Here's a letter I just received from a person trying to grow Amazon Swordplants in Softwater. I advised him to harden up the water if he wanted to grow big swords. Either that or forget about Swordplants and just use plants that will grow well in softwater. As always, my advice has been to add many different plant species to a new tank setup. Trying to focus on just one (in this case Amazon Swordplants) is counterproductive.
Maybe some of you folks with softwater will have some ideas to help him out.
His dismal results with breeding softwater cichlids in hardwater are well-known. Adult fish will do fine, but their eggs and fry are hurt by the hardwater. He does have a problem confusing pH with water hardness. You can have a high pH and still have softwater. Hardwater reflects calcium and magnesium concentration. Usually, water with high pH is hardwater, but lots of city water have a high pH but very softwater. (Many cities with softwater add chemicals to bring the pH up to protect metal pipes from acid corrosion.)
"If you know what is a good "product recipe " to add to RO water to get it
to about Ph 7 or 7.2 with some hardness, please tell me. That is to
say, whatever is good water for these big swords.
I can add my well water to the RO water but it is a very crude method. One
cup of my well water (very hard with a PH of 7.6 or 7.8) added to 45 gallons
of RO water will give me a PH of 7.6/7.8 . I always figured that it was just
too high for most of my soft water fish, certainly most, if not all of them,
won't breed successfully. The eggs won't hatch or if they do (and you are
congratulating yourself on success) you will likely as not create 99 to 100%
females. I've done that one a few times. This tank is not a real breeding
tank though, more of an accidental if it happens sort of tank."
Maybe some of you folks with softwater will have some ideas to help him out.
His dismal results with breeding softwater cichlids in hardwater are well-known. Adult fish will do fine, but their eggs and fry are hurt by the hardwater. He does have a problem confusing pH with water hardness. You can have a high pH and still have softwater. Hardwater reflects calcium and magnesium concentration. Usually, water with high pH is hardwater, but lots of city water have a high pH but very softwater. (Many cities with softwater add chemicals to bring the pH up to protect metal pipes from acid corrosion.)
"If you know what is a good "product recipe " to add to RO water to get it
to about Ph 7 or 7.2 with some hardness, please tell me. That is to
say, whatever is good water for these big swords.
I can add my well water to the RO water but it is a very crude method. One
cup of my well water (very hard with a PH of 7.6 or 7.8) added to 45 gallons
of RO water will give me a PH of 7.6/7.8 . I always figured that it was just
too high for most of my soft water fish, certainly most, if not all of them,
won't breed successfully. The eggs won't hatch or if they do (and you are
congratulating yourself on success) you will likely as not create 99 to 100%
females. I've done that one a few times. This tank is not a real breeding
tank though, more of an accidental if it happens sort of tank."