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400l mixed community

Wookii said:
1dGH = 17.8 ppm - something doesn't look quite right on your tap water TDS reading, GH 7 + KH 3 should be a fair bit higher than 120ppm TDS.
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This is getting off-topic but if @anewbie 's tapwater is low in sodium and potassium cations it could quite possibly be in the 120's ppm TDS and GH 7. Also depends what anions are present.

1dGH is equivalent to 17.8 ppm Calcium Carbonate but expressed as calcium is only about 7 mg/l (ppm). KH is only 3 so lots of wiggle room on the carbonate side of the equation.

@Conort2 love the tank!
 
anewbie said:
are the apistogramma sensitive to hardness or is it sufficient to just have low ph ?
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As I don’t measure ph it would be hard for me to say for sure but I would imagine it would be the lower hardness rather than ph that allows the eggs to develop. To be honest I was surprised the first time I saw the female with fry as everything online says these fish need an extremely low ph for their eggs to develop. I know I don’t measure my ph but I’d be shocked if it was as low as some of the values that are recommended for breeding black water apistogramma which is around the 4/5 mark.

Cheers
 
Conort2 said:
As I don’t measure ph it would be hard for me to say for sure but I would imagine it would be the lower hardness rather than ph that allows the eggs to develop. To be honest I was surprised the first time I saw the female with fry as everything online says these fish need an extremely low ph for their eggs to develop. I know I don’t measure my ph but I’d be shocked if it was as low as some of the values that are recommended for breeding black water apistogramma which is around the 4/5 mark.

Cheers
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With near 0 kh the ph could be fairly low. I'm pretty sure that ph is part of the equation for some blackwater apisto as well as hardness. Your tank is giving me hope that i can have a well planted tank that is suitable for breeding blackwater fishes (you have several as another fish I'm interested in are the Dicrossus filamentosus. I really do like your tanks as well as stocking.
 
Conort2 said:
Is there any particular reason why you want a lower tds?
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I, as you, am keeping blackwater fish in a high tech tank, and since using only remineralised RO (with CaSo4 and MgSo4 to total 50 tds) my plants are not as happy as they were in tap water and full EI.

I'm still in the troubleshooting phase since it may be due to low CO2 or higher water temperature rather than water parameters. It is definitely more challenging this way though.

You mentioned your plants were possibly missing Cl, are you dosing any at the moment?

Apologies for sort of derailing your thread, if you prefer I can pm you. Thanks in advance.
 
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Just adding seachem equilibrium to my ro water and dosing EI at half to a third.

There are a lot of plants that haven’t done well in here. All the wendtii type crypts currently in here are nowhere near as big and healthy in my tanks which have been tap water. I also had a lot of crypt flamingo which has completely gone. The swords I have left do well but the tank is mainly microsorum species, bolbitis, moss and anubias which are all classed as easy (although I never have had great success with microsorum low tech). The blyxa also grew like crazy in the lower tds water but I added iguanodectes which ate all of it.

There’s quite a high chance all these plants could grow without CO2 as I haven’t got anything demanding in here. This is what the tank looks like now, as you can see it’s changed a fair bit since the beginning.
44052748-3066-4533-AABE-BF73FE25F6E2.jpeg
 
Looks great! Is the tank the 150 x 60 x 45 from A4L Conor? I’m about to order one of those myself!

What are you using for filtration?
 
Wookii said:
Is the tank the 150 x 60 x 45 from A4L Conor?
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It is, can’t fault the build quality on these they’re brilliant.

I’ve got two ehiem pro 3 2075 which seem to do the job.

Cheers
 
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Wookii said:
1dGH = 17.8 ppm - something doesn't look quite right on your tap water TDS reading, GH 7 + KH 3 should be a fair bit higher than 120ppm TDS.
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Hi @Wookii,

If the 3 KH is made from CaCO3 thats 3 x 17.8 = ~53 ppm. If the 7 GH is made from 3 GH (the Ca in the CaCO3) + 4 GH of Ca and Mg, that means, if we disregard the Mg contents (assume its all made from Ca), that the 4 GH is at most 7.14 x 4 = ~29 ppm.

So the TDS from GH/KH comes out at 53+29 = 82 ppm.

If the tap water comes out at 120 ppm that leaves 38 ppm for everything else is in the tapwater.

Sounds about right to me.

@Conort2 Nice tank!


EDITED: corrected the arithmetic.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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We have decent tap water; not great like they have up in oregon or seattle but decent - our nitrate is 0. probably not absolute 0; but 0 if one uses api test kit; i have a more sensitive test kit if it really matters.
 
Maf 2500 said:
This is getting off-topic but if @anewbie 's tapwater is low in sodium and potassium cations it could quite possibly be in the 120's ppm TDS and GH 7. Also depends what anions are present.

1dGH is equivalent to 17.8 ppm Calcium Carbonate but expressed as calcium is only about 7 mg/l (ppm). KH is only 3 so lots of wiggle room on the carbonate side of the equation.

@Conort2 love the tank!
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MichaelJ said:
Hi @Wookii,

If the 3 KH is made from CaCO3 thats 3 x 17.8 = ~53 ppm. If the 7 GH is made from 3 GH from the (Ca in the CaCO3) + 4 GH of Ca and Mg, that means, if we disregard the Mg contents (assume its all made from Ca), that the 4 GH is at most 7.14 x 4 = ~29 ppm.

So the TDS from GH/KH comes out at 53+29 = 82 ppm.

If the tap water comes out at 120 ppm that leaves 38 ppm for everything else is in the tapwater.

Sounds about right to me.

@Conort2 Nice tank!


EDITED: corrected the arithmetic.

Cheers,
Michael
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Chemistry clearly not my strong point 😂
 
Female Lineata has had another spawn as I suspected. This appears to be the largest one yet. I managed to scoop a few out but think they may have been too young to move so not very hopeful they’ll make it. If she can just keep a few alive until they’re around double the size it’ll be much safer to move them.

25BD91CD-6B38-4F26-87A2-EEDFFCD71815.jpegFE68ED21-7860-4D4B-87CC-F1D983FA1A87.jpeg854E95C8-54B2-42CF-83BD-256388D8902E.jpeg
 
Beautiful looking fish Conor! Is that as large as they grow - what is it, about 40mm?
 
Wookii said:
Beautiful looking fish Conor! Is that as large as they grow - what is it, about 40mm?
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Probably a little bit bigger but not by much. The male is probably two to three times larger than her though. They can throw their weight about when they want to and definitely are the bosses of the tank. The biotodoma give them a wide berth which is funny when you see the size difference.

Cheers
 
She’s still going with the fry, doesn’t appear to have lost many thankfully.

How long will the fry stay with mum before they try and go at it alone? At the moment the fry seem to rely on mum to guide them around .
 
Thise fry are very cute @Conort2

How are you getting on with the Green Darters?

Also how are the Tuncano’s getting on - I’m definitely getting those for my new tank. Do you have them in your main tank, or a separate one?
 
Wookii said:
How are you getting on with the Green Darters?
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I think I lost a couple unfortunately. I haven’t seen any bodies but haven’t seen all six together for a while now. I probably shouldn’t have added any tank mates in with them as they compete poorly for food. However the remaining darters seem healthy so maybe that wasn’t the reason. Some were rather skinny so may have been parasites.
Wookii said:
Tuncano’s getting on - I’m definitely getting those for my new tank. Do you have them in your main tank, or a separate one?
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they’re doing great, no they’re in a smaller tank in the cabinet. I would love to have them in the 1500 but I think the biotodoma would make a meal of them.

Cheers
 
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