Very hard water And Apistogramma Cacatuoides

[Karen B.]

Greetings!

I ordered a pair of Apistogramma cacatuoides and will get them in a week.

My problem : my water is very hard. On all 7 of my tank, my water always register at 300 on the aquarium coop test strip.

I read online these fish thrive in soft water. Her breeder has a gh of 1 (API test kit)

I read a bit online about ways to soften my water. Peat moss, RO system, etc…

Considering it’s a 20 gallons high, that my kh is low (it moves from 0 to 40), my pH from tap is 7 but in my aquarium it lower to 6.6 to 6.8… I was wondering what the best solution would be?

It’s going to be a specie only tank as I was told a 29 high is rather small for a pair of cacatuoides so to avoid any other fish. And there will be 2 spixi snails.

[Fish Folk]

In my opinion, a 29 gal is plenty of water / tank space for Apistos plus a bevy of other fish. If they spawn, they'll want a cave of sorts in a quiet place. Any tetra up top will be lovely. Bear in mind though that many tetras will eat Apisto fry if given an opportunity. We like Beckford's Pencilfish (Golden Pencilfish) instead of tetras. They are sand-sifters, more of a miniature "geophagus" relationship with substrate, if possible.

As for your water . . . look, sometimes you can make things work. Fish figure out how to adapt. I learned a long time ago from Karen Randall not to fight against your source water: work with it instead. That was in her book "Sunken Gardens" about planted tanks. The same advice goes for fish. Yes, you can buy an R.O. Unit and remineralize. Maybe this will work for you. R.O. Units produce water very slowly, but enough can be produced over a week to do regular water changes, no problem.

But I'd rather suggest just going with what you've got. Try the Apistos out. Maybe they'll work fine. A well-planted tank covers over a multitude of sins. But if they crash on you, there are other fascinating fish similar in size that do wonderfully well in harder water.

Jewel Cichlids can be very attractive, though they need very judicious selection in a community tank context.

There's Turquoise varieties:

And there's Red:

[Karen B.]

On 4/28/2022 at 10:37 PM, Fish Folk said:

In my opinion, a 29 gal is plenty of water / tank space for Apistos plus a bevy of other fish. If they spawn, they'll want a cave of sorts in a quiet place. Any tetra up top will be lovely. Bear in mind though that many tetras will eat Apisto fry if given an opportunity. We like Beckford's Pencilfish (Golden Pencilfish) instead of tetras. They are sand-sifters, more of a miniature "geophagus" relationship with substrate, if possible.

As for your water . . . look, sometimes you can make things work. Fish figure out how to adapt. I learned a long time ago from Karen Randall not to fight against your source water: work with it instead. That was in her book "Sunken Gardens" about planted tanks. The same advice goes for fish. Yes, you can buy an R.O. Unit and remineralize. Maybe this will work for you. R.O. Units produce water very slowly, but enough can be produced over a week to do regular water changes, no problem.

But I'd rather suggest just going with what you've got. Try the Apistos out. Maybe they'll work fine. A well-planted tank covers over a multitude of sins. But if they crash on you, there are other fascinating fish similar in size that do wonderfully well in harder water.

Jewel Cichlids can be very attractive, though they need very judicious selection in a community tank context.

There's Turquoise varieties:

And there's Red:

Wow, these fish are stunning!

I will listen to your advice and see what happens. I will make sure to drop acclimate them so at least it’s not a shock tho.

Thank you!! 🙂