scouse_andy
Fishaholic
I'm after a bit of advice.
Like much of the UK, I live in a hard water area, I know this because my kettle furs up and needs replacing every year or two!
The pH of my tank is constantly at 7.8 despite having a few bits of bogwood in there, I recently invested in a water hardness testing kit and discovered that my gH is around 280 ppm (16 dKH) - this seems ridiculously high but I have retested and followed the instructions carefully. My kH is 196 ppm (11dKH). Do other people have these kind of readings because they do strike me as very very high!
According to the instructions on my API kit this is well above what most tropical fish are suited to.
I've been keeping my fish for about 4 months now, with a fair amount of success, my danio bred in the water and I now have plenty of juveniles, I have honey gourami with a lovely colour and I read that they can be quite picky about water conditions. However, the black phantom tetras I have are now looking a bit washed out, especially the males with faint black on the fins rather than a bold black.
I am not wanting to artificially alter the pH and think it would probably be quite hard to do so with the general hardness of my water anyway.
Is this water totally unsuitable for tetras who prefer a more acidic water? Does anybody else manage to successfully keep tetras in similarly hard water?
If I'm stocking the wrong kind of fish then could somebody please give me some suggestions of more suitable stocking. I was thinking of keeping the big school of danio I have (20 plus) to occupy the top regions and then thought about some Boesemani rainbowfish for the middle with maybe some dwarf neon rainbowfish (if they will tolerate that kind of hardness). Then for the bottom some corydoras, along with the cherry barbs I already have and maybe some checkered barbs, which I think get all over the tank.
I was also quite keen to keep some kind of dwarf cichlid - shelldwelling multifasciatus in a harem (I know they are often kept in species tanks, but I have seen the tank of somebody on here who has a breeding colony of multis in one corner of her community tank) OR maybe a pair of bolivian rams (pH maybe slightly too high) OR a pair of kribensis OR a harem of apistos.
If anybody can give me some advice I'd be most grateful. I'd really like to know if my readings are similar to other fishkeepers in the UK and also if people think the high pH is likely to be the cause of my washed out black phantoms.
I have three tanks (25 litre PFK cube, 80 litre lightly planted and 240 litre heavily planted) so I'd be really grateful if you could point me in the direction of lots of peaceful community fish which would be suitable for various tank sizes and I'll do some reading up. Was thinking of some pygmy corys and bororas brigittae for the nano but can't find out much info on their requirements.
Loads of questions I know, but any help very welcomed.
p.s. At least I know that when I move onto Mbuna cichlids in a couple of years (my long term goal) I'll have the right parameters!
Andy.
Like much of the UK, I live in a hard water area, I know this because my kettle furs up and needs replacing every year or two!
The pH of my tank is constantly at 7.8 despite having a few bits of bogwood in there, I recently invested in a water hardness testing kit and discovered that my gH is around 280 ppm (16 dKH) - this seems ridiculously high but I have retested and followed the instructions carefully. My kH is 196 ppm (11dKH). Do other people have these kind of readings because they do strike me as very very high!
According to the instructions on my API kit this is well above what most tropical fish are suited to.
I've been keeping my fish for about 4 months now, with a fair amount of success, my danio bred in the water and I now have plenty of juveniles, I have honey gourami with a lovely colour and I read that they can be quite picky about water conditions. However, the black phantom tetras I have are now looking a bit washed out, especially the males with faint black on the fins rather than a bold black.
I am not wanting to artificially alter the pH and think it would probably be quite hard to do so with the general hardness of my water anyway.
Is this water totally unsuitable for tetras who prefer a more acidic water? Does anybody else manage to successfully keep tetras in similarly hard water?
If I'm stocking the wrong kind of fish then could somebody please give me some suggestions of more suitable stocking. I was thinking of keeping the big school of danio I have (20 plus) to occupy the top regions and then thought about some Boesemani rainbowfish for the middle with maybe some dwarf neon rainbowfish (if they will tolerate that kind of hardness). Then for the bottom some corydoras, along with the cherry barbs I already have and maybe some checkered barbs, which I think get all over the tank.
I was also quite keen to keep some kind of dwarf cichlid - shelldwelling multifasciatus in a harem (I know they are often kept in species tanks, but I have seen the tank of somebody on here who has a breeding colony of multis in one corner of her community tank) OR maybe a pair of bolivian rams (pH maybe slightly too high) OR a pair of kribensis OR a harem of apistos.
If anybody can give me some advice I'd be most grateful. I'd really like to know if my readings are similar to other fishkeepers in the UK and also if people think the high pH is likely to be the cause of my washed out black phantoms.
I have three tanks (25 litre PFK cube, 80 litre lightly planted and 240 litre heavily planted) so I'd be really grateful if you could point me in the direction of lots of peaceful community fish which would be suitable for various tank sizes and I'll do some reading up. Was thinking of some pygmy corys and bororas brigittae for the nano but can't find out much info on their requirements.
Loads of questions I know, but any help very welcomed.
p.s. At least I know that when I move onto Mbuna cichlids in a couple of years (my long term goal) I'll have the right parameters!
Andy.
