Questions on Mollies
- Thread starter Kamdavid
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Yes angelfish are soft water species. If you harden the water, which I totally recommend, you will have to move the angelfish
API is usually the best that I have found for testing. And most products too!
As this is a 20 gallon tank, you need two bigger tanks, one with unaltered tap water for the angelfish and one with 'hardened' water for the mollies. 20 gallons is too small for both mollies and angelfish.
Do you mean aquarium salt? This will not harden water. It is just common salt, sodium chloride. To make water harder, you need calcium and magnesium salts such as are found in the products made for adding to tanks with Rift Lake cichlids.
Essjay picked up on this, but I would like to make sure you have the differences firm in your thinking. There is a ton of erroneous and misleading information in this hobby about "salt" and fish.
All minerals have "salts," and the mineral salts essential for hard water fish species are primarily the salts of calcium and magnesium. GH for aquarists measures these. Common salt which is the mineral sodium chloride is also sea salt and aquarium salt, but this salt has no effect on GH.
No freshwater fish should have common salt sodium chloride added to the tank water except when it is used to combat a disease or other problem. But never permanently; it has detrimental effects on the fish's physiology over time, some fish more than others, but still present.
What you read that mollies coould live without the salts was probably referring to sodium chloride, common salt. Mollies can survive well in brackish water, at least the wild fish can, but most authorities suggest that mollies (especially the tank-raised or outdoor pond raised fish available in stores) do not need this and are better without it. The GH (and pH) are the crucial issues.
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I found an API test kit, (Freshwater Master Test Kit) , but don't think it measures the GH?? Says it : Accurately monitors 5 most vital water parameters levels in freshwater aquariums: pH, high range pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate .
Any suggestions?
Any suggestions?
Is there a separate API GH test kit? Sorry I'm not familiar with the GH ones!
Yes there was. The master kit was 25. and the separate gh one was 9. I was hoping to find a kit that included it all. Anyone know of one? If not then Ill have to purchase it separately I guess.
The API GH tester comes in a pack with the KH tester so you get two testers for that price.
Yea so my best bet is to order the gh and kh test kit, along with the master test kit so I can test everything in the water on a regular basis.
You likely will not be testing GH, once you know the tap water GH. If you need to adjust parameters for some reason then a GH and possibly KH tyest is useful, but this is not as easy as it soounds (adjusting parameters). If you do like most of us and ascertain the GH (especially) of your source water, this is not going to alter much if at all in the aquarium (unless you target it, that's another story) so you just acquire fish suited to your water GH.
The API Master Combo is pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and these four are or can be/should be tested periodically, or frequently, at the first sign of trouble, etc.
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