New Tank

[crimson2112]

I started a 20gal tank on jan 22 and have had high ph problems from day one(8.4ph). It's a planted aqu. with flourite gravel and a power filter. I'm using Nutrafin plant gro and Flourish excel organic carbon liquid. I've heard use bottled springwater, RO water, and or peat filtration media. I've changed the water with spring going on 3 times (5 gal. at a time) after tonight with little or no change that i can tell. I also have white stuff growing on the rubber stopper on the bottom of my heater and suction cups. I've cleaned them once but it came back in a couple of weeks. What is it and should I be concerned? I have 6 neon tetras in the tank now that have stayed alive together for several weeks. I want to add some corys next but now I'm afraid to with the white fungus or whatever that is growing on the heater. PLEASE HELP!!!! THX

 

[waterdrop]

Hi crimson2112 and Welcome to TFF!

It sounds like you're off to quite a good start with your plants: Flourite, nutrients and liquid carbon should all be helpful in a new tank that doesn't offer much to help keep plants alive should all help! Also, a 20g is a great beginner size, more water volume means more time to react to problems than many of the smaller tanks.

What type of testing kit do you have? Its pretty important to have a good liquid-reagent based testing kit. Many of us like and use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit. With one of these sorts of kit it would be good for you to post up all the stats for your tap water in addition to your tank water.

Since its been over a month since you set up your tank, its likely that its "cycled" by now. Have you ever heard or read about the cycling of the filter? Perhaps you went through one of the typical processes of either fishless cycling or fish-in cycling? The key articles on this topic (in order best read) are the Nitrogen Cycle, the Fishless Cycle and the Fish-In Cycling situation, all in our Beginners Resource Center.

Your choice of neon tetras may not have been ideal but its great that they are still alive. Neon/Cardinal tetras really do better when introduced after a tank is at least six months old. No one knows quite why this is and it seems to be regardless of when the the filter cycling was completed. Also, neons are the classic soft, acid amazonian fish, really wanting just the opposite type of water from what you are indicating. But we still need to check how that water was tested and test it some more.

The water techniques that have been mentioned to you (using spring, RO or peat filtering) are all not things normally recommended to beginners. They are rather radical decisions that are sometimes made by more advanced aquarists and carry significant risks. There is a fundamental problem with attempting to "move away from" the type of tap water that one is given. With a whole lot of work, one can move away but there will almost always come a day (usually when one needs to leave on vacation) when it will be extremely difficult to maintain that altered water correctly or there will be some accident and the tap water will not be the safe thing to move back to. Anyway, we should do a lot more talking about your potentially hard water and your soft-loving neons. Note that your plants, by contrast, will probably benefit from the minerals in the water.

Also, to put this in context, fish need most of all to have stability in mineral content and pH and what we're discussing does not mean your neons are necessarily in any immediate danger, so you can safely take time to work on these things. Actually from our standpoint of seeing you as a newcomer, the most urgent thing is double-checking that your filter is really cycled, with no traces of ammonia or nitrite(NO2) (determined by a good test) showing up. Otherwise, you may still be in a fish-in cycling situation, which would need our help.

And one more thing: What is the type and wattage of your light and how many hours are you leaving it on?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[crimson2112]

The test kit I'm using is a strip tester(quick dip) that tests for nitrate, nitrite, hardness, chlorine, alk, ph. I used the fish-in cycling technique and have not had any ammonia or nitrate, nitrite problems yet. I have a bio-wheel filter and the wheel appears to have plenty of bacteria growing on it. I was hoping to setup an amazonian style biotope but now I'm wondering if I might need to go in a different direction because of my tap water. my bulb is a fluorescent sun-glo 15 watt 6hrs on, 2 off, 6hrs on. Should I worry about the white stuff on the rubber stopper and suction cups attached to the heater? I have amazon sword and argentine sword plants. thx waterdrop!!

