RO Water and Seachem Equilibrium for planted tank?

So I had to separate out a few guppies from my 55 gallon tank that were being bullied. Anyway I want to start up a new 5 gallon aquarium for them. I am also setting up a 10 gallon aquarium for plants mainly. I will probably stick with eco complete for the substrate and throw in driftwood and a couple plants into the 5 gallon. I recently started using RO water for my 55 gallon and want to start these tanks with it. I saw Seachem Equilibrium for planted tanks and was wondering what people thought about using this and RO water for new aquariums. Seachem replenish.which seams very similar. Will wither of these give me both the necesary GH and KH or should I add some de-chlorinated tap water as well?

Thanks

 

5 gallon is too small for guppies.

 

Hello, welcome to fishlore

Mixing tap water and RO water can be a good combination because if your tap water is high in minerals and low in mitrates then you won't have to add anything
Why are you switching to RO?

Do you know the parameters of your tap water?
As in GH (general hardness), KH (Alkalkinity), Nitrates, ammonia and nitrites and PH?
If not, important to find this out. If your tap levels look good then just mix the two if not the methods below will help.

I have switched to RO water due to nigh nitrates in my tap. I use replenish and have a lot of plants myself which do fine with it. I like replenish because it is pre-mixed. Some people use equilibrium but it made a mess of my tank. Maybe I did something wrong idk. Both of these products will only raise GH.

The best additive to get your KH up is to add in Seachem Alkaline buffer. This will raise your KH to desired levels to keep your PH steady. Depending on your "natural" ph you may also need Seachems acid buffer. Alkaline buffer will put your ph around 7.8-8.2 so if your "natural" tap ph is 7.0 then you would mix in a little acid buffer. They give the ratio on the bottle.

Your other choice is to add in crushed coral, limestone or aragonite which will raise both GH and KH but slowly. Unless you buffer your water changes using alkaline buffer you'd probably not want to change out more than about 30% of your water at a time.

 

The thing is I wasn't expecting to have to separate the guppies so I searched craigslist for affordable ones and can get a complete 5 gallon set up and there is also an incomplete 10 gallon set up that I am going to start getting the stuff for. At the moment the guppies are in a medium breeding box. I'll put them from the 5 to the 10 gallon when I can. Thanks Dom90.

And I do not know the tap water parameters yet. I will test it when I get home but I started using RO water because when I set up the 55 gallon the after a while the nitrates where really high and the GH was 23 dGH.

Thanks a lot for the advise I will probably try the buffers with replenish. Are there any adverse side effects to using these chemicals?

 

Not that I know of and I've been using replenish for years. Only recently started using the buffers.

If your tap water has 0 nitrates I'd mix the two, that would be the easiest solution imho.

 

Alright, I have no ammonia or nitrates or nitrites in the tap so I have been doing half and half with RO and I'm liking it!
Thank everyone