Reverse Osmosis

[ShoC]

I have a bit of money to splurge out and was curious on the effect
of Reverse osmosis and a planted tank,

I understand i would need to mix 1/5th tap water but how beneficial would it be,
aside from keeping my ph nice and low which i do want for my tetras,

anyone have any experience on this,
plus it would be a future investment as I'm be doing marine in a distant future....

 

[Colin_T]

how bad is your tap water?
if your tap water is not extremely hard or alkaline, and does not have lots of heavy metals or high levels of nitrates & phosphates in it, you are probably wasting your money.
Maybe check the tap water quality first and see if you need an R/O unit.
You can test it for general hardness, carbonate hardness, PH, nitrate, phosphate, iron, calcium and whatever else you want.

 

[ShoC]

my water is very hard,
I have alot of hard water around the top of my tank that needs to be scraped off,
also had some on my amazon sword leafs.
the ph is also very highly buffed...
in a normal tank no Co2 injection it raises to 8.2
with co2 sits about 7.2/7.6 (main thing im thinking as im after 6.0 ph roughly for my tetras)

 

[Colin_T]

fair enough

why do you want a PH of 6 for the tetras? Were you planning on breeding them?

 

[ShoC]

bingo =)

so far only managed to get corting but no eggs
more over im just very curious on the sort of improvement or lack of , that I would see

 

[Colin_T]

If your water is hard enough to cause the leaves on sword plants to go white, and the pH is 8+, then you will see a massive difference in eggs hatching if you use softer water (R/O water).
The other thing you should do when breeding tetras is keep the tank dark after breeding. Most tetra eggs are sensitive to light and if the tank is well lit the eggs die. Many breeders black the tanks out until the fry are free swimming.
You could use normal water for the adult fish and use R/O water for breeding.