Dealing With Ottawa's Soft Water

[hotsoup]

Hi all, I'm new to the forum and keeping fish so I've spent a fair amount of rime researching the basics.  My reading took me to discussions regarding GH and KH which noted that Ottawa water is low in both. From my understanding this means our water (I'm in Barrhaven) has a low buffering capacity and may be subject to pH crash due to acidification from biological processes. General advice on 'teh Internets' is to avoid adjusting water parameters unless warranted. To that end I'd like any advice on whether our water requires any treatment beyond removing chloramine to successfully keep a South American(ish) community of Corydoras, tetras and angelfish using a substrate of pool filter sand and Malaysian driftwood hardscape. I'm specifically interested in whether some sort of GH or KH buffering additive is needed to maintain a reasonably consistent pH. Thanks for any advice you can offer.

[Black_Rose]

I'm also in Barrhaven.

I keep small terra cotta pots of crushed coral in some of my tanks and add Seachem Equilibrium to my livebearer (endler) tanks.

I keep mostly endlers, pygmy cories, and panda cories.

[hotsoup]

I'm also in Barrhaven.

I keep small terra cotta pots of crushed coral in some of my tanks and add Seachem Equilibrium to my livebearer (endler) tanks.

I keep mostly endlers, pygmy cories, and panda cories.

Thanks for this. Hope you don't mind a few follow-on questions.
1. What KH are the coral and equilibrium holding your water at?
2. What ratio of coral (weight or volume) to water are you using?
3. Are the coral and Equilibrium effective at increasing KH and maintaining pH?
4. Is one of coral or Equilibrium better than the other?

Apologies for the flood of questions, just trying to get as much practical knowledge as I can.

[Jody]

Hi,
For most of my fish, I don't find an issue with the low water hardness. I use straight, dechlorinated tap water, and keep up with regular water changes.
With my livebearers, I use some Seachem Replenish to harden the water a bit, and I find they do much better with it.
I very rarely test any of my water,  so can't give exact readings.

Jody

[Calico3]

Hi All : I gave up on goldfish due to Ottawa's very soft water. ( first fish love was for fancy goldfish ) and I tried for more then 4 years to keep and raise some successfully. I wanted to bring  " celestial goldfish " back to Ontario and have some fry for those whom love this type in the province. However due to PH swing problems only have one rescue goldfish left  and unfortunately my attempts to get her a goldfish friend and for it to survive was not very successful. Somehow my lone goldfish has adjusted to my water conditions so far.
With the number of tanks I have, I  decided to switch to fish that do better in soft water. Now have mainly Angelfish and tetras.   I now  add corral rock and large seashells in every tank and add KH carbonate to help raise carbonate hardness.
I appreciate any help with solutions to our  soft Ottawa water .Thank you (  Jody )  and if anyone keeps goldfish successfully in the area your comments would be much welcomed as I hate to give up on a bucket list dream.

[nerdRVT]

I keep a few hundred comets at any given time at work, and we struggle in our systems with Ottawa's very soft water. Our systems are designed to be flow-through (water goes to drain constantly and is replenished with tempered, dechloraminated city water), so no real benefit of evaporation concentrating minerals etc either, and the goldfish really don't do great over time. They eventually show signs of chronic health issues (edema, gi issues, chronic issues involving skin and fin health, etc), and I have issues with fecundity and optimal growth.

I don't have much to work with in my current setup, but I find they do well even if you just up the salinity to ~3ppt. I'll do that on intake for a few weeks to help them heal and settle in.

[Nighthawk723]

Are you located in newer barrhaven or older barrhaven. I have good water quality in the newer parts

[hotsoup]

Are you located in newer barrhaven or older barrhaven. I have good water quality in the newer parts

I'm in the newer part I think (East of Woodroffe).

Thanks also to everyone else for the insights.  I've been running some tests using driftwood, aragonite and baking soda in various combinations to see how water parameters are affected.  Never thought I'd regret not mastering basic chemistry.

[Anubias]

About 20 years ago Ottawa changed the effluent target parameters for the water plants. Now the water is softer and contains less calcium and magnesium carbonate. Ottawa created a bit of a problem for us.
One has a few options to deal with this. The simplest might be to use a crushed dolomite substrate. I have done this; If you do small regular water changes the pH should not vary too much. Depending upon the bio load, the KH should settle in at between 4 and 10, as opposed to 1 or 2 out of the tap.
Myself, I just throw a spoonful of finely crushed  dolomite into the tank with each water change. It seems to keep the water neutral. The finer the dolomite, the better. Ritchie's used to sell it, but last time they only had a courser grade which I am now using.
Coral keepers use a product that adds calcium to the water, and balance the pH using a buffer of some sort. I am not familiar with these.

Regards,

[Nighthawk723]

I'm in the Barrhaven area and was wondering if anyone has any seeding material I can buy to cycle my tank