German Blue Ram Compatibility

[RadaR]

Bogwood does not act as a buffer. It releases humic acids and tannins.
Water with high KH is highly buffered as already explained.

 

[JoshuaA]

My tap water is 7.5 pH but my tank water is 6.6. My GH is 6 and my KH is 3. throughout my fishless cycle my pH dropped but when I started my tank properly with fish, the bogwood slowly brought the pH down to a suitable pH for the bolivian rams I have.

Hi PDSimon,

So your bog wood has stabilized your water? Thats the burning question I need an answer to; do PH buffers such as bog wood keep the PH level constant whether the KH is very low or very high?

It won't really help when you do a water change and you shift the pH from what your bogwood has made it to somewhere between what the tap water is. Especially if you have to a very large one.

 

[PDSimon]

my stocking is currently light so whether more nitrates could cause the pH to crash I don't know...

Simply no

You think so? When fishless cycling all the nitrates cause the pH crashes. With water with very little buffering capacity could the pH not crash if it was stocked fully?

My tap water is 7.5 pH but my tank water is 6.6. My GH is 6 and my KH is 3. throughout my fishless cycle my pH dropped but when I started my tank properly with fish, the bogwood slowly brought the pH down to a suitable pH for the bolivian rams I have.

Hi PDSimon,

So your bog wood has stabilized your water? Thats the burning question I need an answer to; do PH buffers such as bog wood keep the PH level constant whether the KH is very low or very high?

KH is the buffering capacity right? Well, instead of messing around with this parameter I was hoping I could get a natural/artifical product which will have the same effect as a high KH level, that being to strongly buffer the PH through what it leeches into the water.

The bogwood hasn't stablised it at all, all the bogwood has done is bring down the pH. I think the tannins or whatever the bogwood releases are acidic. bogwood is not a pH buffer at all. I don't think it would affect the KH one bit... the thing about using bogwood is that its got to a point where it just won't go any lower, maybe it would over time, but I change 25% of the water every week and even when I do this change the water changes very little. I've been told these water changes shouldn't affect the fishes health anyway even though its 7.5 pH tap water going straight into the tank.

KH is buffering capacity yeh.. Problem is here though is that people are saying the GBRs prefer the lower pH. If you have a high KH the pH won't go down and won't optimise conditions for your fish.

Thats why I recommend bolivian rams, because you could try using bogwood with your current KH and see what happens..

 

[RadaR]

my stocking is currently light so whether more nitrates could cause the pH to crash I don't know...

Simply no

You think so? When fishless cycling all the nitrates cause the pH crashes.

Do you have a link I can look at?
Sorry for hi-jack here.

 

[JoshuaA]

my stocking is currently light so whether more nitrates could cause the pH to crash I don't know...

Simply no

You think so? When fishless cycling all the nitrates cause the pH crashes.

Do you have a link I can look at?
Sorry for hi-jack here.

Yeh here it is Evidence.

I can confirm my pH dropped with high nitrates on both tanks.

 

[RadaR]

my stocking is currently light so whether more nitrates could cause the pH to crash I don't know...

Simply no

You think so? When fishless cycling all the nitrates cause the pH crashes.

Do you have a link I can look at?
Sorry for hi-jack here.

Yeh here it is Evidence.

I can confirm my pH dropped with high nitrates on both tanks.

Where? It just brings up the "Your New Freshwater Tank" section. I mean somewhere with figures as such (a paper)?

 

[PDSimon]

Either nitrite or nitrate affects the pH throughout fishless cycles, thats why a lot of people have to add bicarbonate of soda to keep it at optimum levels for the bacteria. This is with dosing 3-5ppm of ammonia which produces a hell of a lot of nitrite and nitrate so the abundance causes the acidic base (or whatever they call it is..) to crash and stall the fishless cycle. It might be that once you add fish, no matter how much your stocking, even over stocking, its still not enough to even effect the pH. I was just curious because I don't actually know, all I know is that pH crashes in fishless cycles, and occasionally the pH crashes when people have fish but I don't anything about this, so I question it and hope other people help me and mark

I think josh knows more about the acidic stuff than me, it might even be that the nitrites cause the crash, not the nitrates, I have bad memory and obviously nitrites would be quickly cycled in this situation

 

[JoshuaA]

Where? It just brings up the "Your New Freshwater Tank" section. I mean somewhere with figures as such (a paper)?

It was suppose to, look at some of the cycle logs. Especially those with very soft water.

Both my cycles without Bicarb crashed horrifically if Nitrate was allowed to build up. Even without anything else in the tank. With 0 Ammonia and 0 Nitrite but with Nitrate way over 160 my pH had gone from my tap water of 7.6 to as low as 6.0. Tap water left out for a week in a bucket stayed stable at 7.4.

