I recently bought a TDS meter, I wanted to check where each of my tanks were, since i have live plants and fertilize with Micros and Macros as well as a product to replace the relevant minerals that may be stripped by RO unit. I use RO water for some of the tanks. I had noticed that as time went by my live plants seemed to be doing worse. In new tank setups the same plant really thrived, bacopa and ludwigia. After measuring TDS I began to suspect this was the problem. I have read several article that seems to support this. I have also had issue with south american cichlids which tend to like soft water and low TDS.
I tested most of the product I use in the aquariums and found the macro(fertilizer) to be the least offensive. The worst where the medications, using a 1 gallon sample starting with RO water at 4PPM, adding any of the medications, at the prescribed dosage, raised the water TDS between 125-200 PPM. At that rate it seems like the cure may be worse for the fish than the medicine they contain. I only tested the 3 medication that I had, but my guess is they all are in a similar base compound.
I did not test the 2 liquid meds i have yet.
I has taken me several weeks to bring the tanks down to what should be acceptable levels using RO water to dilute the concentration. I have always done regular water changes every week, 20-25%, and i was shocked how high the TDS was in some of my tanks. The hard water tanks were the highest, but they started at 450ppm vs 4ppm. I use to use peat moss to lower the PH before I changed to RO water. I also read that peat moss may also help lower TDS. i never had any bad impact from the peat moss before so I am going to try it again in a couple of the tanks.
Before i had the meter i had a 20 gallon quarantine tank, I put only rams in than tank,with good structure live plants, no CO2, no other added chemistry. I ran the tank that way for 8 weeks, measuring the water quality regularly(not TDS) and saw no difference in the water quality measurements in that tank vs the others. The Rams thrived and 2 pairs even layed eggs. I slowly added CO2 and nothing changed. Then i started treated that tank like the other since there was no apparent water chemistry difference. The ram slowly died off. I never could figure out what happened.That tank now has some african cichlids in it and when i measure the TDS if was 1800ppm.
Has anyone else had any similar results with TDS and medication or other products?
I tested most of the product I use in the aquariums and found the macro(fertilizer) to be the least offensive. The worst where the medications, using a 1 gallon sample starting with RO water at 4PPM, adding any of the medications, at the prescribed dosage, raised the water TDS between 125-200 PPM. At that rate it seems like the cure may be worse for the fish than the medicine they contain. I only tested the 3 medication that I had, but my guess is they all are in a similar base compound.
I did not test the 2 liquid meds i have yet.
I has taken me several weeks to bring the tanks down to what should be acceptable levels using RO water to dilute the concentration. I have always done regular water changes every week, 20-25%, and i was shocked how high the TDS was in some of my tanks. The hard water tanks were the highest, but they started at 450ppm vs 4ppm. I use to use peat moss to lower the PH before I changed to RO water. I also read that peat moss may also help lower TDS. i never had any bad impact from the peat moss before so I am going to try it again in a couple of the tanks.
Before i had the meter i had a 20 gallon quarantine tank, I put only rams in than tank,with good structure live plants, no CO2, no other added chemistry. I ran the tank that way for 8 weeks, measuring the water quality regularly(not TDS) and saw no difference in the water quality measurements in that tank vs the others. The Rams thrived and 2 pairs even layed eggs. I slowly added CO2 and nothing changed. Then i started treated that tank like the other since there was no apparent water chemistry difference. The ram slowly died off. I never could figure out what happened.That tank now has some african cichlids in it and when i measure the TDS if was 1800ppm.
Has anyone else had any similar results with TDS and medication or other products?