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Greetings to all on the forum! I just wanted to ask about whether a certain water softening method would work over the long run. The idea is that the tank would begin with a large quantity of distilled or RO water, with a filter with a bag of peat moss or some other acidifying agent inside of it. The idea is that, when small water changes are done with my relatively hard tap water, the buffers would be promptly overwhelmed and neutralized by the excess acid, and thus I would not need an RO unit or distilled water at all for the tank, only needing to replace the acidifying bag roughly once a month. Do you think this would work, or am I not understanding something about water hardness?
🙂 no, I think that this sound not right, (although I am not sure if you are talking about something really specialized :)) .. but in my understanding once you add hard tap water the hardness will rise and this will influence not only the hardness, but the ph quite quickly.
But because you say ‘small amounts’ ? … I dont know if this is something really new and ‘clever’ :blink:I guess that the description I gave above was a tad vague…what I mean is this:
Step A: A container separate from that the fish would occupy is initially filled with a large quantity of distilled/RO water. I agree that the hardness/ph spike from doing this in the main tank would be a problem, and I thank you for pointing that out.
Step B: In said tank, a filter is installed that will have a replacable container with an acidifying substance (likely sphagum peat moss…leaves in the bag might look a tad ridiculous and would not be as efficient if you think about it). The container, which I will refer to as a ‘battery’, would be replaced about once every two weeks.
Step C: Relatively small amounts of dechlorinated tap water both initially and to replace the distilled as it was used (maybe 1-2 gallons at a time per every 15-20 gallons of the container?) would be added to the container. Since the buffering substances would be so strongly diluted, they would be neutralized trying to contain the acids and the PH and hardness would remain low. If this works as I think it would (I could be wildly off the mark here, though), as long as the battery is replaced consistently and tap water is not added in excessively large quantities, there would be no need for RO or distilled water after the system is initially set up. This could be a huge money saver for acidic water keepers in general – if it works, which is why I made this post.
:blink: I hope someone else might have some input, – I must admit, I do not think it sounds possible, but I might not get the point.
I have similar hopes…my main worry is regarding the water buffering. I know that the buffering works by having the buffer molecules take in a hydrogen ion, but what happens to them after that? Do they simply “disappear” as far as PH management is concerned, or do they cause other issues?
Let me take a stab at this issue… I am not too worried about the pH but the measurement I follow is conductivity or TDS depending on what meter you have available. If you are utilizing RO water the conductivity should be well under 50 mS which is where you want the water to be with Paros. With low mS you normally have a low pH. I believe what Helene is attempting to say is with adding additional amounts of tap water, even in small quantities, you are re-introducing trace element i.e. NACL and other minerals which will in itself raise the pH. The more tap water you introduce,the more mineral content you are adding back into the tank, the higher the increase in pH, the higher the conductivity or TDS. As the pH increases you will attempt to lower the acidity in so doing you will have a tank that will become unstable.
I think that both Helene and Bill Little are right. Helene in principle and Bill in practice. The method proposed might work with the lesser “problematic” Paro-species (as there are linkei, filamentosus, quindecim or paludicola, maybe nagyi too) but probably not with the others. The species named are more adaptable than others, if the changes occur slightly and slowly. It’s no serious problem with the adult fish, it’s a problem with the eggs and the young larvae.
Therefore, I should prefer a different method and choose this one in case of quite a many self-produced offspring of the named species only. This would be my strategy: to produce many young with a somewhat more complicated method, and then – perhaps – make some experiments.
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