# Apisto/Blackwater tank



## shrtmann (Feb 15, 2009)

So I am embarking on a new tank setup . I am gonig to try and replicate (slightly) a S. American Blackwater tank... But i have many a questions, and am hoping someone can fill me in on some of em..

First off PH. Now i am hoping that they do breed someday for me so i want to bring my PH down and am going to use Peat to do it. But how much do i use to start and how often do you change it. I am pretty avid about my fish and my water Q so constant testing and screwing osnt a problem. But i want to keep things stable in the tank for the lil guys too....

Also I use aquarium salt in my tank. How is this gonig to affect the PH in the tank.
My water is hard with a PH of around 7.8 coming out of the tap. Any other tips or tricks would help. I was thinking about getting into plants which i have also heard brings your PH down.

Also what are some good other fish to keep in there. Currently i have Kribs (i know they're not from S.A. but i had them before and i love em) and apisto iniridae , apisto nijsseni, and a couple common plecos


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## ksimdjembe (Nov 11, 2006)

how big is the tank? what dimensions?
what plants were you interested in keeping?


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## shrtmann (Feb 15, 2009)

Tank is 75g. 4ft x 18 x18

umm im not realy sure..Im kind of new to the whole live plants theiry as ive had african cichlids prior to this for many years and they were constantly diggin.


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## characinfan (Dec 24, 2008)

Neat tank idea.
With blackwater, water hardness is more of an issue than pH. You may need to mix in either rain water/melted snow or distilled water to bring the hardness down. I'm also pretty sure that most blackwater creatures do not do well with salt. You might want to check up on that.

Good luck and looking forward to your pics!


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## shrtmann (Feb 15, 2009)

ya thats the one thing i was realy leary about was the salt and what effect it would have on my altering my water chemistry. It is just something I have always done and I think it helps with infections and overall health of the fish as Ive never had any real infections in my tank. But ill have to look into the effect os Aquarium salt on amazonian/blackwater fish. Altho i dont add much

Ya i was thinking about mixing distilled water into my tank slowly. I know they say R/O is the way to go. But im not quite that dedicated to install a unit in my house just for this. I read that rain water in the tank is a bad idea as it contains environmental pollutants that are bad for the fish.


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## Rmwbrown (Jan 22, 2009)

I set up a 70g South American Blackwater biotope for my parents. They had hardness issues as well. I ended up filling up water cooler jugs a a Sobey's to get the R/O water - cost 3 bucks a bottle. Now when they do a water change they just go fill one up and make up a mix with the house water. It was also a good intro into plants for them, lots of low light/low mateinance stuff. 

I set up a 70g South American Blackwater biotope for my parents. They had hardness issues as well. I ended up filling up water cooler jugs at Sobey's to get the R/O water - cost 3 bucks a bottle. Now when they do a water change they just go fill one up and make up a mix with the house water. It was also a good intro into plants for them, lots of low light/low maintenance stuff. 

You also need to see if the plants can handle the salt, some will not. I would go look at some stuff on biotope aquariums and see which fish and plants match up with your water. I’m thinking Central American cichlids would fit better, but obviously, if you like dwarfs, you like dwarfs! You could also think about expanding into other West Africans which is also another great setup for hardy low light plants. I was also reading an article in the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology on Krib breeding patterns and several of the sites they were testing had some salt.


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## shrtmann (Feb 15, 2009)

well i am working on a community tank with the main focus being my apistos so i want them to be the center of attention.
Ya i was thking about going to a water supplier and either gettting R/O or distilled and mixing it with some of my tap water to get the desired hardness and PH.

I would also like to hear some more of this tank you setup for your parents. I love the concept and have found scattered info on the net as well as a few vids on youtube. And really trying to understand as much as i can about it. 
Before i start really adding fish i want to tackle the water issues tho...

thankks everyone who is helping out here.


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## shrtmann (Feb 15, 2009)

does anyone know how long the effects of peat take to react with the water dropping the hardness and ph of the water? I have 2 filters in my tank and both runnig with a little bit of peat in them. I am thinking of adding a little more because so far nothing has changed but dont want to be too hasty.


