German blue ram egg hatch help

[Guppysnail]

Ok this is about the 5th batch of eggs from different pairs. The other for whatever reason lay right on the gravel so I can’t collect easily. They ignore all the wonderful river rocks I put in secluded areas they like to flirt in 🤨

These two have been at this the better part of 45 minutes. On the UV light 😖

I was told my hard water high tea from the tap will not allow these eggs to hatch by someone in my fish club. @Fish Folk is this true?  They said I needed to use RO water. I don’t have any RO and I’m not running to the store this late at night or tomorrow during an ice storm. 
Water chemistry folks help @modified lung

I have distilled water. I know the two different methods RO and distilling create the water but no clue if they are fundamentally different as end products. To my non science brain I think they should both be pure right???

If I do get these to hatch how do I transition to regular water and how long can they survive without any minerals and such. 
 

The boy is diligently going behind the girl after every pass she makes and does his scoot and wiggle so I’m hoping they are fertile. This is a small pair not the larger original ones. 
 

Thanks folks for sharing your knowledge and input!

 

Edited December 14, 2022 by Guppysnail

[modified lung]

I can't speak for German blue rams but, if they are like licorice gouramis, it's because their eggs are extremely sensitive to bacteria. Most bacteria can't live at very low conductivity so RO/DI water (which has a conductivity/TDS of 0) is needed for hatching.

...(If you didn't know, conductivity is a more useful version of TDS. TDS meters are actually conductivity meters. In soft water TDS = conductivity multiplied by 0.5. The harder the water, the larger the number the conductivity needs to be multiplied by to get an accurate enough TDS. Except most TDS meters can't change the multiplication factor.)...

But the adults and fry don't do well in 0 conductivity/TDS. You need at least something in the water for osmoregulation. For licorice gouramis I think it's under 70 us/cm or 35 ppm TDS that's recommended for hatching.

What I did was fill the tank most of the way with RO/DI and add tap water until the conductivity meter said 50 us/cm or 25 ppm TDS, then added a tiny bit of Seachem Replenish until about 70 us/cm or 35 ppm TDS. They all hatched out great this way.

As adults they can live at basically any reasonable TDS. Idk if they need to be a certain age to handle it though.

They say distilled and RO/DI is mostly the same these days. Although that probably depends on the quality of the process used by the manufacturer which we don't really have a good way of knowing about. 

Edited December 15, 2022 by modified lung

[Guppysnail]

@modified lung thank you. That was very helpful info.  My tap tds on a meter read 275-325. I’ll mix tap and distilled if I need to. 
I don’t know what water @Fish Folkhatched in. 

[Guppysnail]

I moved them to a specimen container with an airstone. I used distilled water and enough dechlorinated tap to bring it to 80 degrees. 
I did 3/4 of a mil if h2o2 after I put the eggs in. 🤞🏻