don't care.

The tanks is quite low light for requiring injected carbon and internal filters really aren't the best for injecting CO2. You might be better better just swapping to a low tech tank.

 

[bennell]

Thank you very much ender. Ive just finished reading a very informative thread from ceg and it explanes ph, kh and gh on another level and as you have said fish dont care. I was always going to buy a new lighting unit as my 15gal had higher output lights then my current 30 and im unable to simply fit a large wattage bulb as its a fixes unit and only designed for t8 bulbs at 36". i was looking to fit a twin t5 unit with an output of around 80w which i think would be a better amount of light

 

[EnderUK]

Thank you very much ender. Ive just finished reading a very informative thread from ceg and it explanes ph, kh and gh on another level and as you have said fish dont care. I was always going to buy a new lighting unit as my 15gal had higher output lights then my current 30 and im unable to simply fit a large wattage bulb as its a fixes unit and only designed for t8 bulbs at 36". i was looking to fit a twin t5 unit with an output of around 80w which i think would be a better amount of light

Just adding more light doesn't usually fix an issue, it usually causes more problems. My guess, and it's just a guess,you're suffering more from flow issues and you would be better upgrading to at least a 1200 LPH canister filter before you look at lighting. If you want to upgrade you're lighting look at being to control it either by increase it's height above the tank and being able to control the amount of bulbs that are on.

 

[bennell]

Thank you again ender, unfortunately a cannister filter is out of the question due to space and no where to put it as my tank is perfectly slotted into a gap between the chimney and stand with no storage they why i have the internal filter the lighting unit i was looking at is a boyu which is adjustable and has switches for each light if i remember rightly.