Advice Needed

[Hacker.neo]

hi i'm fairly new to fish keeping and have a few questions that i would like some advice on
My Tank is a 200l/ 45g planted with bog wood and mopani wood with mixed community inc 2 small angels a 4" Plec and 3 denisoni barbs.

1.Firstly i would like to know what people recommend to put in the baskets on an external cannister filter. It's a fluval 205 with 3-4 baskets and currently i have filter media in 2 (the large rolls ) and a polishing pad in top one plus the usual sponge filters next to them. I was using carbon and Phosban to get rid of algae and Diatoms but it didn't work and i noticed my plants suffering so i removed both and put polishing pad in to shine the water. I was thinking about using bio chem ( not sure i've got the name right) or nitrazorb but at the mo my amonia/ nitrite and nitrate are all 0.

2. I use RO only water for water changes which i currently do twice a week and at a frequency of 10- 15% each change. I put Kents RO right into the water and let it airate overnight before adding to tank. Recently my Neons have been headstanding for a few hours after water changes but then go back to normal. I deduced that i'm either bringing down the PH too quickly (roughly 0.2 a week) or that the Kent stuff isn't that great. I've just got some Electrolyte additive to add to water. So my second question is am i doing anything wrong here or does anyone do things that would be better they could tell me about.

3.Stocking levels. I've worked out both ways to calculate this by the surface area and per inch of fish and both say i'm ok but the fish tend to chase each other about a lot and the neons have been headstanding recently. whats a good guide for fish stocking levels in a heavily planted 45g tank and what are good ways to reduce stress in the tank without adding salt ( i ahve a plec and i've heard they can't tolerate salt).

I would be very grateful if anyone can lend me some advice on my queries.

 

[rabbut]

OK, why are you using RO? In most cases it isn't needed, but there are a few special cases... In most peoples case, it is safer, cheaper and easier to just use dechlorinated tap water. The only time when this is a problem, is if the source tap water is poor. If this is the case with you, exactly what is wrong with it?

The Kent RO stuff is OK, but to use it properly can be a bit fidely. When remineralising RO for water changes, after allowing the poweder to disolve, you need to test pH, GH, and KH. If they are not all the same as the tank, you will need to add either other powders to bring them up a bit, or more RO to push them back down. Getting these levels right is very fiddely and is why few of us on here use RO for waterchanges.

With four filter baskets, at least two would be full of biological media, such as biomax, if it were mine, with one full of ceramic rings for mechanical filtration and a floss pad for polishing.

Ok, on to stocking;

- 2 Angels; Unless these are a proven pair, they may beat eachother up further down the line. Suseptible to fin nipping and a fin nipper themselves. Need at least 18 inches of water colum height. Watch how they go for now and any fighting should make you remove one. Grow to 8 inches long, upto a foot high.

- 5 Rummy Nose; Good group size and easy community fish. Grow to 2 inches

- 3 Head & Tail light; need at least another two in their group IMO to be comfrotable. Grow to two inches

- 2 Scisor Tail; Need a group of 5+ again, so you need a few more. A jumpy fish that need a tight fitting lids. Grow to 4 inches

- 2 Golden Loaches; If it's the one on the wood in your signature pic, these will need to be removed. They grow to 8 inches. They may be doing a good job of cleaning the tank now, but once they hit 6 inches, they will clean it out

- 2 Neons; need a larger group realy of 5+ Grow to about 1.5 inches

1 Ever Growing Plec; What type? can get anywhere from 4 inches to 4 foot depending on species. Suspect this one will be a medium one arround 18-24 inches though.... Still too big for a 45g tank, and they are a menice to decor and aquascapes IME...

Keep the water and stocking good, and the tank will run itself without issue. Stocking and water may need attention though....

Once the golden loach are removed, and the tetra and scissor tail groups are brought up-to recomended numbers, you will have 53.5 inches of adult length fish, excluding the plec. The stocking will be fine at that, other than the plec that may or may not be OK...

HTH
Rabbut

 

[Hacker.neo]

Hi my fish list is out of date the stock now is
5 rummy nose
6 neon tetra
2 scissor tail which i may move to another tank
3 denisoni barbs
2 Angels
2 golden loaches
a 4" plec
1 dwarf gourami

I've been using RO water to soften the tank water as my tap water hardness is off the scale. Both GH and KH are too high to measure in the tap so i'm using RO to bring down GH KH and PH so adding a source of water that is the same will hinder this.

If you do that in your filter baskets do you then add anything to water directly. I've been adding Easy Balance by Tetra Aqua as well as plant fert.

Thanks for your advice rabbut. does anyone else have any pearls of wisdom. I like to get a broad range of opinions.

 

[OldMan47]

I also have very hard water and for one of my tanks I put in RO water but I don't use the Kents. I did that at first and it was a pain trying to get everything right. What I do now is mix a blend of my too hard tap water with the RO to get the same proportion every time. If it is always 2 tap to 1 RO then it only varies as much as the tap water would vary anyway. In my case, my south americans get about what they need with a 50 / 50 mix but each person's tap water is different and the mix will also be different. One of the advantages of a tap water mix is that the chemical composition of tap water is much more complex than the simple salts you get in the Kents and it tends to be stable once you get it into the tank.
You could do a trial of different blends in a bucket until you get one with a reasonable hardness and pH, then use those proportions each time you do a water change. It is a lot more accurate than measuring out the RO Right and will give good results if you never fail to make the same mixture.

 

[rabbut]

With RO mixed with kent mineral retopic, the dechlorinated tap water and other conditioners won't be needed. If you mix your RO with tap, like Oldman, you will want to add enough water condioner to treat the tap water On a side not, with a realy hard water source your RO membranes will clog very quickly, so if you have your own unit, I'd be prepaired to change the filters far more often than surgested. If you use a shops RO supply, always check their TDS befrore use, as shops will replace the filters only once flow reduces, not once TDS gets into the use water as they should be. Refuse to buy the water if the TDS is up and get some from elsewhere.

I'm still iffy about the plec and golden loaches mind. You don't mention species.... The plec may be 4" now, but do you know if s/he will stay like that? The gloden loach in your signature pic looks like a Chinese Algea Eater or SAE, a tank buster and IMO non-communal fish....

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Hacker.neo]

The plec is a common i believe (he's grown about an inch and a half in 6 weeks) and the golden loaches were bought from my lfs that had one in a community tank.one has doubled in size since i got them a month ago and it now chases the small one around the tank. I forgot to mention i have a Bala shark too so if all these fish do well i'll need to get a bigger tank anyway i've seen that the torpedo barbs get big too.
I used RO water with electrolyte additive today and the neons accepted it without all the headstanding business. I think once i bring the tank's hardness down i'll keep it stable with a mix of RO and tap but as i've said before i'm trying to soften the water so it's at an acceptable level for adding discus in the future.

 

[rabbut]

For discus, you will need a new tank all together. They require a 55g minimum and four of your current fish won't mix with them. Also, you will need space for a minimum of five discus, or a pair, as groups are essential to keep agression down in a group of discus fish that have not yet paired. For the moment, water hardness with discus a planned adition, should be the least of your worries...

Discus are widely considered a hard fish to keep. I feel this is untrue, as the people whom consider them so have often failed to research them properly first and blame the fish for their mistake, or have "learnt" that discus are hard through one such person. Start researching now if you want discus, or you may become another statistic in the category of "failed with discus due to lack of research" Though not difficult as such, they are an "advanced and experienced keeper required" species.

All the best
Rabbut