 

[mark4785]

my stocking is currently light so whether more nitrates could cause the pH to crash I don't know...

Simply no

You think so? When fishless cycling all the nitrates cause the pH crashes. With water with very little buffering capacity could the pH not crash if it was stocked fully?

My tap water is 7.5 pH but my tank water is 6.6. My GH is 6 and my KH is 3. throughout my fishless cycle my pH dropped but when I started my tank properly with fish, the bogwood slowly brought the pH down to a suitable pH for the bolivian rams I have.

Hi PDSimon,

So your bog wood has stabilized your water? Thats the burning question I need an answer to; do PH buffers such as bog wood keep the PH level constant whether the KH is very low or very high?

KH is the buffering capacity right? Well, instead of messing around with this parameter I was hoping I could get a natural/artifical product which will have the same effect as a high KH level, that being to strongly buffer the PH through what it leeches into the water.

The bogwood hasn't stablised it at all, all the bogwood has done is bring down the pH. I think the tannins or whatever the bogwood releases are acidic. bogwood is not a pH buffer at all. I don't think it would affect the KH one bit... the thing about using bogwood is that its got to a point where it just won't go any lower, maybe it would over time, but I change 25% of the water every week and even when I do this change the water changes very little. I've been told these water changes shouldn't affect the fishes health anyway even though its 7.5 pH tap water going straight into the tank.

KH is buffering capacity yeh.. Problem is here though is that people are saying the GBRs prefer the lower pH. If you have a high KH the pH won't go down and won't optimise conditions for your fish.

Thats why I recommend bolivian rams, because you could try using bogwood with your current KH and see what happens..

Well, I was going to install this item (peat) into the filter as I haven't taken a liking to bog wood.

Would you advise trying to maintain the tank with bolivian rams to begin with to see how easy it is to maintain the water parameters at desirable levels, and then go about adding GBR's at a later stage? I go on holiday to the Isle of Jersey in August and I won't feel that good leaving an aquarium full of sensitive fish for a family member to look after.

At present there is traces of bicarbonate of soda and pure ammonia in the tank. Would you advise doing a thorough gravel clean and another 90% water change to get rid of these chemicals before stocking?

Speaking of stocking, should I stock the aquarium at 25% of it's maximum capacity so as to not add to the bioload?

 

[PDSimon]

The high levels of toxins would never happen in our tanks with fish in I guess, I've just never looked into why tanks with fish in sometimes crash. I guess it has something to do with adding too much water with with no/little buffering capcity.

my stocking is currently light so whether more nitrates could cause the pH to crash I don't know...

Simply no

You think so? When fishless cycling all the nitrates cause the pH crashes. With water with very little buffering capacity could the pH not crash if it was stocked fully?

My tap water is 7.5 pH but my tank water is 6.6. My GH is 6 and my KH is 3. throughout my fishless cycle my pH dropped but when I started my tank properly with fish, the bogwood slowly brought the pH down to a suitable pH for the bolivian rams I have.

Hi PDSimon,

So your bog wood has stabilized your water? Thats the burning question I need an answer to; do PH buffers such as bog wood keep the PH level constant whether the KH is very low or very high?

KH is the buffering capacity right? Well, instead of messing around with this parameter I was hoping I could get a natural/artifical product which will have the same effect as a high KH level, that being to strongly buffer the PH through what it leeches into the water.

The bogwood hasn't stablised it at all, all the bogwood has done is bring down the pH. I think the tannins or whatever the bogwood releases are acidic. bogwood is not a pH buffer at all. I don't think it would affect the KH one bit... the thing about using bogwood is that its got to a point where it just won't go any lower, maybe it would over time, but I change 25% of the water every week and even when I do this change the water changes very little. I've been told these water changes shouldn't affect the fishes health anyway even though its 7.5 pH tap water going straight into the tank.

KH is buffering capacity yeh.. Problem is here though is that people are saying the GBRs prefer the lower pH. If you have a high KH the pH won't go down and won't optimise conditions for your fish.

Thats why I recommend bolivian rams, because you could try using bogwood with your current KH and see what happens..

Well, I was going to install this item (peat) into the filter as I haven't taken a liking to bog wood.

Would you advise trying to maintain the tank with bolivian rams to begin with to see how easy it is to maintain the water parameters at desirable levels, and then go about adding GBR's at a later stage? I go on holiday to the Isle of Jersey in August and I won't feel that good leaving an aquarium full of sensitive fish for a family member to look after.

At present there is traces of bicarbonate of soda and pure ammonia in the tank. Would you advise doing a thorough gravel clean and another 90% water change to get rid of these chemicals before stocking?

