Using Ro Water - Macro/micro Nutrients

[sophos9]

When using RO for a planted tropical tank, do macro and trace nutrients give the water everything it needs?

 

[JamesC]

Yes as long as you are adding something like GH Booster or Seachem Equilibrium. This is a part of EI for people who have very soft water. You may wish to add a bit of Baking Soda if you are concerned about low pH's.

James

 

[sophos9]

Doh! Will have to grab some Equilibrium... Will use RO water from now on in my tropical tank, the only variable left to get that I have not played with to stop the algae onslaught he he

 

[danski]

i think im wrong but are you saying you do your water changes with RO water..if so isnt that expensive.and are you using it to help with the algae issues.if so maybe theres something else wrong besides the water your putting in.what type of alge are you getting.

 

[plantbrain]

Most folks simply blend their tap with RO to the a specific KH/GH and reduce cost/hassle.
Also helps to get the right temp

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[nry]

i think im wrong but are you saying you do your water changes with RO water..if so isnt that expensive.and are you using it to help with the algae issues.if so maybe theres something else wrong besides the water your putting in.what type of alge are you getting.

It may actually be easier to ask which algae he hasn't been getting

 

[sophos9]

lol... I cannot believe you have not seen my million posts on algae problems. RO is not expensive when you have all the gear to make it at home, I got a 4 stage RO unit for my marine tank which way over produces!

Cheers Tom, good idea!! Will give that a go first. Temp and oxygen levels no problem, RO is both oxygenated and brought up to temp in a separate 25ltr container

Hi nry, as for algae.... tank is the best its ever been, just now ridding it of staghorn, want to starve that sucker

 

[JamesC]

Living on the London/Kent border I have really hard water - GH of 28 and KH of 15. I blend my RO water with tap water and this works great, even better than using Equilibrium to reconstitute. I don't like adding too much Equilibrium as it sends the TDS sky high. My tap has almost zero magnesium so have to add some epsom salts to up the magnesium level.

James

 

[nry]

I tend to find staghorn loves low growth and high light - I had a slight break-out last week on some really old vallis leaves, just cut them off. Overfeeding the fish seems to trigger it aswell for me, once I cut down to one feed per day instead of two it pretty much disappeared when it took a good hold in my tank many months back.

Flourish Excel also tends to get rid of it even at normal dosage levels, though obviously it doesn't tackle root cause.

 

[sophos9]

Cheers bud....

I cannot begin to post what variables I have tried, temp, light, co2, water circulation, siestas, macros, micros the whole 9 yards

Two things remain unchanged. 1 is that I have always used my tap water, 2 is the CO2 bottles (supplied as welding gas)

Now heres the thing, I've dropped 110w of T5, stopped CO2, and slowing down macro dosing. The fish have NEVER been so active, I mean the 4 clown loaches would hardly ever been seen, since dropping CO2, they are out most of the day playing loads. I'm presuming there are grades of CO2, maybe this is not adequate for fish?

Nonetheless, the tank is doing better now than what it was when all the gear was running.... Oh, the gear is not going to waste, its going into my marine tank in a couple of months

 

[nry]

Maybe the staghorn like the light levels and because the plants are not growing as quickly (less light) it has seen its chance?

That's some interesting selection of links in your sig by the way, a friend of mine is well into his Linux/Unix security stuff, has some Russian friends who seem to do what your site talks about, security 'checks' etc!

 

[sophos9]

Maybe the staghorn like the light levels and because the plants are not growing as quickly (less light) it has seen its chance?

That hypothesis could be true but the staghorn was worse with high-light

That's some interesting selection of links in your sig by the way, a friend of mine is well into his Linux/Unix security stuff, has some Russian friends who seem to do what your site talks about, security 'checks' etc!

Cheers, its my side-project... I do this stuff for a living so wanted to try and pass some awareness back - The Russians are very good at their game, thats for sure

 

[nry]

He talks about stuff that goes way over my head - funniest thing we did was some war-driving. Found significant numbers of companies with open wireless access points broadcasting away! Big names too!

 

[sophos9]

Fun aint it, I could tell you some horror stories about large corporates vulnerabilities... Working on a new one for a very well known company and credential parsing redirection on there VPN. Scary stuff as customer data is at stake!!

 

[Musho3210]

i got a 100 gpd RO unit for a 20 gallon reef tank that i change 3 gallons a week. Thats 697 extra gallons i can use. RO water isnt that expensive......