Lime stone and water hardness.

[noneofmany]

Ok. So.

I'm moving on with my aquarium project for C. e. popei and have allot of what I need down. But now that I'm actually getting the tank started I have a hang up about water hardness.

I bought some aquarium tabs (the ones that dissolve into the water over time) but I also got some little blocks that are supposed to put some trace elements in too.

Since I can't figure out what elements there talking about or what exactly the tabs them selves are made of I shied away from actually putting them in.

Now I'm thinking of putting in some porous lime stone as a structure for the Anubias, and I realized that that's going to increase the hardness of the water all by itself.

The lime stone blocks I was looking at are fairly large so the volume of leeched minerals should be fairly significant. Probably enough to want to avoid adding additional hardening agents.

So, I was wondering if anyone has experience or knowledge of what limestone does in an aquarium. How much is enough in a 40gal (or 75gal)? how much is to much? Should I be worried about other things it may come with like salt or chemicals? If I use it should I avoid using more hardening agents? Will it affect PH?

 

[Jennewt]

I routinely keep pieces of limestone in many of my tanks. I have never tried keeping any large amounts of limestone in any single tank. However, it is my understanding that limestone dissolves/leaches VERY slowly - so slowly that it is unlikely to have any significant impact on tank chemistry, assuming that you have typical water and are doing regular partial water changes.

 

[noneofmany]

I routinely keep pieces of limestone in many of my tanks. I have never tried keeping any large amounts of limestone in any single tank. However, it is my understanding that limestone dissolves/leaches VERY slowly - so slowly that it is unlikely to have any significant impact on tank chemistry, assuming that you have typical water and are doing regular partial water changes.

Yeah, I sort of forgot about water changes. I guess that pretty much reverse most of the effect of leeched substances very quickly, especially given how soft western Washington's water is.

I'm still nervous about starting the tank though since all the info I could gather about starting the biological filter and plant establishment were for fish or no animal tanks and therefore involved allot of dosing with iron and fertilizers etc. I also still see vague warnings about calcium carbonate, egg shells and what not which I have no clue about whether or though those are in the supliments I got.

I guess the my course of action now will be to go ahead and plant the tank with the undergravel soil method and use a bare minimum of or initial enrichment agents, and then wait for the plants to grow a little and soak it up. If that gets the plants and bacteria going then hopefully the I won't need to add more stuff with the newts and minnows plus soil in the tank.