Speaking of stocking, should I stock the aquarium at 25% of it's maximum capacity so as to not add to the bioload?

I'm not too sure about the peat stuff, I was advised against it as it isn't really a beginner thing nor is it all that stable apparently.

The problem there is that bolivian rams and german blue rams like their own space and I can't remember how big your tank is so this territorial nature of theirs needs to be considered when stocking with other fish too. Complicated huh!

100% change before you add fish, i'll explain a bit more in your log

 

[JoshuaA]

If you've done a fish-less cycle it is recommended to do 100% water change and deep gravel cleaning. The water will have sky high Nitrates and bicarb build ups. A good idea is to give the filter casing a quick rinse to remove any dried on carb too.

Don't really want to put fish in when there's bicarb present.

 

[mark4785]

Either nitrite or nitrate affects the pH throughout fishless cycles, thats why a lot of people have to add bicarbonate of soda to keep it at optimum levels for the bacteria. This is with dosing 3-5ppm of ammonia which produces a hell of a lot of nitrite and nitrate so the abundance causes the acidic base (or whatever they call it is..) to crash and stall the fishless cycle. It might be that once you add fish, no matter how much your stocking, even over stocking, its still not enough to even effect the pH. I was just curious because I don't actually know, all I know is that pH crashes in fishless cycles, and occasionally the pH crashes when people have fish but I don't anything about this, so I question it and hope other people help me and mark

I think josh knows more about the acidic stuff than me, it might even be that the nitrites cause the crash, not the nitrates, I have bad memory and obviously nitrites would be quickly cycled in this situation

I really hope the PH doesn't crash when I begin stocking. The fish I've chosen prefer a low KH and PH so I guess the key to avoiding a crash is little feeding and possibly plants/nitrate remover products.

I've learned through this forum that when ammonia is produced the water becomes more alkaline (so I guess the key is to limit feeding in order to avoid lots of decomposition, and very frequent gravel cleans to avoid any decomposing material so that the ammonia doesn't climb to high).

I've learned that nitrite and nitrate induce acidic water. From experience, only a 100% water change will remove nitrite and nitrate. I did a 90% water change yesterday and my 160 ppm of nitrate dropped from 160ppm to 80ppm. So if I was to get GBR's I'd need some plants to absorb the nitrate to stop it from influencing/inducing a PH swing.

 

[RadaR]

Where? It just brings up the "Your New Freshwater Tank" section. I mean somewhere with figures as such (a paper)?

It was suppose to, look at some of the cycle logs. Especially those with very soft water.

Both my cycles without Bicarb crashed horrifically if Nitrate was allowed to build up. Even without anything else in the tank. With 0 Ammonia and 0 Nitrite but with Nitrate way over 160 my pH had gone from my tap water of 7.6 to as low as 6.0. Tap water left out for a week in a bucket stayed stable at 7.4.

That's not proving that it's the nitrates.. That's just saying that overtime if the tank doesn't get a water change or refreshed then the pH crashes.The tank doesn't get a water change because you're trying to cycle the tank. Inevitablly the nitrates are going to build up as will metabollic wastes and organic wastes from the bacteria. When the pH crashes, people test their water and oh look nitrate is high, it must be causing the crash....false associations. It's the same thing people accusing nitrates of killing thier fish. Some heavily stocked tanks woudnt get enough water changes and fish would start to die off. Someone tests the water and finds that the nitrates are high therefore assume it's the nitrates that are causing the deaths. When infact what else have they tested for? Just assumed its the nitrates and made it "fact".

 

[PDSimon]

I would not worry about any pH crash

nitrates have a tendancy to attach to the substrate or hang around you might say, at the bottom, apparently! Thats why WD always says to do a gravel clean...

you'll need quite a lot of plants to absorb enough nitrate, more RadaRs area you just might need to do more frequent waterchanges like josh said rather than rely on plants. You've got to experiment a little to see what works. Like Radar was saying if you used RO water it could be used in the waterchanges to keep the nitrate low and keep the pH the same


and radar, its not just an assumption it's just what we've been told, it's just we are still newbies and we rely on more experienced members such as oldman47 and waterdrop to give us information. If you're curious about the subject I would PM one of them. As you said fully stocking probably wouldn't do anything I was just curious if it would ever effect pH.

 

[JoshuaA]

The key is water changes to reduce nitrate, if it dropped only from 160 to 80 I would hate to imagine what your nitrate actually was lol. Of course the test kits aren't too fantastic! If you were to add a GBR you're thinking of aiming to keep the Nitrates as low as possible ~20ish ppm for nitrates up to a maximum of 40-50. There are a lot of different opinions on this but the lower the better.