# TDS and remineralising ro water



## soggybongo (27 Aug 2018)

i'll be starting my flood of my dsm  tank next weekend with remineralised ro water and seachem equilibrium, alkaline buffer and acid buffer. i decided to go down the ro  route as my tap water fluctuates so much where tds is concerened with the constant burst water mains in my area. this can be 130 one day then 300 the next this could be down to flushing the system after a fix but hovers around the 200 mark most of the time.
my question is i really want to keep crystal red shrimp. PH: 6.1–6.5,    KH: 0–2,    GH: 4–6.   TDS: 100–180
with my tank being small i need a very very very small shoaling fish compatable with the water params and the shrimp and also the plants mainly hc and various types of moss.


sorry if this is posted in the wrong section


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## soggybongo (27 Aug 2018)

fogot to mention the tank will be fully cycled after flooding befor any livestock gets in it.


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## mort (28 Aug 2018)

If I think small and peaceful fish I instantly imagine chilli rasbora. They would do fine in your water https://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/boraras-brigittae/
Another nice one if you can find them is microdevario kubotai https://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/microdevario-kubotai/

Even the smallest fish may eat shrimplet's but adults should be fine and if you have enough cover a good population will build up in time.


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## dw1305 (28 Aug 2018)

Hi all, 





soggybongo said:


> ro water and seachem equilibrium, alkaline buffer and acid buffer.


You don't need the alkaline and/or acid buffers, they just raise the TDS and they don't perform any useful function.

There is a discussion on buffering at <"Hoagland solution....">, I haven't used <"Seachem Equilibrium">, but I think it works fairly well in the planted tank. 

Personally I'm too mean to buy branded products, and I also have a problem with Seachem's wording on their product descriptions, the blurb  often seems to obscure the truth about their products, but without actually writing anything that is demonstrably untrue.

If you want to add a bit more carbonate hardness you can just use potassium bicarbonate (KHCO3), adding1.8g KHCO3 to 25 litres of water adds 2 dKH (from <"James' Planted Tank">). The addition of humic compounds in dead leaves etc will lower pH. Have a look at <"all the leaves are brown">.

In planted tanks pH will always fluctuate, in soft water (either in nature or in the tank) it fluctuates more. Soft water organisms have evolved in water that has a diurnal pH change (lower at night when you have elevated CO2 levels, higher during the day when you have elevated dissolved oxygen levels) and it isn't a problem to them.

Even really heavily carbonate buffered water, like the sea or Lake Tanganyika, shows a diurnal pH change. This is from Diana Walstad's <"The Ecology of Planted Aquariums"> 





> _Daily variations of the water parameters are rarely – if ever – taken into account. Data collected in a freshwater lake (Star Lake, VT) with a very low alkalinity showed a diurnal pH fluctuation beyond the imagination of most hobbyists. Thus, the pH at 10 am was measured at 5.7 (strongly acidic), 9.6 at noon (strongly alkaline), 8.3 at 2 pm (moderately alkaline) and finally, 6.4 at 4 pm (slightly / moderately acidic). Readings were taken at a 0.5M depth. The fluctuation observed was due to the low KH value of the water (something reported for the Amazon river, too) and the presence of large amounts of phytoplankton. Under the circumstance it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to figure what is the “right” pH for any form of aquatic life collected in that lake and which tank could cope with this kind of fluctuation. The low – high points of the day differ by 4 pH points, which means that the concentration of H+ in the morning is 10.000 times higher than at noon, while this change takes place in just two hours. It goes without saying that this pH swing cannot be observed in an aquarium only because we cannot reproduce the amount of light which falls in the Lake. In any case, if somebody reported that a suitable pH for aquatic life collected in this lake should range daily from 5.7 – 9.6 most hobbyists would think it was a typo._"


The reference she cites is: Allen, H.L. (1972) "Phytoplankton photosynthesis, micro-nutrient interaction and inorganic carbon availability in a soft water Vermont Lake" In Linkens GE (Ed) "Nutrients and eutrophication... " Symposium Amer. Soc. Liminol. Oceanogr. 1 pp 63-83

This is from Rocha, RRA.; Thomaz, SM.*; Carvalho, P. & Gomes, LC. (2007)
Modeling chlorophyll-α and dissolved oxygen concentration in tropical floodplain lakes (Paraná River, Brazil) Brazilian Journal of Biology 69:2




 

cheers Darrel


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## Matt @ ScapeEasy (28 Aug 2018)

How about Dario Dario for something a bit more unusual? Or dwarf puffers?


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## soggybongo (30 Aug 2018)

dw1305 said:


> Hi all, You don't need the alkaline and/or acid buffers, they just raise the TDS and they don't perform any useful function.
> 
> There is a discussion on buffering at <"Hoagland solution....">, I haven't used <"Seachem Equilibrium">, but I think it works fairly well in the planted tank.
> 
> ...



Thanks for your response Darrel, i understand what you mean about tds with the alk and acid buffers as my goal with this tank is to keep pure red line shrimp and want them to thrive however i dont want my ph all over the place hence buffering with alkaline to stabilizing my ph* or am i wrong?*


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## soggybongo (30 Aug 2018)

Matt @ ScapeEasy said:


> How about Dario Dario for something a bit more unusual? Or dwarf puffers?



way too big matt, thanks anyway


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## dw1305 (31 Aug 2018)

Hi all,





soggybongo said:


> my ph all over the place hence buffering with alkaline to stabilizing my ph* or am i wrong?*


You don't need to stabilize the pH.

Basically as you move towards pure water (H2O) pH becomes less and less meaningful as a parameter. We don't ever have pure H2O in the tanks, we always have a dilute solution of salts and gases, with water as the solvent. If you keep fish, or shrimps, that like low TDS water, they will have evolved in water that has a constantly changing pH. If you keep Tanganyikan cichlids it is different they have evolved in water that is infinitely carbonate buffered and will always be alkaline with a stable pH.

In nature you can only really get stable pH in water that is very strongly carbonate buffered (high pH), or has a large amount of humic substances, and very few ions or plants (low pH). Most other water will have fluctuating pH, this is because they have a mixture of bases and acids. As the ratio of acids (H+ ion donors) and bases (H+ ion acceptors) changes the pH will change, this is entirely natural. 

In the tank you can add <"chemical buffers">, which stabilise the pH, by having a buffer of solid compound that can go into solution as the pH changes. This just counteract these natural processes.

cheers Darrel


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## Iain Sutherland (31 Aug 2018)

soggybongo said:


> way too big matt, thanks anyway


Both Darios and dwarf puffers are very small, maybe smaller than chilli's.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk


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## mort (31 Aug 2018)

Iain Sutherland said:


> Both Darios and dwarf puffers are very small, maybe smaller than chilli's.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk



I think they are all very similar in size when adult but with chilli's you would need more for them to feel secure so bioload could be higher. A single pea puffer would make an interesting pet but I wouldn't put shrimp with them.


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## Matt @ ScapeEasy (1 Sep 2018)

I'm keeping shrimp with puffers... they don't seem interested in them...


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## mort (1 Sep 2018)

Some people do get away with it but they can be real shrimp hunters. It's similar to how some betta can be fine but others merciless killers. It's highly likely they will take out shrimplet's though unless the tank is planted heavily enough for some to survive.


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## Matt @ ScapeEasy (1 Sep 2018)

Interesting... thanks.


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