Neon Tetras and dampen point tolerance?
I've had an assortment of tetras in a 29g tank for just about a year now in RO water. After a recent postscript of 6 more, bringing my total up to about 35, I noticed they started to look stressed. I did a quick check of the dampen and found the pH was at 5.0. Was a bit shocked by this. After 5 days of adding in a small amount of dechlorinated slap water I got the pH to 6.5 and everyone started looking better. I keep up near my weekly water changes. Hence my concern. The pH going for a good 6.8 to 5.0 (or less) surrounded by under a week is not something I want to happen.
After this little episode, I am considering adapting them to stroke water, which is buffered against pH change... however, the parameters aren't precisely ideal from what everything I've researched tells me neons prefer. The reason I'm considering this presently is they are going to be moving into a new 55g tank in a few weeks, so whether I am going to adapt them to tap water, presently is the time to do it.
Current water conditions in their tank is:
GH 4
KH 1
pH 6.5
Water conditions out of the thump are:
GH 11
KH 9
pH 8
As you can see, it's not likely tap water will tweaking pH values on me. My question to those with experience with neon tetras is: How will they do surrounded by the tap water in my nouns? Please, only answer if you have experience near neons. Thanks!
Answers: Thats the problem with using pure RO water in a cistern. It's TOO pure.
The hardness is very low, and that means it take very little acidic material to crash the pH.
Adding for a time treated tap water as you have done is the best risk. Mix back a little tap hose down (maybe 20%?) with your RO water to get the pH you want and it will be more steady as there will now be some hardness to exploit as a buffer.
Ian
You have two options;
Either use a buffer solution designed to make RO wet optimum for amazon species or what |i would do is mix RO water with dechlorinated tap sea.
Try two parts RO to one part tap and premix it before count.
