Making water softer?

A quick tank update. All my fish are doing great after I got rid of the worms. My jungle val is growing out of control so I had to cut a lot of it back. I stopped using DIY CO2 and going to switch to Seachem Excel.

Now for my real question. I've had some Blue Rams for a few weeks now. They're eating great and swimming up to the front of the tank often. I can usually find them with my red phantom tetras or the keyhole cichlids. However, their colours aren't as bright as when we bought them. I thought they needed to adjust and would colour back up but so far they haven't. I've been thinking maybe it's because my water is too hard and the pH a little too high. I was reading about using peat to lower the two but was hoping someone could shed some more light on the topic.

Is it necessary to soften the water and lower the pH? Is so what's the best way?

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Comment by Robert Jango on February 20, 2013 at 11:12pm

In my own experience, Rams’ color is affected by five things:

mood
surroundings
light
diet
mating/water quality

Mood

In your case I don’t think mood is relevant because you seem to be talking about a permanent condition. Moods like anger, fear, and joy bring out some spectacular displays in fish but these normally last a short time before the fish revert to their original color.

Surroundings

My Rams change color to blend in with their surroundings - especially the babies. I wouldn’t call them chamaeleons, but the changes are significant. Here are some of the color patterns I’ve noticed:

a pronounced, mottled black/white pattern in tanks where the walls are covered with irregularly spaced patches of dark green algae.
a washed out, almost translucent, very pale yellow that covers the whole body. This occurs in bare-bottom tanks with nothing in them except a heater and airstone.
a light minty green that covers the whole body. This is in tanks with (again) nothing in them except a heater, airstone, and some light green algae - same color as the fish.

Light

This could be it Jessica. Light is a big factor in your Rams color. I’m assuming you use a fluorescent bulb and let me say up front that this is the best bulb for drawing out your Rams’ colors - except sunlight. But, while this light originates from your the reflector, it also bounces off the the substrate. This in turn changes the color of the light hitting your Rams. Ever notice how a certain color blouse makes your face glow or turn ashen? Well this is because the blouse is reflecting a particular color from the light onto your face. Gravel does the same thing to fish. It reflects a particular color light onto them which will either enhance or wash them out. I never use light colored gravel because It washes out most fishes' color (like my bare-bottom breeding tanks) I only use black or very deep purple/blues in tanks where I want to display blue fish and a reddish clay substrate where I want to highlight red fish.

Diet

A lot has been written about this but I don’t think this affects you because you just introduced the fish. Needless to say - the better the diet, the better the color. Live food is the best by far. In the summertime, mosquitos and flies lay eggs in my rainbarrels supplying my fish with the stuff they eat in nature. Other food like Daphnia, grubs, guppies, and earthworms can also be cultured outside in warm weather. In the wintertime, I’m restricted to mostly blackworms and brine shrimp which I get through the the mail. But I condition them with algae, carrots, and Selco. Live food contains all the nutrients your fish will ever need.

Mating/Water quality

Mating brings out the most spectacular colors in Rams, but they won't mate if the water is off. So is it mating that actually brings out their color or is it the water? The answer is they're so connected it probably doesn’t matter. One can’t exist without the other.

So what is good water for Rams?

Don’t get hung up on this. My Rams have mated in water from the high 4s to the mid 7s. Eggs may or may not be safer in the more acidic waters but that’s off-topic.

Hardness

DO get hung up on this. You need 1 to 2 degrees GH (German degrees hardness) or 50 to 200 ppm (parts per million) Hardness is the amount of minerals dissolved in water ie: iron, magnesium, calcium etc. In the wild, the rainy season floods the pools where the Rams breed with lots of clean, fresh, soft water. It also washes in plenty of insect larvae and sets the stage for a robust infusoria culture which the fry will need. In Ramspeak, rain = wedding bells and wedding bells = beautiful wedding costumes.

