TDS Readings

[kevster]

I just got my CD 97 tds meter. I was wondering if some of the breeders out there could suggest a good reading for my potential breeders and a good reading for my fry tanks.

R/O water is 006 ppm
Tap Water is 370 ppm
Waste Water from R/O unit is 480 ppm

Since I am making about 30 gals of R/O water a day I figure I must be wasting another 70- 80 gals. I was thinking of dripping this water into my angel tanks and let them overflow into the waste line. This way I could automate water changes by putting a pump on a timer to pump the r/o water to the breeders that would turn on the r/o unit to make more water which in turn would start the waste water to go to my other tanks.

I'd appreciate any thoughts on using this r/o waste water and good water settings for the breeders and fry.
Also do you think I could use the r/o waste water and baby discus or is it too hard?

thanks
Kevin

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

ok, for the r/o waste....use it for your grow out tanks. Wattley does this and produces amazing results cause of the high mineral concentration in the waste water. just get like two 55 gallon barrels and use those for your r/o waste. that is what i am currently doing to raise my discus fry. I waste virtually no water in the whole r/o process. The waste water is perfectly safe to use, cause it has already been through a prefilter and a carbon block. So, essentially the waste water is just regular water that is filtered and is super concentrated in menerals. But, you would still have to ariate it to get rid of the chlorene and stuff like that. hope this helps.

-Ryan

i'd get your water up to 30-50 ppm for breeding just to prevent a ph crash...or you could go lower if you really know what you're doing

[kevster]

Right now I have the water for the adult discus at 100 ppm.
I was wondering what the optimum reading should be for breeding these guys?

thank
kevin

between 30-50 ppm should be just fine

[kevster]

thanks
kevin

[Kevin]

Our water comes out like yours, at 320 and 7.5. I keep the breeders at 100 to 120 ph at 4.9 to 6 depending on how long it is between buffering up. I thank you for the news about the waste water. I have been useing 50/50 on tap and ro, to get the minerals up. This will save some money and put the water to good use. We live in southern Colorado where there has not been any real rain for 2 or 3 years now. So with this news I won't feel so criminal about useing water.

you may or may not have low hatch rates at that hardness so if you do lower it down to 50 ppm