# high pH hard water plants



## fishguyjosh

im starting to draw up plans for a 90gal planted aquarium [smilie=b:. I've got about 2.5 watts per gallon to through on top. I would like to do some sort of soil based substrate and no CO2 injection. However, because of the water in my area most of my tanks run a pH around 8.2-8.5 and the water is extremely hard. What are some good groups of plants to look into that would fit in well in this type of aquarium?


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## Seattle_Aquarist

Hi fishguyjosh,

First of all I see this is your first post....welcome to APC!

We have a several GSAS members here in Seattle that keep Africa Rift Lake cichlids in hard alkaline water. They are able to keep anubias, val (takes time to adapt), and a couple of other species. I will see if I can get some other suggestions if you would like them.


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## marrow

Vals grow very easily in hard water, didiplis diandra (sp) will grow but slowly, most swords, e. tenellus grew ok as well. My water is pulled from a limestone aquifer and My pH lately out of tap is 9.5 and my GH is around 30 degrees, while my KH is around 15 degrees. My TDS is 400+ ppm. with lots of co2 can be brought down to 7.5 . I use rain water for most of my tanks now but have one planted tank (non)-co2 that I still use tap water on. I just slice off a chunk straight from the tap whenever that tank needs to be topped off.


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## marrow

oops forgot dwarf sag does well in hard water as well.


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## fishguyjosh

thanks for the great suggestions. i like to research plants well before i go out and get them. hopefully in the process of looking these up i'll bump into a few more. if anyone else has suggestions for plants in the above water conditions they'd be greatly appreciated!

josh


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## miremonster

I had Zosterella dubia growing very well in a tank with about 20 °dGH, 12 °KH and low CO2 level.


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## fishguyjosh

i guess it's not as bad as originally assumed. i tested my water out of the tap and CaCO3 was around 280ppm and calcium was at about 56ppm. Water straight out of the tap has a pH of 7.4 but all my tanks tend to stay around 8.2-8.6. Why such a change in pH? Does this broaden the types of plants i can keep a bit. Are there simple ways I can adjust my water parameters if need be. i'd rather not use CO2.


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## fishguyjosh

also, if my pH tends to change a bit once it hits tank, will my GH and KH be doing the same?


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## GoldLenny

fishguyjosh said:


> also, if my pH tends to change a bit once it hits tank, will my GH and KH be doing the same?


A big possibility is that your tap water has a high level of CO2 in it which temporarily lowers the pH and then, once the water is added to your tank, the higher level of CO2 outgases and then the pH rises to it's *natural* level. You can verify this by doing a 48 hour Tap Water Baseline test. I have instructions in one of my blog articles.

Your GH and KH may remain the same or they may also change depending on the buffering capacity.

Lenny Vasbinder
aka GoldLenny in forums
http://goldlenny.blogspot.com

P.S. - I just joined this forum after coming across this thread while helping someone else with plants that will do well in really hard water and I saw the last post and questions were never answered.


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## Diana K

Most common aquarium plants do not mind hard water. Even if they come from soft water streams and lakes. There may be a few that really will not compete well in these conditions, but they will usually be plants that are only available through specialists, anyway.
The opposite is not true: There are some plants that seem to require a high level of minerals, especially Ca. High KH is helpful to them, too. These plants will not thrive in _very_ soft water, though most average aquariums are fine for them.

I have kept many of the common aquarium plants in water that has a range of conditions (several tanks) that vary, but usually GH is not less than 4 degrees, KH about 4-5 degrees or higher, and pH out of the tap has been tested as high as 9, though upper 7s is more common. pH drops in most tanks to the mid 7s because of peat moss or other things. TDS is around 400 ppm. 
In my tanks that I add minerals (Lake Tanganyika and Livebearer tanks) the GH and KH are between 8-12 degrees, and pH is stable at about 8. TDS is around 800 ppm.

Hornwort is another plants that seems to prefer hard water. It does not do well in soft water tanks, IME.

More important will be that you set up a system that is in balance with respect to the light, CO2 and fertilizer. If you do not want to add CO2, then lower light, and small doses of fertilizer are better to start off with. about 2 watts per gallon max, and maybe only K and Fe as fertilizer. Fish food may offer enough of other nutrients that the plants will do OK.


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## charkes kraft

adding to an old thread

My water 55 GH, 12 KH, about 1000 ppm TDS

sword plant, Echinodorus sp (amazonicus or bleheri?)
Vallisneria
Cryptocoryne wendtii
Anubias barteri v nana
Hornwort
Java moss (took a long time to get adapted)
Egeria ( okay in the pond, not so well indoors)
Java fern - fades over time, does not do well.

and algae.


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## bveister

Now for the people that keep these plants with Rift Lake cichlids, are they in sand?


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## Cavan Allen

_Cryptocoryne crispatula_ var._ balansae_ is a very good plant for hard water tanks, if you have the room.