Nitrates

Rams need very clean water. I keep no gravel in their tanks and siphon up all the waste at least once a week. (I do keep lots of plants but they’re restricted to small clay pots) In the bowls where I raise new-born Discus, the water is changed several times a day for the first week and twice a day in the Rams' fry tank.

So how do you get soft water? The answer is reverse osmosis or rain water. I’ve heard that peat can work, but it involves keeping extra tanks or holding containers and all kinds of accessories. And the same goes for carbon filtering. Someone explained it to me once but, the whole process just seemed too messy and impractical. Unfortunately, throwing some peat or an oak leaf in your tank won’t cut it.

I’ve heard that a reverse osmosis system is expensive and I think it also involves some sort of holding tank too, but I’ve never used one so I really don’t know or care. If you live in a house, just put a clean garbage barrel(s) under your rain gutter(s) and you’ll have magic Ram water for the rest of your life. It may be a hassle at first but its worth it. And think of the money you’ll save. (water costs about 1/2¢ per gallon) Theoretically rain water and RO water are the same, but breeders in my area say they’re not. Something about rainwater triggers breeding (and breeding colors) into action much better than RO.

Good luck.

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Comment by Jessica on February 21, 2013 at 9:38am: Thanks for all the great info. In the spring maybe I will get a rain collector. But it might be difficult because we're on a balcony and also in the winter we can't collect rain water. Now I'm really looking forward to spring!

I will aslo try some live foods. :)

Comment by Robert Jango on February 21, 2013 at 11:37am: Rain collector? I've heard of them but I have no idea how they work or how much rain they can collect. Sounds interesting + hope they're not too expensive. I'll google it after I send this post.

If you live in an apartment building see if you can maybe divert some water from the rain spout. Too much water coming from the spout can flood basements and eat away at a building's foundation. So there's no reason a landlord wouldn't want to divert rain from the building as long as it was done in a safe and responsible manner.

Here's another idea. Winter may actually be your best time to collect rainwater. Its easy because all you have to put snow and/or ice into buckets - pretty easy. Just make sure its clean. The only drawback is that it takes about four 5 gallon buckets of snow to produce a bucket of water. So you might need a bigger container to store the snow - something like a garbage barrel.

Comment by Jessica on February 21, 2013 at 10:04pm: Thanks again! I live in Toronto and contrary to popular belief we don't get all that much snow in the city lol. I'll have to wait for the next snow fall and collect fresh snow because it gets dirty really fast. I think it might be a mix of snow and rain this weekend so I'll try to get some. Also, they sell RO water at our LFS so I'll check pricing. I'm sure all this info will help some others as well. Thanks :)

Comment by Ike on February 26, 2013 at 1:50am: Get proper PH they have different levels u can get

Comment by Ike on February 26, 2013 at 1:53am: What size tank u got? And what was your mix for the DIY CO2?

Comment by Jessica on February 26, 2013 at 11:04am: I don't quite understand your fist comment. I have 55 and I stopped doing DIY CO and I dose Excel.

Comment by Ike on February 26, 2013 at 1:38pm: I was askin what recipe did u use for the DIY CO2, what amt. of sugar and yeast?

I was answering your question how to lower PH. There's a product called proper PH and they have 7.0-6.5 give or take a few points and u put it in tha tank and it sets your PH to that level which ever one u choose. I never tried it but I hear it works .

Comment by Robert Jango on February 26, 2013 at 6:48pm

I'm not sure if PH affects color in Rams but it may. In my experience it hasn't, but who knows?

If you soften your water the PH will drop. Again, I'm not a chemist and can't testify to this, but that's basically how it works.

Comment by Jessica on February 27, 2013 at 12:09pm: I don't think I want to buy products that mess with your pH. So I won't worry about that. I used a recipe from a youtube video and I can't remember the exact measurement. But I stopped using it a little while ago. I use Excel and work fine.

I collected some rain water today and mixed it with tap water when I did a partial water change. We're getting closer to spring so I can keep adding rain water. Thanks for all your help.

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