How to get my water between 6 and 7 ph and 5-19 dkh

[Crazymidwesterner]

I am trying to breed some fish in a ten gallon tank. I was wondering whats the best way to get these conditions? Should I use distilled water and add hardness, plus filter with peat?

My tap water has a general hardness of 300 mgl so I don't think I can really use that.

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

[Biollante]

Hi,

The general hardness is a bit high, but not horrible. I think I recall this…

What are trying to breed?

If you are aiming for “black-water,” low pH, I think realistically you are going to need some filtration, in a small tank if you are willing to mess around a bit, I suppose you could get away with additives.

Do you have a water report?

Do you know what the pH and alkalinity are?

The general hardness is not relevant information to answer how you get your water between 6 and 7 ph and 5-19 dkh.

The city of Dixon does not seem very forthcoming. What do they have to hide?

Biollante

[Crazymidwesterner]

:-) Yes you helped me before :-)

I would like to breed Sparkling Gourami. I currently have 10 in my 75 Gallon and would love to have more and I never see them in pet shops here locally. Plus why pay if I can manage to get more for free :-)

I don't have a water report. Last time I called the guy and he gave me the details on the phone but I don't beleive I got a KH reading. I am going to be getting a KH test kit so I suppose I can let you know what that's reading at least once I have it.

The PH is a tad (Scietific I know) over 7.

I've read that 6-7 PH and 5-19 DKH are the prime conditions along with draining the water to only a few inches deep for a certain period of time.

I may just vacate all my shrimp to my 75 Gallon, pop these guys in the 10 Gallon and just see how it goes with current conditions.

[Biollante]

Hi,

How experienced are in fishkeeping?

How committed are you? Another way around, should you be committed?

I think this could be fascinating!

I have never bred, owned or I think even seen Sparkling Gourami, Trichopsis pumila. Perhaps dwarf gourami, oh well…

Sounds like these guys are going to require RO or DI water. The good news is you can probably purchase the water, as I do not think they require much in the way of water changes.

I would guess that a lot of peat, humus, rotting stuff, leaves and stuff would drive the pH down. Low circulation, I think with these, to be successful, you will need to enter the world of extreme fishkeeping, or perhaps better as fishkeeping on the margins.

I keep some low pH critters and the rules are different. I suspect this is why many have a problem breeding them, they want everything to look and feel like “normal” aquariums, keep them with community fish.

Think more in terms of paludarium as opposed to aquarium; think tropical swamp, marginal rather than aquatic plants.

Biollante

[Crazymidwesterner]

Marginally experienced :-) My first fish tank ever was a planted tank back in 2006. Had a lot of drama happen including flooding my house (not related to the aquarium......I promise) and having two kids so I tore it down and got out of the Hobby a few years. That was about 2009 I think.

I missed it and life slowed down a bit so now I'm back. With two 75G and a shrimp tank. I've kept many tetras, otos, Plecos, but nothing too exotic. I picked these guys up at a pet store in Moline and they have done quite well in my tank. Their behavior is just neat and their color is simply awesome. They make their clicking noise quite often and because of their color and plumpness seem to be happy enough in my currrent tank, but not sure they are happy enough to breed. Plus there are other fish in this tank that I am sure would happily pick off any fry.

I think this weekend I am going to move the shrimp into one of the 75's, and give it a try. I'll get about 5 Gallons of RO water to start with pump the filter full of peat, see if I can find some acceptable leaves, buffer the KH to the correct level and go from there.

[Crazymidwesterner]

Well started yesterday. Re-homed my shrimp in my low tech 75 G. Filled this tank about half way with RO water, packed in with a lot of drift wood and peat moss in a mesh bag. Threw some pennywort in there since it has large round floating leaves. I hope that will work for the nest. Left a large section of Java moss as well. I have an eheim on this tank so I retricted the filter to a trickle.

Reading up on how to buffer KH to the range I want. Should be putting the fish in this weekend. Catching them should be fun.

With the KH, when I top off for evaporation the KH will remain correct? So once I get it about the level I want I would top off with straight RO right?

[Biollante]

Hi,

So how is it going?

Biollante