bbryant573
New Member
The only fish store locally is Petco.
Almost cycled, ammonia won’t go down
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The only fish store locally is Petco.
My five cents worth, if you are going to use plants to cycle your tank, 30-50% of the volume of the tank needs to be in plant, one or two plants are not going to do anything. Fish can be added to a tank once the fast-growing plants are growing, that is usually 10-14 days after setting up the tank.
If they do tests (I would think they do), just make sure you get the numbers for any tests, and the unit of measurement. GH for example could be in dH, or ppm, and 10 ppm is very different from 10 dH.
bbryant573
New Member
Ok, last night we noticed that our one mollie died…. So both tanks are fishless.
I am fixing to order crushed coral and I am going to go ahead and order the test kit for GH and KH because we have more then one tank and besides they aren’t that much from Chewy.com, and plus I wouldn’t trust Petco anyway….
Besides the crushed coral what else do you think I will need…. What water conditioner do you recommend?
I am fixing to order crushed coral and I am going to go ahead and order the test kit for GH and KH because we have more then one tank and besides they aren’t that much from Chewy.com, and plus I wouldn’t trust Petco anyway….
Besides the crushed coral what else do you think I will need…. What water conditioner do you recommend?
You start with the water you have, so what are the parameters being GH, KH and pH of your tap water? Adjusting parameters is not as easy as it may seem, you are interfering with the natural chemistry of the source water, and this takes thinking through. I have raised the GH/pH in some tanks and not in others, depending upon my fish species.
bbryant573
New Member
I am not sure what you are saying, I have had this tank running since the end of June…. I am ready to drain the water out of it and start all over. I am not sure why or how the pH dropped so low…. I just want a cycled tank so I can enjoy seeing some fish in it.
I'll do my best to explain this. Water has a chemistry which is due to what it has come into contact with after it fell as rain/snow. Water is the most powerful solvent on earth, it has the ability to assimilate what it comes into contact with, such as rock and organics. The GH is how we measure the hardness/softness of water. It is primarily calcium and magnesium. The KH is carbonate hardness. I never worry much about this, once I know what it is. It has a capacity to keep the natural pH os the water stable. So these three factors, GH, KH and pH are stable in the source water. The GH and KH affgect the pH, so if you do want to change the pH you must know the GH and KH,
For example, if you have say moderately hard water, with a GH of something like 10 dH, and a KH also in that range, they will hold the pH where it is. If the aquarist adds this or that to change the pH, it usually gets nullified by the natural buffering in the water. So you change the GH and sometimes the KH, and the pH will re-adjust.
You have a pH of 6 I think you said. I would be fairly certain your GH and KH are low, creating soft water. You can adjust the pH and GH/KH but these impact fish. Water changes become more involved because you cannot change too much water that has different parameters, though the extent may not be much, depending upon the parameters as they are originally.
What fish do you intend keeping? If they are soft or very soft water--which happens to be the vast majority (all South American and SE Asian species, mostly)--you do not want to be raising the GH/KH/pH if it is suited to these fish. They will have difficulties in different parameter water from that for which nature made them.
So, what fish species? What is the GH and pH of the tap water? KH (Alkalinity) if you know it? These may be posted on the website of your water authority.
bbryant573
New Member
We are wanting to keep Oscars and cichlids…
Would it be better to drain the tank and start over with the cycle?
If you have not done anything to "cycle" such as adding ammonia, there is no reason to start over. The pH in an earlier post is given as 7.6 (glass of water sat overnight) so this is probably accurate. If it lowered to 6 in the aquarium, I would suspect a low GH/KH and the water authority may be adding something to raise the ph. Can you check their website and see what if anything is being added.
We (you) still need to know the GH and KH of the source water. Again, it may be on their website.
Oscars...one of your 55g will have this fish with no others, This is a bit cramped though, a 75g (4 feet length and 18 inches width) is recommended.
The other cichlids in the other 55g, what species?
bbryant573
New Member
Again I started this tank at the end of June, I have added Seachem Stability and used Prime as a water conditioner…. I added fish food because when I first started researching how to cycle a tank they all said live bacteria and ghost feed the tank fish food for the ammonia so that’s what I did…. And the water parameters says it has ammonia, but the nitrites and nitrates are within the cycled limit….
Nitrates are zero and the nitrates are low (don’t know the exact number since I have given up on this tank)
Here is the link to what I have found when searching for water reports for Ochelata, OK.
EWG's Tap Water Database: What's in Your Drinking Water?
Look up your local water system to find out which pollutants might be of concern, and find suggestions on the best kinds of home filters to remove those chemicals.
www.ewg.org
Maybe you can make sense of it or find what you are asking for.
Unfortunately that lists just contaminants.
In the UK, we need to enter our postcode to get details like hardness, does this page take you to the same info?
www.ewg.org
You need hardness, possibly called GH, and KH which will be called alkalinity.
(If you find it, nitrate won't be in the same unit that we use in fishkeeping, it will be a lot lower)
In the UK, we need to enter our postcode to get details like hardness, does this page take you to the same info?
EWG's Tap Water Database: What's in Your Drinking Water?
Look up your local water system to find out which pollutants might be of concern, and find suggestions on the best kinds of home filters to remove those chemicals.
www.ewg.org
You need hardness, possibly called GH, and KH which will be called alkalinity.
(If you find it, nitrate won't be in the same unit that we use in fishkeeping, it will be a lot lower)
bbryant573
New Member
I give up. I am draining the tank and starting over. I don’t know what I am looking for and I don’t have the time or the energy to mess with trying to find the dang report.
In that case, please do not acquire any fish. This is a scientific hobby, and the rules of chemistry and biology govern everything that occurs in the aquarium. Everything we do affects these natural processes, and the fish are affected positively or negatively , depending. Knowing the parameters of the source water is necessary in order to know which fish will or won't manage to live in that water.
There is nothing wrong in using fish food even though it is not the normal way. I don't know where the ammonia is coming from, and you haven't given the level from your tests. Nitrites at zero are good, and some nitrate is good though this may be in the source water which you should test for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate as a matter of course just to know. Water is life to fish, and what is in it matters a great deal.
bbryant573
New Member
This what it says for Oklahoma, I put in my zip code and it found nothing.
OK-Oklahoma:
Oklahoma water is classified as hard. The average water hardness with 125 zip codes in Oklahoma is about 150PPM. Water hardness data is collected for 5 cities from Oklahoma, 1 of the cities have very hard water, 4 of them have hard water.
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