Hi. A bit of background first:
I started (like many, I guess) as wanting to keep an aquarium for fish. I wasn't particularly interested in plants to start with, although I knew I didn't want plastic decorations. This was 15 years ago. Now over the years the plants have increased.
I always had trouble with algae (mainly green hair). I'm in Edinburgh so the water is very soft, it's also quite high in Phosphate. My son was dabbling in a marine reef tank so was getting RODI water from the local shop. After some very limited reading and advice, I started using RO water myself, with JBL Aquadur - and things improved greatly. For years I carried on like this and after a few tank upgrades I've still been using it. However, at the start of this year the green hair came back with a vengeance and I couldn't get it out of the Java moss and driftwood. I eventually relented and completely stripped out everything and started a fresh tank. I'm wanting to have more plants now and after finally researching online (here mainly) realise that this will be my main defence against algae. Also, I see that phosphate isn't the great evil with a planted tank.
I'm staying lo-tech and the substrate is inert. Perhaps I would have used something else if I had committed to a planted tank before redoing it. It's a Superfish Home 85 litre.
Anyway - to my question, eventually: what water should I use?
My tap water (after 4 hour degassing) is: kH:1, gH:2.5, pH:7, phos:4.8ppm, TDS:40
As an example, my tank water before my weekly 50% water change is: nitrate: 10ppm, kH:5, gH:7, pH:7.5, phos:0.05ppm, TDS:200
Is it worth considering going back to using tap water? It is very soft and lacking in TDS. Perhaps using a mix of my usual RO/Aquadur with some tap? Or perhaps even just using tap with Aquadur (or similar)?
Cheers
I started (like many, I guess) as wanting to keep an aquarium for fish. I wasn't particularly interested in plants to start with, although I knew I didn't want plastic decorations. This was 15 years ago. Now over the years the plants have increased.
I always had trouble with algae (mainly green hair). I'm in Edinburgh so the water is very soft, it's also quite high in Phosphate. My son was dabbling in a marine reef tank so was getting RODI water from the local shop. After some very limited reading and advice, I started using RO water myself, with JBL Aquadur - and things improved greatly. For years I carried on like this and after a few tank upgrades I've still been using it. However, at the start of this year the green hair came back with a vengeance and I couldn't get it out of the Java moss and driftwood. I eventually relented and completely stripped out everything and started a fresh tank. I'm wanting to have more plants now and after finally researching online (here mainly) realise that this will be my main defence against algae. Also, I see that phosphate isn't the great evil with a planted tank.
I'm staying lo-tech and the substrate is inert. Perhaps I would have used something else if I had committed to a planted tank before redoing it. It's a Superfish Home 85 litre.
Anyway - to my question, eventually: what water should I use?
My tap water (after 4 hour degassing) is: kH:1, gH:2.5, pH:7, phos:4.8ppm, TDS:40
As an example, my tank water before my weekly 50% water change is: nitrate: 10ppm, kH:5, gH:7, pH:7.5, phos:0.05ppm, TDS:200
Is it worth considering going back to using tap water? It is very soft and lacking in TDS. Perhaps using a mix of my usual RO/Aquadur with some tap? Or perhaps even just using tap with Aquadur (or similar)?
Cheers