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## Diana K

My Lake Tanganyikan tank has Turface and Coral Sand, about 50/50. 
Vals, Bolbitis, Guppy Grass, Hornwort and a few others. 
The Vals spread really well in that blend. The other plants are not rooted in the substrate.


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## Michael

My _Lamprologus ocellatus_ tank has _Eleocharis vivipara, Cryptocoryne wendtii, Hemianthus glomeratus,_ and _Ludwigia repens x arcuata_. The substrate is Safe-T-Sorb (STS), with a soil layer in the back third of the tank. The soil layer is protected from digging with fist-sized pebbles, and all the plants except the _Hemianthus_ are rooted in the soil between the pebbles. The _Hemianthus_ grows all over the front 2/3 of the tank in straight STS. The shellies dig it up in spots as they bury their shells, but it grows back rapidly.


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## aquabillpers

With very high pH, free ammonia is in a more toxic form than with a lower pH, something like 100 times more than at a level of less than 7.0. Also, there is some indication that iron absorption by the plants is hindered by high pH.

Having water with very high pH is one of the few reasons to adjust water chemistry, IMO.

BTW, when we talk about the effect of high pH we are also talking about the effect of high KH. In aquariums they always dance together, but the pH is dependent on KH level.

Bill


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## vertebrate

Hi, I'm late to this thread but very interested in it. Short story is I'm struggling hard to grow plants in a Tanganyika setup tank, and failing. 

Long story:

This is my first venture with a planted tank. I have about 8 years experience with very easy (water change only) no-plant tanks. A couple of years ago I moved to a new place with more space and very hard water, so I figured I'd get a large tank and try Africans. The first year went pretty well, but as the fish grew and spawned I started to have more and more algae. I added a UV sterilizer and added some CAE which helped a bit, but weekly tank cleanings and water changes were getting to be too much trouble, so I had the thought that adding plants could control the algae and make the tank more attractive.

The past 8 months have been interesting, though discouraging. To begin with, I had epoxy-coated gravel substrate and a lot of mixed-type natural rock in the tank. The 125gal tank has two big eheim canister filters that provide a lot of flow, that each had a bag of crushed coral. My pH was always stable, right around 8.0 or 8.1. In the pre-plant days, nitrates would typically test 10-20ppm, with ammonia and nitrites testing 0. I started by heavily planting with several types of Java Fern and Anubias, and also added lights: 208W of T5HO, running 12 hours a day. I was hoping for a low maintenance outcome, so I figured I'd try without C02 or other regular additives and see what would survive. 

Summary: The fish liked having plants and proceeded to breed more prolifically (mostly shellies but also some Julies). Despite the higher population, nitrates were always testing close to 0, and pH was always stable at 8.0. The original plants have all been dying, more or less slowly. After a couple of months I started treating with Flourish (trace minerals) and Excel, and added some more light via an LED fixture. This perked up the Java Fern and some Anubias which partially recovered, however I also started having more trouble with algae. From week to week I'd see outbreaks of different kinds of algae: all colors and shapes. I was hoping that eventually I'd get some kind of symbiotic balance established. Unfortunately, eventually I started seeing increasingly pervasive and fast-growing dark fuzz that I've come to believe is cyanobacteria. At some point I added Vals and Duckweed, hoping that some faster growing/emergent plants could out-compete the algae. Initially both did very well. However, the tank's heath was only being maintained by a lot of regular care, and the plants just kept looking worse.

Then I went on vacation, irresponsibly leaving the tank in the care of an unfortunate novice, and it crashed. I came home to an amazing stew of algae and very few live fish.

I'm now experimenting with the surviving fish and plants, trying to find some way of growing plants in this tank without RO water.

I"ve been thinking to lower the pH and mineral content of the water, so I removed all the rock from the tank and the coral bags from the filters. I've done multiple large water changes in the last month. The tank's pH continues to test high, in fact now it is never below 8.2 and spikes up the to top of my kit test range (8.8?).

With API kits my tap water tests GH 7, KH 9. (Water quality varies during the year as the supply comes from a varying mix of ground/snowmelt water.) The tank tests GH 10, KH 8. Tap water pH varies from 7 to 8. For 24 hours after a water change I see a lot of bubbles on the inside glass which I suspect is C02 out-gassing. Temperature is around 75F in the winter, 80F in the summer, as the lights are in a hood which heats the tank and it doesn't cool as effectively. I just started testing for phosphate: tap water is around 1, tank maybe 0.25. Ammonia, nitrites and nitrates all test 0.

I have never tried fertilizing with N,K or P since I assumed that the fish load would produce enough of this stuff. Now my fish load is very low, and I'm only growing the dark fuzzy slime: lots of it.

