[Titus_Detritus]

Hello all. My name is Kryssie. I’m a 33 year old lady from north Texas. I am a wife, mother, and veteran. I love large breed dogs (Alaskan Malamutes), sci-fi shows (The100, Star Trek Discovery), fitness, and writing. I have a 13 year old daughter. I was in the Army as a medic for 9 years. Now I’m a stay at home mom.

I’m just getting into freshwater since my wife and I rescued 5 glofish from my brother in law. Ive been keeping reef aquariums for about 4 years, maybe 5. Ive had two twenty gallon nano reefs, two 75 gallon reefs, and two 40 gallon reefs. The two 40 gallons are my current tanks, with a few wrasses, clownfish and gobies. I love it, and feel like I got the hang of it by the time I started my 75 gallon. But this freshwater is new to me.

Right now I have the 5 glofish that I rescued in the 10 gallon tank they came with, but I’m cycling a 29 gallon tank with an old Kessil AP700 I had laying around so I can add plants. I’m still in the research phase of the planted tank world, so I’m taking it pretty slow. Today the wife and I added two bags of Eco-start complete, some rocks, and driftwood. We did a pretty basic aquascape, but I think it looks pretty decent.

We have a RODI system set up already for our reef tanks since I live in a rural area, but I’m wondering if that strips too much out of the water for a planted tank. I’m also researching CO2 systems, but it is pretty overwhelming.

I’m attaching some photos of my malamutes (Spock is the big red boy, and Khaleesi is the smaller white girl) my reef tanks, my aquascape for my new 29gal planted tank, and one of my Sump from my 75 gallon reef that I was pretty proud of before I moved from Fort Hood to my new house.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to learning from you all and sharing my new tank progress.

 

[deeda]

Welcome to TPT!

 

[Titus_Detritus]

Welcome to TPT!

Thanks so much. I love it here already. There’s so much I don’t know coming from reefing to planting.

 

[minorhero]

Hello and welcome!

A lot of folks that come over from reefing will use RODI water for their planted tanks if its not a bother. That said, depending on your tap water parameters it might not matter much especially if you are doing a low tech tank (meaning a tank that does not use injected co2).

Water changes are more frequent in planted tanks then established reef tanks and my advice is to consider doing a 50+% water change at least once a week. I aim for closer to 75+% but that's just what I found that works for me.

You will also want some kind of fertilizer for your plants. Despite claims on the package, eco-complete is inert and has no nutrients except for a little bit of liquid fertilizer in the bag and that will be gone after the first water change. I am currently using Nicolg ThriveC and Aquarium Coop Easy Green (each in its own tank) and they both work quite well and are easy to implement since you just dose it once a week.

Good luck!

 

[nicepoeci]

I use remineralized RO water in all of my aquariums and my fish prefer hard water. It gives you peace of mind at the end of the day for your inhabitants and in the end teaches you what every different plant wants.

 

[jellopuddinpop]

Welcome!

To answer the question you posed, RODI is perfectly fine for a planted tank, but you will need to remineralize it to add Ca, Mg, and Kh. The Ca and Mg are needed as plant nutrients, and osmotic regulation in fish. Look at what species of plants and fish you intend to keep, and add Ca & Mg (4:1 or 3:1 ratio) to reach your desired hardness. Kh is not entirely necessary, but will help keep your ph more stable if you're injecting CO2. Kh acts as a ph buffer, and most people try to keep it at or below 4. With that said, there are a lot of tanks that run just fine with a Kh of 0, and ph in the low 5's during CO2 injection.

 

[Titus_Detritus]

Hello and welcome!

A lot of folks that come over from reefing will use RODI water for their planted tanks if its not a bother. That said, depending on your tap water parameters it might not matter much especially if you are doing a low tech tank (meaning a tank that does not use injected co2).

Water changes are more frequent in planted tanks then established reef tanks and my advice is to consider doing a 50+% water change at least once a week. I aim for closer to 75+% but that's just what I found that works for me.

You will also want some kind of fertilizer for your plants. Despite claims on the package, eco-complete is inert and has no nutrients except for a little bit of liquid fertilizer in the bag and that will be gone after the first water change. I am currently using Nicolg ThriveC and Aquarium Coop Easy Green (each in its own tank) and they both work quite well and are easy to implement since you just dose it once a week.

Good luck!

Thank you so much for that advice. I did use two bags of the eco smart. But the wife has some root tabs and fertilizer on the way.
We plan to add CO2 once we’re less overwhelmed with all the research into it, we’re picking up the fluval one today just to get our feet wet. We plan to buy the paintball adapter for it as well soon and grab some CO2 from the paintball shop where my bro works.
As for RODI, we live out in the country on co-op water and the TDS is in the 500s plus the water is hella soft so ph is around 9 something. Right now we add AquaSafe (I think) to tap water while we soak the spider wood and driftwood.

 

[minorhero]

Thank you so much for that advice. I did use two bags of the eco smart. But the wife has some root tabs and fertilizer on the way.
We plan to add CO2 once we’re less overwhelmed with all the research into it, we’re picking up the fluval one today just to get our feet wet. We plan to buy the paintball adapter for it as well soon and grab some CO2 from the paintball shop where my bro works.
As for RODI, we live out in the country on co-op water and the TDS is in the 500s plus the water is hella soft so ph is around 9 something. Right now we add AquaSafe (I think) to tap water while we soak the spider wood and driftwood.

Yeah ph of 9 is a bit rough for most fish species. Anyway there are a lot of ways to remineralize if you need to with both diy and off the shelf options. As one option if needed, I've added seachem equilibrium to my water a few times in the past when I had a crazy amount of snails in a tank and they were showing calcium deficiencies. You typically want TDS of at least 250 if you are keeping shrimp/snails in a tank for instance. There are folks here with tds in the 400s to 500s and keeping it there on purpose. But its the ph that would probably pose a problem for most fish and plants you might want to keep since many want something in the sixes or sevens to be happy.