Becca
Members
So, my mother-in-law got me a TDS tester for my birthday, not knowing that it would drive me completely insane (or maybe she did know). My initial findings were somewhat expected - TDS were high in the tanks on the ground that get tap water and are hard to vacuum and higher in smaller tanks, but lower in tanks where I use rain water. They weren't low enough anywhere for my CRS/CBS to successfully reproduce.
I've worked on upping water changes on the tanks that had TDS readings above what's in my tap (270ppm), and using distilled in my CRS/CBS tank. Today I was drinking my coffee and decided to play with my little TDS meter. Most of what I got was fairly expected, but two tanks SHOCKED me.
The first is a 10 gallon with 12-15 Aspidoras sp. black fin (more if you count the itty babies) and probably 10-15 yellow neocaridina shrimp of varying sizes. It had around 115 ppm, even though it is overcrowded and I use tap water only in that tank. It has hardly any substrate and almost no plants, but a huge mass of what I think is Cladophora algae. There's also reasonably large piece of driftwood taking up space in the tank. It runs on two sponge filters.
The second is a 20 gallon with pea gravel (a decade or so old, purchased at a garden center), 4 relatively small fish, and an assortment of plants, both floating and rooted. There's a little piece of driftwood in the tank and it runs on two sponge filters. It had around 450ppm (more than twice my tap).
Each tank had a 50% water change with the SAME water in the past week...
I suspect the gravel is the culprit in the 20 gallon, as it was lower after the last change but has creeped back up, but I've got NO explanation for the 10.
Thoughts?
I've worked on upping water changes on the tanks that had TDS readings above what's in my tap (270ppm), and using distilled in my CRS/CBS tank. Today I was drinking my coffee and decided to play with my little TDS meter. Most of what I got was fairly expected, but two tanks SHOCKED me.
The first is a 10 gallon with 12-15 Aspidoras sp. black fin (more if you count the itty babies) and probably 10-15 yellow neocaridina shrimp of varying sizes. It had around 115 ppm, even though it is overcrowded and I use tap water only in that tank. It has hardly any substrate and almost no plants, but a huge mass of what I think is Cladophora algae. There's also reasonably large piece of driftwood taking up space in the tank. It runs on two sponge filters.
The second is a 20 gallon with pea gravel (a decade or so old, purchased at a garden center), 4 relatively small fish, and an assortment of plants, both floating and rooted. There's a little piece of driftwood in the tank and it runs on two sponge filters. It had around 450ppm (more than twice my tap).
Each tank had a 50% water change with the SAME water in the past week...
I suspect the gravel is the culprit in the 20 gallon, as it was lower after the last change but has creeped back up, but I've got NO explanation for the 10.
Thoughts?
