HI!!!

[Duane]

Sorry about the yelling. My name is Duane and I just recently got back into the hobby. Everything ive kept before this was when I was a kid, dad was always way supporting of fish guess that happens when you love two oscars.

I currently have 2 tanks with twin tail half moon Bettas and horned nerite snails. Each being taken care of by my 4 and 5 year olds, with supervision of course. I just started a 37 gallon for me "kinda" the tank is recycling because I managed to kill the first 6 rummy nose tetra I put into it by not blocking the first box in the overflow of the wet dry sump filter I got with the tank. 40 bucks for the two. I was really bummed and even more bummed by the responses I got on my previous forum. Oh well im trying to get better and am looking for any advice that is offered. The tank is heated with live plants on RO water by a recommendation without explaining I need to put some minerals back in. I will keep trying and someday succeed but any help would be much appreciated. So thats my introduction hopefully this is the place I should be and thank you in advance for anyone who takes the time out of their own life to assist me.

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

The easiest way to add minerals to aquarium water is to use a Rift Lake water conditioner. These are powdered minerals like calcium and magnesium and you add a certain amount to increase the general hardness of the water so it is suitable for hard water fishes like African Rift Lake cichlids. If you are keeping software fishes like tetras, you will only need to add a small amount of Rift Lake conditioner, probably about 20% of normal dose rate.

 

[seangee]

Is there a particular reason why you can't use tap water? If its simply that your tap water is too hard you could just mix it with RO using the same ratio every time you change your water. That way you can "dilute" the minerals down to the required level and don't need to put anything back in.