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## apisto-nut (Jan 27, 2009)

I have found that peat will have no real effect PH OR hardness when our water is this hard , a lot of people still use it though ( me included )

distilled , rain water or RO is the way to go , before I had my RO unit I used rain water from a barrel connected to my down spout , this water was then filtered through a charcoal whole house filter that I hooked up to a submersible pump and pumped into another barrel in my basement .

A real Black Water river has no real plant life except the odd sword plant or other plant, mostly they will have sand ,leaf litter and lots of driftwood .

to obtain the dark coloration of the water I use alder cones which you can find locally , they will stain the water quickly and also have anti fungal properties , that will help with the low PH that you will be keeping your fish at as low PH ( PH 4.5-6.5 ) can cause a few problems with water quality ( whole other story ) .

Dont use salt , it will effect water hardness


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## Chris S (Dec 19, 2007)

I'm just going to chime in and say:

Unless you are keeping very specific apistos and plan on breeding them (which likely won't be very successful in a community tank), I would just leave your pH as it is.

Most fish that you get in Canada here, unless you imported these from the wild, are accustomed to higher pH levels and hardness and will do fine.

I'd put more effort into keeping your water quality high, with good filtration and water changes. I've found quality food also makes a huge difference with apistos (arguably with any fish though, heh!).

Using crap like pH down will only destroy the quality of your water in my opinion.


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## JamesG (Feb 27, 2007)

Chris S said:


> I'm just going to chime in and say:
> 
> Unless you are keeping very specific apistos and plan on breeding them (which likely won't be very successful in a community tank), I would just leave your pH as it is.
> 
> ...


I have to agree with Chris on this. He keeps great looking apistos (I have some of them), and neither of us do anything to modify the water chemistry in our tanks. I keep at least 7 or so species of apistos happily in plain tap water. I have had poor luck with some species but they were recently imported when I got them so whatever problem did them in likely existed before they entered my tanks.

For most questions regarding the functionng of natural systems basic parallels can be drawn between different orders of life. If you change the O2 concentration of a persons air they will feel it immediately. Ex travel to Peru where the altitude is much higher and there is considerably less oxygen. Now put that stress on a fish which has a relatively weak immune system as they only need to live a short time to reproduce, and you will put a large strain on them.

As for getting the look of the blackwater tank I like apistonut's idea of using alder cones. I use lots of locally found wood in my tanks which when first put in gave my tanks water a nice tint. Again, none of this should bother the fish as they are unlikely to be vulnerable to tree oils and resins except maybe pine or some other noxious oozing sappy woods.


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## apisto-nut (Jan 27, 2009)

> Most fish that you get in Canada here, unless you imported these from the wild, are accustomed to higher pH levels and hardness and will do fine.


Yes I do agree with this But I have found that certain species will do better if you can get the PH down to at least 6.8-7.2 even if they are aquarium strains .
Then there are others that will not do well at all unless you can get it down to the 5-6 range 
The best thing you can do is give them excellent water conditions (water changes and low bio-load )

I also do not use chemicals to reduce my PH , I will mix tap water back in to any of the RO or rain water to increase the buffering capacity.

You do have to remember that some stores do use filtered water (RO or other) for there SA fish .

Please do your research on the species you want to keep as some are white water and others black water 
this will make a big difference in what the water should be kept at


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## shrtmann (Feb 15, 2009)

you had mentioned that alder cones will help drop the ph down... I do use distilled water but only about 5 gallons jug per water change and id say i take out about 10 - 15 gallons per WC. 
Ya i didnt want to use any chemicals like ph down or anything like that. I just want a way to lower it down consistently via Peat, wood or what have you.

Also if the tank when im done with it is not going to be a true BW tank. It is in my dining room so it has to be quite visually appealing but i do like the tea color look.. So on that note I was also told somewhere that plants help to remove hardness and/or of the water.


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## shrtmann (Feb 15, 2009)

apisto-nut said:


> to obtain the dark coloration of the water I use alder cones which you can find locally , they will stain the water quickly and also have anti fungal properties , that will help with the low PH that you will be keeping your fish at as low PH ( PH 4.5-6.5 ) can cause a few problems with water quality ( whole other story ) .
> 
> Dont use salt , it will effect water hardness


where do you find alder cones at? Craft sotre perhaps?!? do you still boil them?


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