Ruud

Hello all, I have very hard water here in Spain and have been starting running my own RO unit since a week to improve the water on my planted tank. I have also been playing around with a PPM meter. My tap water runs at around 340PPM whilst my tank is around 380ppm at the moment, after a 30% water change with RO water at 45ppm. My question is.. after a water change I am adding fertilizers and such for my plants. Is my assumption correct that these would be increasing my PPM levels again? What is a 'healthy' PPM target for a planted tank with substrate in general - if there is such a thing? Pardon my ignorance 🙂 trying to understand it all and improving my water as much as I can now I finally have a RO unit. Cheers from Spain Ruud

Yup i ordered a booster pump, should arrive on Friday. My 4th stage, after the membrane, is actually resin. It will be interesting to see if the pump helps as well with getting the TDS go down to below 30 for instance besides increasing production. I know the 40psi is quite low, I tried several taps in the house but all are more or less the same so hoping with the pump I can at least up the pressure to at least 60psi.

I have a separate thread on some issues I encountered while setting up and getting my RO unit to run efficiently. But a question that would also fit in here - do you RO users run a pump or an airstone in your RO storage tank, or does the water sit still? Does it matter? Thanks Ruud

I have always been a South American fish guy - literally never eying anything African or Asian. Until, when I restarted the hobby after moving to Spain, my girlfriend talked me into a pair of Dwarf Gourami's while in the fish shop. They looked stunning, the male being bright blue. And I really like them, they are so lively and happy in my 100 Liter community tank!

Thanks @MickS77! Wow 90 psi, that's a lot of pressure! Is my assumption correct that PPM will drop if I up the pressure? I have ordered a booster pump that should arrive on Friday.

Green tetra's or a little school of Corydoras. I absolutely love my Sterbai Corys, they are so active and lively!

Hello all, As some of you might know I am a Dutch expat residing in Spain, close to Barcelona. The water here is extremely hard and from the tap reads about 350ppm, which is not good for the fish I would like to keep. Right now I have a small 100L community tank and I have been managing with tap water combined with mineral water mixed in and it has been okay in general. Since I have moved to a bigger house with a garage this year, I have more space to play around with tanks and the other day I bought this RO unit. The unit is a 4 stage unit made by BCF (Best Choice for Fishes - a Spanish company) and bought in my aquarium shop in Barcelona. Its a 4 stage unit that in theory can produce up to 400L a day. However installation didn't go without its troubles. First of all the instruction guide ... well lets say it would have been equally helpful if they didn't include one at all so after a bit of trial and error I got it working, but still having some issues. And I could use some input from the knowledgeable folks on here... - My tap produces a pressure of 40psi or around 2.75Bar which produces somewhere between a fast drip to almost a small trickle of osmosis water, and a steady little trickle of waste water; - Initial RO water came in at 150 PPM so not very efficient, now (after having it running for several hours) got it down to 55 which is still higher than I would expect it to be Is my assumption correct that if I would up the pressure, by adding a pressure pump, to around 4 bar that would improve 1) the produced amount of liters RO and as well bring further down the ppm simply because it would work more efficiently? What do people use for storing RO water, i am interested to see smart solutions that will allow me to easily mix tap and RO water and pump it out. Right now with lack of anything else I am using 25L jerry cans to catch and store the RO water. Also wondering if it is advisable to have an air pump in the collected RO water to keep some flow and movement? Thanks Ruud

Had a busy aquarium weekend! Did a water change of my 100 L community tank, went to Urban Natura in Barcelona and picked up a pair of Dwarf gourami's - the male a beautiful striking Cobalt blue. Then I also picked up a 4 step Osmosis unit - something I have been longing for a long time. Goodbye hard crappy water and chemicals, hello soft stable water, hello L numbers (finally) and shrimps and Apisto's and fancy Corydoras! Pics to follow once I have it setup

I got a steal today on Wallapop (Spanish Craigslist), a 91 liter (25 gallons)- 45x45x45cm Cube aquarium with bent corners and optical glass for a 20 euro bill. Going to pick it up tomorrow but the guy is keeping it reserved for me. Only downside is it lacks the top and its drilled for overflow and sump which means effectively its only 75 liters or 20 gallons but still a very good deal to me. Now to think what to put in it... maybe a pair of pearl Gourami's or Apist Borelli's... Hmmm choices choices

Went to two different local pet stores and ended up buying a Crypto. I am trying to battle black beard algae and hoping adding plants will help the process before I fork out money for a CO2 setup. The interesting thing to me was that both shops have maybe 50 aquariums. 1 shop had no more than perhaps 10 fish in total and the other shop (where I got the plant) had a handful of discus, some mollies, tetras, guppies and goldfish and nothing more! I asked them and got vague answers about transport issues etc but its just so weird to me to see here in Spain (as a foreigner) that tanks are always mostly empty and assortment is poor. Unless you go to the handful of specialist stores. How do you make money if you don't have any stock??

Thank you sir, I am leading to that conclusion as well for now

Thank you Fish folk and Brandon. That sounds a bit more reassuring. I have been lurking around on a discus forum and watched some videos and I just do not want to start the adventure without being sure I can keep up. I will look into the phosphoric acid treatment. I guess my tap water is very hard with a PH of 8+, a GH of 375 and KH of around 20. It seems people here dilute with 30% or more RO water, but will need to investigate more and speak to some LFS. Those discus look gorgeous @Fish Folk I was looking around on a specific Discus forum and the consensus there is you need to do daily water changes, keep them in a bare tank etc etc. Fact is I want to enjoy my fish and don't need excessive worries like that. Thank you all for calming my mind on these and confirming it doesn't have to be THAT complicated. Food for thought. PS, is 'scared the shit out of me' considered a profanity these days?? If so I apologize - it must be my liberal upbringing being Dutch.