My best guess at the moment is that the tank is limited by usable-nitrogen. Maybe the cyanobacteria is able to fix N2 (and then use the fixed product?) and that's why it's out competing everything else. Elimination of C02 might be responsible for the high pH, though I wonder whether some other product of the cyanobacteria might be contributing. I read the Sears-Conlin article and have been experimenting with a little K dosing and plan to try some fixed N source too.

OK, sorry for the long post; hope it's interesting to someone. I think I can't substantially change my tap water, but I want to grow plants. How is it done?


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## Diana K

Hi, vertibrate. 

I can suggest a few ideas. Not sure what will really be the answer. 

200 watts of T-5HO is high light over a 125 gallon tank. 
Then you added more, but no CO2. I think this is where the problem really started. 

Then the tank crashed ( :-( ) and the reduced fish population ate a lot less food, so there was less N, P and traces. Tests showed you that: NO3 and phosphate of zero or near zero tells us the plants were removing all the nutrients that you were giving them. 

I am not sure that the most common Cyano that grows in our tanks can fix N. Sure seems likely, but I have heard that it cannot. 
Dark and Fuzzy sounds more like Black Brush Algae. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Here is what I would do:
1) Thorough cleaning, remove all possible algae (whatever the species!). You can kill many types of algae with hydrogen peroxide. In this large a tank I think I would do this: Is it at all possible to remove the fish for an hour or two? Then overdose the H2O2, then overdose some Excel. Then BIG water change. Return the fish to the tank. The algae will die. Keep up the water changes and clean the filters often, the algae can cause an ammonia spike, and clog the filters. 
If you cannot remove the fish then remove by hand as much as you can, then use a lower dose of H2O2 via syringe, right into the remaining blobs of algae. 

2) Rearrange the rocks, add new plants and so on. Give the plants time to get rooted and established. Make sure that the amount of light you are giving them is balanced by all the elements that plants need. Carbon is a biggie. On that large a tank pressurized CO2 is the way to go. N, P, K and traces are also very important. I would get the tank going using the Estimative Index fertilizer method, then scale back so you do not have to do that big a water change. 

3) Monitor the parameters and the plants, and adjust the fertilizer as needed. Especially when you get more fish. When you feed more, this is adding more N and P to the water. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The bubbles you are seeing on the glass after a water change can also be dangerous to the fish. Google gas embolism and similar terms with the word fish. 
I cannot do direct fills in the winter because of air dissolved in the water.


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## vertebrate

Hi Diana,

Thanks for your help! Since I last posted, I've tried some experiments, done a lot more reading, and ended up breaking down the tank to start over. 

My two uncontrolled experiments tried increasing N, and lowering the pH via acid. I started with a
96 hour total blackout of the tank, which eliminated the visible BGA. After that I resumed lighting, and dosed N, K, P according to Seachem instructions, trying to keep N around 10ppm. I also added Seachem "Acid Buffer" (whatever it really is) according to instructions, trying to lower pH from around 8.4 to something under 8. (Many people claim high pH favors algae.) The pH lowering did not work: pH dropped immediately upon dosing, but always returned to its original value within 24 hours. Also, the BGA reappeared within a few days, and was growing strongly again within 10, at which point I decided to start over. My current guess is that by that point the remaining plants were pretty sick and giving off enough nutrients through decomposition that it fed the algae. This was suggested by the BGA appearing first and growing most rapidly on the less healthy plant leaves. I also guessed that something in my tank decor, maybe the white gravel, was leaching Ca, since the pH resiliance seemed higher than it should have been, since I wasn't changing water very rapidly.

The tank was empty of everything except fish for two weeks; since starting the rebuild I've left the lights off, but there's a lot of indirect daylight on the tank. A few substantial water changes (and filter cleanings) later and algae growth is little to none. (Only 6 fish left.) A week ago I added substrate: a layer of Flourite topped by a layer of Floramax midnight. Today I measured the tank pH at 7.9. I also put a bucket of tapwater aside for 24 hours then measured its pH at 8.1, KH at 6 and GH at 11.

I'm trying to figure out what plants will work best with this water, and what other factors, e.g. CO2, lighting and rocks, I need to better control. Thanks for the advice that 200W of T5HO is high light; it looks that way, but I don't have a light meter and by the "watts/gal" measure it rates low. It also seems like I'll probably have the least trouble (~= most fun) if I go ahead and get a CO2 injection system, so I've decided to do that.

BTW, I was looking at the Tropica web site which is very informative, and they strongly recommend using Amano shrimp as part of a multi-species algae eating force. My remaining fish include a Julidochromis, a Brichardi and a Multifasciatis (it was a Tanganyikan tank). I've seen Julies easily wipe out small snails in another tank; I'm guessing the Amano shrimp would quickly disappear if cohabiting with these fish. If I have to move the cichlids to my 30 gal tank in order to keep the big tank algae free, I'll do that, but I do like Rift Lake fish.


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