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live plants in hard water tanks???

Magnum Man21 136

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our "native" water here is rock hard... and after beating my head against the wall, for years, I finally installed an RO unit large enough for all my soft water tanks... in the last year or so, I began messing with shrimp, and live bearers, so those tanks vary between blended and straight well water... I've not seen much difference with growing terrestrial plants out of harder water tanks... but I'm also getting more into easy aquatic plants ( anubias ) and I have several varieties... I recently switched over 2 larger tanks, back to hard water, and will be trying to add a few varieties of anubias to those tanks...

curious if anyone has similar plants growing in both hard, and soft water, and notice any difference in how they grow???
 
I do. My tap water has 24 KH and I can use cistern and rain water with 0 to 7 KH.

Usually plants grow better in softer water but some species do well in hard water.
A perfect choice for hard water are allmost any Cryptocoryne, Myriophyllum, Bacopa and some more. It depends on more parameters as hardness; you have to figure out what works best in a given tank.

Anubias, Vallisneria, Egeria and some others also grow in hard water but they proceed bicarbonate-assimilation to compensate low CO2 levels in hard water. That will result in a raising pH value and a hard white covering on their leaves. You can see this especially on leaves near a light source.

There ist a Wikipedia Artikel about this phenomenon but only in German:
 
this is a starting picture of day one, of a coffeefola, that just got added into a hard water tank, along with several nana's when they get here... I have a really nice coffeefola in a temperate soft water tank, that is growing exceptionally well, so that will give me something to compare to...

also curious if there would be much difference between temperate and tropical temperature tanks?
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I've had java fern survive in several of my shrimp tanks( I wouldn't say "thrive" though ), for a couple years... but their ugly disposition, could be caused by all the shrimp as well???, and I have a few clumps of unidentified mosses, ( java or similar ) that came in bags of shrimp, and got added to the tanks with them, that are slowly growing over the last couple years
 
Java fern does not thrive here; it never has. This plant requires more potassium than is present in my water. It develops numerous small holes and brown edges.

This is Anubias barteri after I changed the Endler's tank with pure tap water for some times. The pipe to my cistern water is still closed due to the unusual cold weather ...

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You can clearly see where there is more light. Young leaves look healthy for a while.
 
Vallisneria is supposed to grow better in hard water and I seem to remember reading something somewhere once , very obscure information , that Vallisneria plants can do something that makes their water harder .
 
Perhaps this meant that Vallis can increase the pH (see bicarbonate assimilation), which normally correlates with hard water.

I think we need to define exactly what "hard water" is. Vallis does not thrive in very soft water with a KH/GH value below about 2, but it does thrive in soft water with an adequate amount of fertiliser.
 
When living in the East Kootenays, our water came from a well and was very hard, don't know the exact value but hard to keep lime stains off of any surface exposed to the water. We had good results with many cryptocorynes and Vallisneria spirallis <sp>. We used 2 48" growlux florescence tubes.
 
When we lived in a limestone hard water area (sorry, no parameters) java ferns grew like crazy. I gave a grocery bagful to anyone that expressed any interest. Now I live in a soft water area. We get some mineral deposits but KH & GH are pretty low. Java ferns grow but much more slowly. Java "windelov" is another easy to grow robust kind.

Some stem plants are not very fussy, rotala "indica" might work. Little reddish/pink leaves near the light but often just green. Hygrophilla (hygro) species will probably grow too, but they have a new name to get around US ban. I can't think of it right now. Of course you would not let it get out into the wild nor would it survive your winters. I think it's h. polysperma that's illegal, but not it's varieties like "sunset" etc. Just be careful. H. angustifolis (?) is often available but has never grown well for me.

Vallisneria, the so called "jungle val" (not "giant val) in my club, might grow well too. It is likely at least 2 or more species that grow 30+ inches x 1/4inch wide. (1 is spiralis but not the little "Italian" spiral shaped 1, really v. asiatica, although that might grow for you too). Vals are interesting in that they can use atmospheric CO2 from the water surface. There's an old saying if you can't grow vals try sagittarius, & vs versus.

As others have said, some crypts may grow well, a few actually prefer harder water (usteriana is 1 I think, it gets big!). All of the c. wendtii colors are pretty sturdy, you might try 1 or 2 of those (red, green, bronze, mi oya, etc.) Crypts like root tab ferts.

I won't recommend mosses of any kind. I've had a moss hate on for many years now, they go everywhere & are hard to get rid of. They may grow well in any water...too well, lol;. Along the glass, into filter intakes, on substrate, decor, other plants, just a PITA in almost all places. Beware! Once you have it, you'll have for a loonngg time.
 
Have you tried java ferns? The "regular" & Windelov are easy for most tanks. Narrow, needle & Philippine might be a little more fussy but worth a try.

Maybe my soft water is why buces are not very happy for me. I do add crushed coral...
 
Ooops I don't know how I missed that.
I have tried java ferns more than once. It was the first plant I bought when I decided to try my hand at live plants again. There's pics all over of these big, lush ferns and they're always recommended as these magical beginner-proof plants you couldn't kill if you tried. Well, I killed them, and I didn't even try! The first batch did nothing for months before fading away, and the second had brown spots when received and then they sprouted those nasty looking plantlets at the end of their leaves. Looked like hairy warts. Then they died. Ugliest. Plant. Ever.

Maybe my soft water is why buces are not very happy for me. I do add crushed coral...

Are they the mini varieties? I can't seem to keep those alive either. "Regular" sized buce does ok, but man are they slow growers. Way slower than anubias.
 

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