Aquarium gravel in Goteborg's pet shops..

[dedee]

Hi all,
I am sorry I do not speak Swedish yet and I couldn't find a general thread in English on this forum.
I have recently moved to Goteborg and I bought a small fish tank to keep tropical fish. So far so good. I bought gravel (from the Tropik akvarienfisk) as well and when I got home with it whilst I was washing it I noticed small shells in it, so just in case I tested with vinaigre and of course it was calcareous as hell.
So I bought another larger bag from another pet shop (the one in Nordstan), made sure it didn't have shell pieces and looked perfectly normal, insisting that I want to keep tropical fish and it must not be calcareous. I didn't manage to explain it properly to the seller so I asked if those bags were the same as what they had in their tropical fish tanks, and she said yes. So now I got home with it and tested it and it is calcareous...
Then I thought maybe this is ok in Sweden? Is water here low pH and soft and it needs calcareous gravel?
To be honest I am a little tired of carying bags of gravel everyday, my arms are sore, so I need a little help. Please?

[oaken]

Hi

The tapwater in Göteborg has a pH (according to http://www.vatten.goteborg.se) of about 8.0 and a hardness around of 2,7-3,3 dH.
If you want non-calcareous gravel I suggest you buy a type called "Rådasand" (pronounce it "roda" or similar and they will know what you mean). It's very common in swedish pet stores.
Although I dont think you need a non-calcareous gravel unless you want to specialise in fish that really demand a low pH and soft water for their well being (most don't).

[Kjell Fohrman]

It´s OK if you publish your question in this category, but we also have an English category http://www.zoopet.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=146

To your question - in general pH is high in Gothenburg (appr. 8), but the water is extremely soft (KH - appr. 1) which mean that pH will drop very fast if you don´t use for example lime stones or gravel.
So I would say - if you don´t have extremely acid water demanding fishes it´s OK with the gravel you have bought.

[dedee]

Thank you... so I won't have to carry all this gravel all the way back to the petshops... yeyy! I actually didn't buy enough as I am cautious so I will keep this and get the rest as recommended by Oaken.
I have a bunch of cabombas which I just bought here and will have ludwigia, hydrocotyle, echinodorus tenellus, bacopa and valisneria which I will bring from home, so nothing very pretentious. Re fish I will bring my orange colisas and my swordtails so again nothing pretentious but it seems like some calcareous gravel will be required so thank you again you made my day.
If I will have any other questions will post on the English link.
Best,
D.

[Maria - Sjöjungfru]

And Welcome to Sweden, Gothenburg and Zoopet

[dedee]

Thank you :-) I was happy to find you.