 

[waterdrop]

Sorry, forgot that question. No, you don't need to worry at all about the gray/white films you see on the suction cups or any other tank interior surfaces. Those are biofilms from bacteria and are completely harmless and will gradully go away. There's also nothng wrong with cleaning them with sponge and tap water when you take things out during a weekly gravel-clean-water-change or you can reach in with a sponge and clean them off in the tank and let the filter eventually suck up the pieces. Those biofilms happen in new tanks but eventually they are no longer part of the picture.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[crimson2112]

Sorry, forgot that question. No, you don't need to worry at all about the gray/white films you see on the suction cups or any other tank interior surfaces. Those are biofilms from bacteria and are completely harmless and will gradully go away. There's also nothng wrong with cleaning them with sponge and tap water when you take things out during a weekly gravel-clean-water-change or you can reach in with a sponge and clean them off in the tank and let the filter eventually suck up the pieces. Those biofilms happen in new tanks but eventually they are no longer part of the picture.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[crimson2112]

So does the lighting sound adequate to u? And any ideas on solving the high ph prob? I've dealt with several people at the local Petsmart and have not gotten very far. One lady said that we have high copper levels in the water around here but I have lost faith in what they tell me at that store to be honest. That's what brought me here LOL.. I've used ph down liq. as well as Seachem Neutral Regulator with no effect a couple wks back.

 

[waterdrop]

Your lighting, at .75 watts per gallon (of probably T8 lighting) may not be quite adequate for "low-light" technique, OR, it might just squeak by, depending on the species you attempt to raise. What is the exact diameter of your fluorescent bulb? (take it out and measure)

It is not yet clear that you -have- a pH problem, we have to cross that hurdle first.

It sounds like you may be "new to the hobby" although when we get newcomers its sometimes difficult to tell, so let us know if this is your first tank or what your situation is. That can sometimes help us understand the context of a water chemistry question.

First, you really will need a good liquid test kit to determine the baseline numbers of whether you have a pH problem. In fact, you may want to go the extra step and also obtain a GH/KH hardness test kit to really get more detail on this. Then you will need to post up results from all these kits for not only your tank water but also your tap water.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[crimson2112]

Your lighting, at .75 watts per gallon (of probably T8 lighting) may not be quite adequate for "low-light" technique, OR, it might just squeak by, depending on the species you attempt to raise. What is the exact diameter of your fluorescent bulb? (take it out and measure)

It is not yet clear that you -have- a pH problem, we have to cross that hurdle first.

It sounds like you may be "new to the hobby" although when we get newcomers its sometimes difficult to tell, so let us know if this is your first tank or what your situation is. That can sometimes help us understand the context of a water chemistry question.

First, you really will need a good liquid test kit to determine the baseline numbers of whether you have a pH problem. In fact, you may want to go the extra step and also obtain a GH/KH hardness test kit to really get more detail on this. Then you will need to post up results from all these kits for not only your tank water but also your tap water.

~~waterdrop~~

Yes, I am "new to the hobby" and this is my first tank. The bulb is a T-8, diameter 15/16", 18" long and 15wats. I have Amazon Sword and Argentine Sword plants.

 

[crimson2112]

So does the lighting sound adequate to u? And any ideas on solving the high ph prob? I've dealt with several people at the local Petsmart and have not gotten very far. One lady said that we have high copper levels in the water around here but I have lost faith in what they tell me at that store to be honest. That's what brought me here LOL.. I've used ph down liq. as well as Seachem Neutral Regulator with no effect a couple wks back.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, I would stay with the lighting you have and I would probably start with 6 hours of light a day. If after some months you do not have algae then I'd increase it to 8 hours if you want more growth. The 8 hours could be divided into two 4 hour exposures with a timer if you desire - this way you could enjoy a lighted tank mornig and evening but not be overexposing the tank. Again, algae would warn you off more hours of light whereas poor growth would be a strong indication that more hours of light would be better.

If the neons are doing ok then I think you don't have a pH problem and most of the experienced aquarists here would probably suggest that you not put chemicals like pH down or neutral regulator in your tank. The somewhat higher pH may indicate that you have a little more mineral content than average and a good many of your plant species may really do a bit better because of this. If you're curious you could look online for a Salifert copper test and see how that comes out, might be interesting!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

Don't forget that you need a minimum time of lights being on to get the plant to respond to the light. Short periods of light are treated by the plant the same way as a dark part of the lighting cycle. If you cut the lighting periods too short by breaking up the lighting too much, the plants will respond as if they were not getting any light. I would not let the time "on" be less than 4 hours and still treat it as the lights being on for the purpose of photosynthesis. A 6 hour initial period for a newly plated tank is considered a good time in terms of controlling algae but if you split that into two 3 hour periods, your plants would suffer from not enough light.

 

[waterdrop]

Completely agree. Below 8 hours (4 through 7 hours) there should only be a single photoperiod. Eight hours is the first point at which you can spit to 4 and 4 if you want morning and evening lighting.

~~waterdrop~~