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I am currently breeding L134 and L397 plecos and I’m moving to a property with a well with high nitrates 25ppm+. I want to use ro water and just wondering what is the cheapest way to remineralize water and what is the best parameters for plecos. Any info is greatly appreciated.

Sorry I have no experience with remineralizing RO water. I usually mix RO with tap. If your tap water is modestly hard, you could probably do a 3/4 RO, 1/4 tap to save some minerals and just leave a little nitrate.

Hopefully someone else has a better solution.

Good luck,
Eric

Thanks Eric. That’s exactly what I was thinking. I’m just not sure how much trouble it is to add minerals. I appreciate the feedback.

You're welcome. Myself, at work I've toyed with the idea of using pure RO with a Seachem product, but that probably isn't cheap.

Cheers,Eric

Hi all,

Kirkl240 wrote: ↑16 May 2020, 23:07I am currently breeding L134 and L397 plecos and I’m moving to a property with a well with high nitrates 25ppm+. I want to use ro water and just wondering what is the cheapest way to remineralize water and what is the best parameters for plecos. Any info is greatly appreciated.

It is a tricky one.

If it is just the NO3 in the water that worries you? You can deplete that effectively with floating or emergent plants. Plants are much more effective at removing nutrients from water than most aquarium sites give them credit for.

If your well water is very hard as well? Then the plants won't help with that, but that would allow you to re-mineralize the RO with tap water. I use a conductivity meter to give me a datum range where plant growth and fish health are both acceptable. I live in the UK, where it rains a lot, so I use rain-water in the tanks, and I have a hard tap supply, which I use should I need to raise dGH/dKH.

I can see some issues with your well water and an RO filter (low water pressure, excessive waste water, cold water), but if you are going to buy the RO then you can re-mineralize it with a DIY mix from <"James Planted Tank"> which should defray some of the cost.

Should you want to go down the route of Seachem products? Then "Seachem Equilibrium" is probably your best bet, but all these products are expensive options.

cheers Darrel

I agree withy Darrel that with this level of NO3 you would rather not use this water. Still, all forms of remineralizing will be rather costly.

Perhaps it is acceptable to use some of the well water, and some remineralising. Obviously you could first treat the well water with plants. In such a case, the best solution would be to have the plants emerge from the water, allowing easy access of CO2 and light to the dry parts, while they still eat the nitrate.

If the well water is rather hard, you will need to use less of it, allowing you some more freedom with the nitrate.

Thanks for all the info. I will try plants for a bit and see how that works.

To the scientists out there, what about using a deionizing unit here? If there is not an issue with the water being too hard, that would remove the nitrate. However, I do not know if it would also be removing other ions that are desirable to have.

The nitrate ion is by far the hardest one to remouve in an ion exchanger.

So the only way to rid on that one is to exhange all the ions. And then replace the good ones. Personally, assuming one has space, I 'd much rather use a planted pond to get rid of nitrates. Still, this only works in summer, unless the pond is indoors.

Such a thing can be a treasure in itself, but it will require more care.

Hi all,

TwoTankAmin wrote: ↑17 May 2020, 15:00To the scientists out there, what about using a deionizing unit here? If there is not an issue with the water being too hard, that would remove the nitrate. However, I do not know if it would also be removing other ions that are desirable to have.

You can get specific anion exchange resins that remove a NO3- and replace it with Cl- ion. The cation isn't important, so you can charge the ion exchange resin with potassium chloride (KCl), which means that you can still use plants to deplete the potassium.

Bas Pels wrote: ↑17 May 2020, 15:06The nitrate ion is by far the hardest one to remove in an ion exchanger. So the only way to rid on that one is to exhange all the ions. And then replace the good ones. Personally, assuming one has space, I 'd much rather use a planted pond to get rid of nitrates. Still, this only works in summer, unless the pond is indoors. Such a thing can be a treasure in itself, but it will require more care.

I've had some experience with nitrate selective anion exchange resins, and using plants is really a no-brainer compared to using them. Planted trickle filters do the same job for a fraction of the price.

cheers Darrel

Take a look at the nitrate resin remover from this guy, very good results and ships worldwide.
https://www.facebook.com/CountrysideAqu ... 0kWL1YR5uA