Something Wrong With The Fins On My Fish....

[KittyKat]

Oh, I wasn't questioning you! I meant the product descriptions I've read

I think I might know what part of the problem is.. for the sake of an experiment, can you try increasing the feeding (very gradually) first to once a day and them to twice per day? Keep a very close eye on the readings, especially on ammonia and nitrite.

If you can get a timer, I would like to suggest aiming for no more then 12 hours of light.

Yes, you water is hard.. but personally, I think that in the long term that won't be a problem once everything settles in.. you know that RO water essentially does not contain anything at all? Which means it don't contain minerals and trace elements which the plants and fish need for their health, so you would need to mix those back in when doing water changes (for example by mixing RO water with tap water). It is up to you if you use it, but personally I prefer to leave it as a last resort.

And if for some reason don't want to do the experiment I suggested, do get some plant fertilizer.. be careful as some are known to not work with Vallis. sp. (read ‘make Vallis melt’).

I think your problem might possibly lie in low feeding: you need to constantly be providing enough ammonia to keep the filter going, as well as spare which will be converted into ammonium for the plants etc. Because of low feeding and high pH, there might only be enough for just the filter and the plants are essentially starving. Also the plants aren't helped by the long hours of light (this might be affecting the fish too) in combination with almost no food.

How are the fish doing?

 

[Gr44]

Ahhhh...

That makes sense, I'll try and rig up a timer for the light shortly; think I have some floating around the garage some place!

The fish are looking better, I'm still dosing with eSHa2000 for the minute but they seem more settled and the fins don't appear to be getting any worse.

I'm just a little worried about how much I should be feeding them... I don't want to feed them too much but I understand the reliance the plants have on the fish waste.

Any recomendations on plant ferts? I picked up 50L of RO water during my lunch break which I'm sure won't be wasted but I'll try to avoid using it for the moment.

Thanks for all your help Kitty Kat

ps;

Yup, I understand RO water is basically water and contains no 'goodness' but also no 'nasties' so would need to be mixed with tap water to provide what the plants & fish require. But it would help bring my pH and hardness down to more reasonable levels if mixed with my tap water.

As said above, I'll try to avoid using it unless I have to!

 

[KittyKat]

I don't use fertilizers myself, but have heard good things about the pellet type which requires little care (leave the pellet there till it falls apart), while many of the more serious plant growers seem to prefer liquid fertilisers, but those require regular dozing. Whatever you might wish to go for, start with the lowest doze you can and build up from that for good results If you are willing to wait, I will see a friend this week who uses fertilisers and knows a quite a bit about them if you're willing to wait.

As much as they can eat in 30-60 second once a day would definitely be not too much. You might find this surprising, but I think that snails are a good indicator of how you are doing on the feeding: most do not eat live plants, so their population is almost directly related to how much food is available for the fish: more leftover food = more snails and vice versa. Species such as Physa are completely harmless and will never breed out of control, while ramshorns respond much better to quantities fed - although can breed out of control very easily - and there are always the Malaysian trumpet snails who you would rarely see during the day unless they over bred due to the abundance of food (and would turn your substrate while they're at it). If you do get some plants from me and aren't scared of the "snail horror stories", I might be able to throw in a few different species for you to try out.