Hi All!

[richie_bhoy1983]

hi guys an gals
i've got a fluval roma 90 tank that was a present for my 4 year old daughters b/day. we were going to put red claw crabs in it but the local pet shop had none in stock with no knowledge of when they would so we got wee fishes instead! i actually got into having the fish and i like the wee guys now but i will admit i'm still a novice a this hobby so i hope you can help me out to keep them all happy and healthy.

currently we have: 1 red tailed black shark, 6 neon tetras (our oldest and bestest wee fish!!) 3 x-ray tetra, 5 albino corydoras and 6 otocinclus. we also have a piece of driftwood with a plant on which we had shrimp living in but they all died
we use a fluval 2plus filter and add cycle and stress coat every water change. i feed em once a day using 1 pleco wafer, some flake and a small bunch of crab cuisine pellets that the corys just love! lol.

we're having problems just now, the tank is about 4 months old now and the ph keeps droping to 6 and below. ammonia always seems to creep up also to around 2-4ppm. i believe these water conditions are why the shrimp all keep dying?? i had a cory whos tail fin defo look liked it was rotting so i put him in a small tank we used to have the neons in on his own and treated him with anti fin rot meds. he lasted a few days but died all the fish in the big tank seem to be acting as normal but theres obv something not right if the ph and ammonia keep going off the chart.

i change 10 litres twice a week and always add api tap water conditioner.

substrate is 3/4 sand 1/4 gravel.

water is currently cloudy and has been for about a week. i'll try and get some pics if the water can get cleard up.

so please...any help, hints, tips, pointers please??

richard

 

[drobbyb]

What's happening is when the pH drops that low, the bacteria that use ammonia and nitrite stop processing at such a low pH resulting in an ammonia spike. May I ask how often you are doing water changes and if you are testing the water?

 

[aly_starh]

i change 10 litres twice a week and always add api tap water conditioner.

 

[drobbyb]

Oh lol...I missed that one. I must need glasses!

That's only 10% if that tank is 90 liters. Nitrates are acidic in nature, and the buildup that comes with changing so little water is bound to happen. In your case, I think you just need to do larger waterchanges.

 

[waterdrop]

Agree. You have a double reason to do larger water changes: Not only are they needed to address the lack of performance of the biofilter to remove ammonia and possibly nitrite but its pretty evident you probably have a lack of the minerals that would raise your KH enough to maintain a higher pH. Doing larger water changes may easily be enough to reverse this situation.

I'd double the amount of water being changed the next couple times such that you quickly work up to about a 50% water change occuring with your weekly gravel-clean-water-change. You need to work on cleaning the gravel deeply and thoroughly. Technically you are in what we call a Fish-In cycling situation. There's an article to address this in our beginners resource center. Since you've had the tank running 4 months, it may be that with an initial higher frequency of water changes (You might start with several daily changes to get that ammonia down..) and a filter clean (are you squeezing your sponges in tank water and not tap water?) things might look up quickly.

We also might query the members about whether the Fluval 2Plus should be enough filter for the 90L tank. Hopefully that's a good enough match. Do you have a good liquid-reagent based test kit?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[richie_bhoy1983]

thanks for your help again guys.

been doing more reg and larger water changes. ph is coming up (6.4 just now) and ammonia is now down to 0.25ppm already

took advice from a fish loving friend and i will be using tetra aquasafe and safe start for water changes. changing 20liters every 2 days and putting the safe start in on the in between day. i'll do this for the rest of the week and see how it is at the weekend.
i've also removed my bogwood till the ph picks up. whats your views on this please???

water is looking better already and the corys seem to be more active cept one i'll add it on another topic.

waterdrop- i'm using the API liquid test kits for ammonia and ph and i use the tetra 6in1 strips for nitrate, nitrite, chlorine, carbonate and gen hardness. i clean the filter sponge in the bucket of removed water.

the 2plus was the one fluval recomend cause it came with the tank. does anyone disagree and think maybe a bigger one would be best??

thanks again guys

richie

 

[discus_lover]

about ph level you just read this article from my blog...
http/discusfishcaresecrets.blogspot.com/...r-aquarium.html

 

[drobbyb]

Taking out the bogwood is fine. Bogwood can actually lower your pH over time. The fluval 2 plus is just adequate for your tank, but a larger one would be a good thing. If you decide to get a bigger one, run it next to your old one for about 6 weeks. After 6 weeks the nitrifying bacteria will have had time to colonize the new filter.

discus_lover, your blog has some good information, but some of it isn't accurate and the bit about crushed coral needs more explanation in the how and why and the maintenance of the media. I'm currently working on something that may help you fill out your blog a little better once I have it finished.