Let's Talk About Plants In Hard Water

Those rainbows where doing a little something in the beginning 😂 😂

Wow you just gave me the last piece of information that made everything about aquatic plants I've been trying to figure out make sence.

Commenting for the algorithm

I’ve been researching this a lot, and I’ve been in the aquarium world for decades, and that realization that RO water is a waste, and simply lowering the pH seems to be absolutely correct everything I’ve seen says to stop stripping the water of its nutrients and simply lower the pH.

This is great info. Just to point out that the hard water or high pH is not the actual problem here as the vast majority of plants will adapt and grow very well. Plants even use carbonate and bicarbonate compounds (KH) within the water as a source of carbon for photosynthesis. The actual issue is that plants also need food to grow and the common ferts that are dosed, e.g., micro or trace where the FE iron is EDTA that precipitates at pH 6.5/7 and iron is simply unavailable. So, a low-tech hard water aquarium is less forgiving with an inbalance of light and nutrients. Alternatives to the above iron is FE DTPA (which is 60% unavailable at pH 8) or FE eddha (maintains iron availability to plants past pH 9.0 but it will tint water reddish) or ferrous iron gluconate I.e seachem flourish Iron (degrades very quickly). Other than that, magnesium and potassium are usually lacking. Nitrate and phosphates are not generally needed with an average stocked tank.

That was great!!! I learned how it works. My tds out of the tap is 750. Ph 7.6. I have a deep substrate and you just explained how plants grow.

Knowledge is fluid. This was very helpful. Another thought I’m having after listening to you is about the influence of temperature, CO2, oxygen relative to pH.

I just watched another one of your videos before this one and both have clarified my issues. I have a low PH in hard water. My issue is my KH and this video was great. That one little bit of info that brought it all together. Thank you again for posting

This was extremely informative and interesting

Found your video 3 days ago. Before my new leaf anubias have pale yellow with green veins. I manage bring down pH from around 8.4 slowly in 2 days to 6.7. My tds around 500ppm. Dose with k2so4 and eddha fe, now that new leaf looks much better. Thanks for helpful video...

Thank you... this was my final bit of info I needed for my Aha moment as well!

Great info

I've learned a lot of this the hard way. I feel like there is still much to learn. Because of injuries and surgery I ended up only being able to do water top offs for like 4 months. Many master aquarist can do it, why can't I? Things started dying - including duckweed. I bought a TDS meter. One tank had a TDS of 1600 ppm. I am slowly lowering the TDS in my tanks. The problems are complex and too extensive for here but yes, know what GH and KH are. Again, this is complex.

Helpful🎉

0:12 I couldn't have been more distracted! 😂 I had to rewind and listen to you again because I am not knowledgeable enough about fish copulation to determine if I was right about what I was seeing

Muchísimas gracias por compartir esta información tan útil!!! Saludos desde Argentina. Nuevo suscriptor!!!

I didn't even try plants when I had 7.8 and very hard water, but I've seen others have success, especially with CO2. Where I live now I am around 7.1 but a gh over 300... and growing plants really well with or without co2. Light and proper ferts more important in my personal experience - my one tank with a poor light from a kit isn't doing as well as my others. But even that tank has Jungle val doing runners... in sand. It can be done!

I can confirm that even duckweed struggles in my hardwater 500+ppm and 8.5 ph xD XD The only thing that does consistently well are Marino moss balls for some reason. Anubis seems to hang on for a while, but eventually will yellow and struggle.

thanks to u i found my answer

Very good explanation. I have pH 8 high GH water and have problems growing plants. I will try lowing the pH and see what happens.