nayr88 said:
Thanks for the info matt, very useful
I was unaware that black water had no minerals added, I suppose the minerals and 'goodness' comes from what you use to 'tam' the water.
With the water hardness right down aswell as the TDS what would you recommend to stain the water? I have what look like alder cones everywhere outside my flat. Also leaf litter. Obviously the other choices being a peat bag in the filter, catapa or almond leaves.
Ill be doing a shed load of research for my BW tank, I'd like to do apistogramma's and a gang of tetras havnt decided 100% yet of which type, but from the same area as the apisto's would be cool.
Ill check your journal out mate
Cheers.
I've tried indian almond leaves, alder cones and peat. Not yet tried Oak leaves, but have it on good faith they are effective too.
I would not recommend one over another, they all have their pros cand cons.
I found peat a bit messy (but the cheapest option, £10 gets you a bale that will last years).
An alder cone came loose once, lodged in my filter tubing, stopped flow, and my hydor stuck permanently on. Cooked the tank. Very expensive accident. Not the alder cones fault, but it put me off them nonetheless.
So I then settled on indian almond leaves in the filter. They disintegrate by the third week, so look to changing them out every 2 weeks.
Or you can put them straight in the tank, and they will provide cover and biofilm too.
I have to admit of late I have been lazy and not replaced the leaves that often, but still use 100% RO water. So I suspect I have the correct TDS, gh, kh, but my ph is not as low as it should be. The fish seem fine so I am happy with this.
By the way...
The reason for putting all this gubbins in the water is to lower the ph.
They cones\leaves\peat do this by releasing tannins, which also taint the colour of the water. This colouring is a by product and not actually needed.
I suspect some of the claims made about the 'goodies' that leaves and cones provide are snake oil claims.
I've also read that, lower ph in and of itself inhibits bacterial growth, and this is why blackwater fish often get sick\feeble in 'normal' water as they just can not ward off the bacteria present. Seems plausible to me.
Tannins can be a pain, as varying tannin levels mean varying light levels, and you can easily end up with a dark brown murky tank you can hardly see in.
I find a combo of pink and harsh white lights work well to balance the tannin colour out.
No minerals are added by these products (or the tannins they release), nor are they needed. Minerals would raise the TDS which is something you want to prevent in a blackwater tank.
nayr88 said:
Ill check your journal out mate
Kind fellow that I am I made lots of mistakes for others to learn from, and then documented them all in my journal for everyone to see
From a planted tank perspective, as well as light levels and tannins, dry ferts raise TDS considerably.
So you can see keeping a blackwater tank planted raises challenges too. That is why I went the blackwater route, I wanted a challenge
My Chocolate gourami journal is here:
http://www.lfkc.co.uk/index.php?topic=279.0