The Puffer Forum

Can someone using RO water for their puffer tank tell me what you have to add to the water to get the right hardness and ph?

Thanks,

Why are you using RO? Is there something wrong with your tap water? What SG are you keeping your BW tank at?

I use RO water for one of my bettas (only because my tap water is unsuitable for this particular strain). I add RO Right according to the dosage on the jar.

here is my story: I have a 75 gal tank that was a discus tank for 3 years. I recently got rid of my discus and bought 2 gsp's from my lfs. I used r/o water for the discus tank because our well water is really hard with a ph of about 8.5. Those water parameters sound good for gsp's right? well the gsp's i purchased form the lfs were kept in fresh water so I drained my discus tank and filled with my well water. I added aragmax sand, some fake plants and some texas holey rock to the tank. everything looked great for about a month. Water was cystal clear and all my water parameters were good. I had a fully established bio filter that worked great for my fully grown discus. I started adding instant ocean sea salt after the first water change that week (1/2 cup salt with 30gal water change). after about a month I started noticing bown algae starting to grown all over the bottom of the sand and on the plants. It got worse everyday the lights where on. My light is less than 1 watt per gal and they where only on 8 hours a day. I left the lights off for 3 days and the algae cleared up. right now my sg is at about 1.005. I made 30gal of r/o water today and put 1 cup of instance ocean and 4 tbsp of kent r/o right in it.

There has to be something in my well water that is causing the algae to bloom. so I was wondering if anyone else has a r/o mixture that is good for gsp's?

I do not know about RO water or any of that.

But I use well water and I will also get the brown algae.

Usually it happens when I have a lot of light on the tank OR if I have over fed, or some bits of left over food are left in the tank and I don't notice them.

I just try to restrict the light, not over feed, use a net or vacuum to get up all the left over food.

And during water change if I see a few spots I just wipe them away..not a big deal.

Sounds like a diatom bloom to me. If so, it's just a matter of time before it goes away.

Brand new to TPF Library:
library/water-filtration/brownalgaediatoms/

Did you know that fresh RO water is quite acidic? You can run an airstone in it to help normalize the pH, I'm told, but I've not done that.
I simply add a little API Proper pH 7.0 to the holding tank when I fill it.

I wondered for almost a year why I had such buffering issues and dropping pH in my reef tank. Duh! Someone finally told me about this and since I can now easily correct it, I'm having no further problems.

NIMFT! API Proper pH 7.0 is based on a phosphate buffer (which means short-lived in tanks), and contains all sorts of unnecessary junk that you neither need nor want in you tank.

Phosphate-based buffers are unnatural in water system (carbonate/bicarbonate systems are normal and natural) other than short-term use (by utilities mainly) and can cause tank issues from the extra phosphates. IME, it is an invitation to both pH-instability and to algae issues.

FWIW

^^^Agreed! pH buffers aren't any good.

NIMFT! <<<<< what does this mean?

RTR wrote:NIMFT! API Proper pH 7.0 is based on a phosphate buffer (which means short-lived in tanks), and contains all sorts of unnecessary junk that you neither need nor want in you tank.

Phosphate-based buffers are unnatural in water system (carbonate/bicarbonate systems are normal and natural) other than short-term use (by utilities mainly) and can cause tank issues from the extra phosphates. IME, it is an invitation to both pH-instability and to algae issues.

FWIW

So what do you recommend?

Not in my fish tank.

Thanks Flutter!

How about baking soda?