water parameters

[Tricky]

Hi can someone please explain how we go about meeting these water parameters please

With me I'll be useing ro water with salty shrimp + ada amazonia soil, bog wood few plants, 

tds 130-180 

kh0

gh5-6

ph5.5-6.5

 The TDS by adding salty shromp + if I'm correct what about the rest

Thanks for any help on this 

 

Edited February 21, 2017 by Tricky

[OMGItsMarky]

Hey Tricky,
Just cycled my first crystal red tank 3months ago.
The aqua soil will buffer the water to the required parameters automatically. I would just remineralize the water to ~130 tds and leave it alone.
If you're new at this you will probably want a few test kits.
A tds Meter from eBay is very cheap and you will probably require:
nh3/nh4 test kit
Nitrates test kit
Gh test
Kh test
Ph test

You will need a lot of patience cycling the aqua soil.
4-6 weeks with lots of water changes, so just use tap water for the first few fills and then switch to RO when it's cycled.
Markshrimptanks on YouTube has a lot of great videos for information besides this forum.
Mark



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[Tricky]

Thanks for that, but can i use ro from the start,  will I have to re mineralize it as well, gota do somthing get bord waiting 5 long weeks ish

 

Lol Markshrimptanks yer I'm subscribed all ready, chat to him at times, nice bloke ?

[OMGItsMarky]

Yeah he's a really good guy. I'm pretty fresh myself so still asking him a lot too.
I think you will need to remineralize so there is some "life" in the water if that makes sense. But I'm only guessing I really don't know.
Mark recommends tap water to start.


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[Tricky]

I'm not going to cycle with tap water I think the soil will soke up the all the bad in it, ro with salty shrimp + added lol, keep me doing something lol 

Edited February 21, 2017 by Tricky

[jayc]

25 minutes ago, Tricky said:

but can i use ro from the start,

When you are cycling a new tank, it is a better idea to use tap water for a number of reasons.

The beneficial bacteria like higher pH (7.0). The lower the pH the less active the bacteria become, which is not what you want when you are trying to grow it in a brand new tank. Tap water should come out at 7.8 pH, at least Sydney water does, which is perfect for cycling a tank. When bacteria in your tank starts growing you, will will notice ammonia dropping but so will pH. And when pH is less than ideal below 7.0, you perform a water change with tap water.

Give beneficial bacteria the following and they will grow fast...

• the right pH - above 7.0 below 8.0
• the right temperature - 28degC
• and food source - ammonia, which is abundant in ADA Amazonia.

When the tank is cycled, ie bacteria is present to process ammonia into the less harmful nitrite and then nitrate, that is the time you do a 90% water change and replace with RO water treated with Salty shrimp GH+. This is the time you adjust TDS, pH, KH and GH to suit the parameters of your tank inhabitants. There is no use adjusting parameters while the tank is still cycling, as parameters are constantly changing. This is why you don't use fish or shrimp in the tank while it is cycling. It's torture for that fish or shrimp.

You can still cycle a tank with RO water, but pH will drop to less than ideal conditions, and your cycle can take months instead of weeks. I have cycled many ADA amazonia tanks, and this has been my experience.

 

Edited February 21, 2017 by jayc

[Tricky]

Thanks for so much info big help, thanks to you all that is, 

What's a fast bactirea to use? I don't want to rush it, but I don't want to wite weeks, if I have to I will but dont want to lol 

[Zoidburg]

If you don't want to use tap water to cycle a tank (and I have heard of people using tap with ADA during the cycle process only), then use pure RO water only. Don't remineralize it.

I understand your reasoning for not wanting to use tap. If you had soft or medium water, use tap. If you have hard water, maybe dilute it with RO?

 

It's hard to speed up the ADA cycle because it keeps leaching ammonia. In other words, you'll have to wait weeks. As far as bacteria goes, I've seen people recommend Tetra SafeStart (plus) for cycling a tank, and to a lesser degree, the Marineland Aquarium Bacteria. I don't know what you have available to you though.