RO Water for These Fish?

2715 Views 6 Replies 6 Participants Last post by Axelrodi202, Dec 22, 2016

Harry Muscle

Discussion Starter · Dec 22, 2016

I'm in the process of setting up a 112G tank and I'm finally getting to the part where I'm choosing which fish and shrimp to get once everything is done. Here's a list of the fish and shrimp I'm hoping to keep:

Dario dario
German ram
Endler
Rummy nose (H. bleheri)
Threadfin rainbowfish
Gertrude rainbowfish
Forktail rainbowfish
Betta
Marbled hatchetfish
Celestial pearl danio
Zebra danio
Oto cat
Panda cory
Cardinal tetra
Julii cory
Yellow cherry shrimp
Babaulti shrimp
Amano shrimp
Tangerine tiger shrimp

Based on my research on Seriously Fish the needed water parameters for these fish all overlap with the following:

24-25C temp (75-77F)
6.5-7 pH
90-179 ppm GH (5-10 dh)

My tap water has the following parameters:

7.6pH
142.8 ppm GH (8 dh)
89.3 ppm KH (5 dh) - added this just in case

I'm still waiting on the TDS meter but from others in my area the TDS should come out to be 190-200 ppm.

I know my pH is a bit high compared to the ideal for these fish but based on my research the consensus seems to be that pH isn't as important as GH and/or TDS. Apparently usually when low pH is recommended it actually means low hardness/TDS. As long as that's correct the pH can be higher without any ill consequences.

My water changes will be automated with about 25% of the water being changed per week on a continuous basis. None of the hard scape will raise the hardness and I will be using driftwood which should lower the pH ever so slightly.

I'm hoping that some of these fish will spawn for me. Would be especially excited to get the German Rams to breed, which probably means that I should be aiming for the lower end of the above ranges, especially the GH.

Given all of this information does it make sense to invest in an RO unit and perform water changes with part tap and part RO water?

Since my water changes will be automated I will already have some components in use that an RO filter would need so it would only be about about $120 to get a good quality RO unit setup. However, because of the waste water involved in using an RO filter, if I only use it for 25% of the the water changes I will end up using double the actual amount of water, meaning all the other filters (chloramine removal, etc.) will need to be replaced twice as often.

Looking for opinions and feedback. If you've kept and possibly bred some of these species in similar water conditions please let me know. Would you bother with an RO unit in my situation?

Thanks,
Harry

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pmcarbrey

· #2 · Dec 22, 2016

That's a pretty wide variety of fish.
Some issues I see:

The following will pick at and/or kill your shrimp:
Dario dario
German ram
Threadfin rainbowfish
Gertrude rainbowfish
Forktail rainbowfish
Betta

Other notes:
If you add endlers you will quickly have a million, they are like a plague.

The rainbows and tetras do best in groups, and with a tank of that size you cannot keep groups of all of them.

You will likely never see the celestial pearl danios, those that don't get eaten will hide due to the number of larger fish in your tank.

I personally would cut your stock list down significantly. A a pair of different schooling fish looks good, 15 different species all in one tank does not.

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Harry Muscle

Discussion Starter · #3 · Dec 22, 2016

pmcarbrey said:
That's a pretty wide variety of fish.
Some issues I see:

The following will pick at and/or kill your shrimp:
Dario dario
German ram
Threadfin rainbowfish
Gertrude rainbowfish
Forktail rainbowfish
Betta

Other notes:
If you add endlers you will quickly have a million, they are like a plague.

The rainbows and tetras do best in groups, and with a tank of that size you cannot keep groups of all of them.

You will likely never see the celestial pearl danios, those that don't get eaten will hide due to the number of larger fish in your tank.

I personally would cut your stock list down significantly. A a pair of different schooling fish looks good, 15 different species all in one tank does not.

Hi, thanks for the feedback. I've actually kept most of those species you list with shrimp before. Like almost any fish they will eat the babies if they get the chance but overall in a heavily planted tank things worked out good.

I guess I should have mentioned that I'm not planning on getting every single one of those fish at once and adding them all to the tank at the beginning. Maybe a better way of looking at that list can be to say that those are the fish that I'm interested in and want to keep at some point in time in that tank (I usually plan long term). To make that happen and hopefully have some of them breed, will I need RO water? That is the question.

Thanks,
Harry

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mistergreen

· #4 · Dec 22, 2016

Endler
Threadfin rainbowfish
Gertrude rainbowfish
Forktail rainbowfish

Loves harder water

The rest likes neutral to soft.

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roadmaster

· #5 · Dec 22, 2016

Lot of wasted water to make up enough R/O water for weekly water change.
Can take 6 to 8 gal of tap water to make one gallon of R/O .Been some year's since I did so. Maybe thing's have changed?
Not economical to buy R/O for this big a tank.IMHO
With exception of the German blue ram's, I have kept all of the fishes mentioned in tap water with pH of 7.6 to 7.8 and 12 DGH.

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bigbadjon

· #6 · Dec 22, 2016

You will probably rarely see fry in a display tank survive. I would recommend not changing the water parameters in the display tank. When you want to breed a fish move them to a dedicated smaller breeding tank. Then if you have to change any parameters it will be easier to do.

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Axelrodi202

· #7 · Dec 22, 2016

Your tap is probably fine for most of those. It's when you get into the 15+ dGH and approaching 400 TDS territory (like me) that RO/DI becomes a necessity for those characins and other soft water fish. And aside from the danios, cories, and rainbowfish you probably won't see much breeding in a display tank anyways.

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