I had Eheim external canister filters before, a 2215 and another one which I don't recall. They were good and dependable filters BUT I hated that they wouldn't auto prime which means getting them pumping again was always a struggle for me and did include sucking tubes and inhaling tank water. Plus I found cleaning them always involves messing about with water everywhere around my tank. For now I am happy with HOB's and internals. I might give a try to an FX4 when I move up to a bigger tank but canisters are just more fickly than I like, even more compared to HOB or sponges.

So I will be moving from a flat (with a 100L and a 38L tank) to a proper house where I will have more space for tanks! So I am thinking and preparing and I have always wanted a beautiful tank with a few Discus. But I am reading into it and it scares the shit out of me to be honest. People talking about doing daily/ every other day 50% water changes, keeping holding tanks for water etc. I have rock hard water here in Spain. I am talking PH 8+, KH15, GH 20 kind of water. So not sure how viable keeping fish like this is, I am afraid it will be an uphill battle with fish that seem particularly sensitive. (weirdly enough all fish stores stock discus here - need to figure out how they do it! Probably mixing tap and RO water magic) So here I am at... instead of doing 5 Discuss in a 55G bare tank... why don't I do try Angels with a bunch of Corys instead? I'd like that too So I guess my question is - are Angels in general easier to care for if you live in a place where water is hard? Are they less sensitive? Are there any members here that have experience with keeping Angels and/or Discus in harder water? I am not trying to be lazy, I just don't want to get fish that I can't give the proper care. Adding a nice photo for your viewing pleasure. Also .... for those that live with soft water on tap, take a moment to be thankful for that blessing!

Need: A new HOB as one just did this morning, improved lighting on my community tank and more plants Want: A Breeding colony of L134 and L260s but near impossible to get here in Spain. Oh yeah and a Discus tank, but that would be an uphill battle against local water hardness as well Wish: PH7, KH5, GH5 tap water instead of the liquid calcium coming out of my tap here.

Thanks Patrick, My current plan is - scrape the wood with a brush - add fast growing plants instead of the Java which seems to be struggling a lot - Up the air (done) - I already have two small Otto's but they struggle to grow somehow, don't see them helping much. My water is too hard for shrimp I am afraid

Hi Pedro! Good to see someone close by on here!! Let me send you a personal message as I have some local questions. I have added more air to the tank as well for now, thinking more oxygen and more flow will help battle algae as well and potentially help plants grow. Cheers Ruud

Thanks! I forgot to mention that but I allready have this in place. My tank is currently lighted between 11-14 and 1730-2100. I will pull out the wood and clean it as much as I can. Thinking as well to add more plants or at least put in a new Java fern and see if that helps as well.

Thanks! Do you mean I don't have sufficient waste in my aquarium as is?

Thank you, I will give that a try. In general I notice my plants are not thriving and I don't know why or what I can do to restore the balance in the aquarium? Can anyone of the brilliant fish keeper minds provide some guidance? Thank you Ruud

I forgot to add, the tank contains two amazon Swords, though I have trimmed one down pretty extensively, 1 Anubis and 1 java fern. The tank is 1 year old and in that year the amazon swords grew a lot but the java fern actually has become smaller it seems looking at old fotos.

Hello, Calling the wisdom of this forum in guiding me in some directions on how to battle my algae Tank is a 100 liter tank, stocked with 1 Gourami, 1 Swordtail, 1 Molly, 10 cardinal tetras, 6 sterbai cories, one Oto and 2 snails. Filtration is done by a pair of Aquaclear HOB's (a 610 and a 30) and my light is a Nicer classic led with 1910LM that is currently up 6 hours a day. Soil is Aquagro plants and shrimp soil. I change about 30% water on a weekly basis and add fertilizer I buy from a LFS (I am in Spain). My current water parameters are: NO3 - 10 NO2 - 0 GH > 14 KH 10 PH 7.5 Yes I have very hard water here in Spain I am sharing below images so you can see the issues I have. On the wood I have brown algae which has subbed down quite a bit since I toned down the light from 8 to 6 hours and started putting fertilizer in weekly. Stems of my sword are melting down, there is a hard type of build up on some of the leaves and some green algae. I think the pics speak for itself. So question is - how do I battle this the best way. Is this a matter of less light or more light, or better quality light (suggestions). Do I need to up my water changes, or add more nutrients. I do fully admit I do not understand the whole algae thing and balance too much but Its taking away from my pleasure of the tank, and I have tank envy when I see other low tech tanks on youtube that look marvelous. Thank so much, any help or suggestion is appreciated Ruud Barcelona, Spain.

I gave away juvenile swordtails and high fin balloon mollies today to a very nice guy that just started in the hobby 5 months ago. Now I have my 10 gallon empty again 🙂 and thinking about what to put in it after a decent clean up!

Thank you all for the great input, that's what I love about this place! I have been looking at the FX4 indeed, just wary because of my Eheim experiences. I think the FX4 has an auto prime right? One of my issues with my old Eheim was it took forever and a lot of cursing and spilling water over the floor and sucking tubes to get it going again - does that issue not occur with an FX4? I will take a look at the suggested Eheim 400 airpump or equivalent as well as I am still contemplating as well a combo of HOB and sponge. Not sure still but you all have given me food for thought. I just don't have the experience with bigger tanks and Discus size fish who produce much more waste. Thank you all Ruud