Hi everyone, I've been keeping fish in planted tanks for over 30 years but have always lived in the city and used city water. Now I'm living in the country and have a well. We use potassium chloride and a product called Iron Out in our water softener. For this reason, I've been buying RO water remineralized for drinking, and using that for my fish tanks. The fish seem to be doing well.
I do have two hoses outside, one with softened water and the other with straight hard well water. I also collect water from a rain barrel but I've never used that water for anything except watering my garden. I hear some fish keepers use rainwater though.
I recently picked up a used aquarium with fish and along with it come products I've never really used before. Seachem Equilibrium is one of those products and I supposed I could use it as it should give the plants some of the things they need, possibly things that are missing from the RO water I am now using but I do have root tabs, liquid Flourish, and Flourish Excel. There is also API Proper pH. I don't know much about using these products.
My well water is 8.0 pH and TDS around 310. The RO water has TDS at 12 and pH was 6. Instead of mixing the two to get TDS around 180-200 for my shrimp tank, I'm probably better off just using the RO water and adding the shrimp salts. I really don't know the composition of the well water to make TDS around 310.
I have a 38 gallon tank with an Acara, bushynose pleco, 2 siamese algae eaters and several cories. Anubias (large and small), java fern, duckweed and crypts, plus one water sprite just put into the tank recently.
I have a 29 gallon acrylic tank with an angelfish, baby ancistrus, 4 kuhli loaches and 6 neons. This is the tank I just purchased and came with these fish already. I've added about 30 live plants as the tank had none and replaced the light with the Fluval 3.0. This tank has dwaf sag, italian val, anubias barteri nana, water sprite, java fern windelove, wendtii (brown, red, and green), mosses (java, christmas, taiwan). This tank also has a bubbler which is the first time in my life I've had a bubbler in an aquarium.
When I got that tank mentioned above, they threw in a 2 gallon desktop aquarium that they used to keep a betta in (existing filter and gravel was still wet) before upgrading him to a 5 gallon. I filled it with hornwort, one dwarf sag, one baby java fern floating, christmas moss, red root floaters and guppy grass. I moved a colony of amphipods to that tank along with some pond snails and ramshorn snails. I also put in 4 pale low grade cherry shrimp. I had been researching shrimp in Nov/Dec last year and finally brought some home. I do not have this tank heated and the water is around 68 degrees.
I also have a project tank for this summer, my old 46 gallon bowfront which developed a minor leak a couple of years ago. The leak seemed to slow/stop when there was only a few inches of water in the aquarium. Looks like it will need to be resealed. The plastic rim around the top needs to be replaced also as the center stay has cracked and just flaps there in the middle. From what I hear from my LFS, the supply chain issues might be a problem when it comes to replacing that part. If worse comes to worse, I'd probably just make a paludarium out of it and avoid the corner of the tank that leaked when it comes to the aquatic section, somehow containing the water with a plastic tub of sorts inside the tank. I'd love to fill it with bugs like isopods and other creeping critters, but that may take convincing my better half. Then of course, finding a place in the house for another tank is the other challenge.
If it counts, I have a one gallon plastic container (used to have pretzel rods in it) that I am currently keeping an olive nerite snail I recently acquired. I put a stone which was covered in algae, plus some java moss attached to a cave in there. One small pond snail is in there with him (must have come from the java moss).
Then, if anyone remembers AquaBabies, small plastic cubes they sold years ago. Thank goodness they no longer sell those, but I've got amphipods in those small cubes. I also have a colony of amphipods in a 2.5 gallon plastic mineral water jug. I can't help but see any good sized container as a new wet home for something. I think that is an "illness" my other aquatic critter loving friends must also have.
Pics of my tanks to come eventually. It will be easier for me to upload from my phone and I'm using my desktop at the moment.
I do have two hoses outside, one with softened water and the other with straight hard well water. I also collect water from a rain barrel but I've never used that water for anything except watering my garden. I hear some fish keepers use rainwater though.
I recently picked up a used aquarium with fish and along with it come products I've never really used before. Seachem Equilibrium is one of those products and I supposed I could use it as it should give the plants some of the things they need, possibly things that are missing from the RO water I am now using but I do have root tabs, liquid Flourish, and Flourish Excel. There is also API Proper pH. I don't know much about using these products.
My well water is 8.0 pH and TDS around 310. The RO water has TDS at 12 and pH was 6. Instead of mixing the two to get TDS around 180-200 for my shrimp tank, I'm probably better off just using the RO water and adding the shrimp salts. I really don't know the composition of the well water to make TDS around 310.
I have a 38 gallon tank with an Acara, bushynose pleco, 2 siamese algae eaters and several cories. Anubias (large and small), java fern, duckweed and crypts, plus one water sprite just put into the tank recently.
I have a 29 gallon acrylic tank with an angelfish, baby ancistrus, 4 kuhli loaches and 6 neons. This is the tank I just purchased and came with these fish already. I've added about 30 live plants as the tank had none and replaced the light with the Fluval 3.0. This tank has dwaf sag, italian val, anubias barteri nana, water sprite, java fern windelove, wendtii (brown, red, and green), mosses (java, christmas, taiwan). This tank also has a bubbler which is the first time in my life I've had a bubbler in an aquarium.
When I got that tank mentioned above, they threw in a 2 gallon desktop aquarium that they used to keep a betta in (existing filter and gravel was still wet) before upgrading him to a 5 gallon. I filled it with hornwort, one dwarf sag, one baby java fern floating, christmas moss, red root floaters and guppy grass. I moved a colony of amphipods to that tank along with some pond snails and ramshorn snails. I also put in 4 pale low grade cherry shrimp. I had been researching shrimp in Nov/Dec last year and finally brought some home. I do not have this tank heated and the water is around 68 degrees.
I also have a project tank for this summer, my old 46 gallon bowfront which developed a minor leak a couple of years ago. The leak seemed to slow/stop when there was only a few inches of water in the aquarium. Looks like it will need to be resealed. The plastic rim around the top needs to be replaced also as the center stay has cracked and just flaps there in the middle. From what I hear from my LFS, the supply chain issues might be a problem when it comes to replacing that part. If worse comes to worse, I'd probably just make a paludarium out of it and avoid the corner of the tank that leaked when it comes to the aquatic section, somehow containing the water with a plastic tub of sorts inside the tank. I'd love to fill it with bugs like isopods and other creeping critters, but that may take convincing my better half. Then of course, finding a place in the house for another tank is the other challenge.
If it counts, I have a one gallon plastic container (used to have pretzel rods in it) that I am currently keeping an olive nerite snail I recently acquired. I put a stone which was covered in algae, plus some java moss attached to a cave in there. One small pond snail is in there with him (must have come from the java moss).
Then, if anyone remembers AquaBabies, small plastic cubes they sold years ago. Thank goodness they no longer sell those, but I've got amphipods in those small cubes. I also have a colony of amphipods in a 2.5 gallon plastic mineral water jug. I can't help but see any good sized container as a new wet home for something. I think that is an "illness" my other aquatic critter loving friends must also have.
Pics of my tanks to come eventually. It will be easier for me to upload from my phone and I'm using my desktop at the moment.
