Various Questions And Progress (Hopefully) For My First Tank

[kaivalagi]

1 mg/L is too high for the fish to be healthy for long.

Daily it is then

Currently 0.25 well after a water change earlier today...

Just looking at plants planted with peat bags using nylon tights, helps reduce ph a little I guess and help the plants to grow....Has anyone used this method before? My PH is fairly high at almost 8, I'd like to get it as low as 7-7.5 if I can. I already have some sumatra driftwood in my tank which I thought would help (maybe it has but the water here is so bloody hard)

 

[kaivalagi]

Just updated my avatar for the forum, bigger shot here:



I think I was kinda lucky with the shot

Not sure what my male Firemouth was thinking!

 

[OldMan47]

Nice picture there. The wood and peat will help reduce pH, but if you have high mineral content water it won't change it much.

 

[kaivalagi]

Nice picture there. The wood and peat will help reduce pH, but if you have high mineral content water it won't change it much.

So if the pH didn't reduce as much as I wanted what would I be left with as options to get it down further? I'd sooner keep away from chemical water treatments where possible and stick to environmental conditioning if I can.

I live in East Anglia, UK, specifically Norwich, where the water is quite hard, so yes I have high mineral content in my water. When last tested I think Gh was at 18 which is well up that end of the scale. Are there any good web sites that help explain the science/behaviour behind aquarium chemistry? i.e. how pH changes with hardness, what CO2 affects when adjusted, will it lower pH when increased etc etc. I have a vague idea but could do with example scenarios to get a full picture of how it all binds together.

I'm off searching for good background reading for now...any book recommendations to cover this level of detail in fish keeping? I currently own zero books as I have learnt most through reading on sites like these and badgering you guys with lots of questions [font="arial] [/font]

[size="3"]Does this site have any section where useful site links can be accumulated for all to use, kinda like a mini library index on all useful fishy things on the web...i.e. aqadvisor, species wiki sites, interesting articles on specific topics etc. Edit: Found the scientific section, which gets partially there for me.[/size]

 

[OldMan47]

As a practical matter, the only easy way to control pH is to remove some of the KH in the water. The carbonate hardness is an indication of how hard it will be to reduce the pH. My water has a GH and a KH around 12 degrees. My pH, which is an unrelated value, is at 7.8 from the tap. If you add enough CO2 to bring your water to around 30 ppm, you will drive down pH about one whole unit and the change will be meaningless. My pH in my high tech planted tank runs close to 7.0 when the CO2 is turned on and the fish ignore the change completely. They thrive in the water as if it was still at around 7.8.

The pH of your water depends on the form that minerals in your water takes. If it has salts and not much else, the tendency will be toward a neutral pH no matter how hard the water may be. If it contains metal hydroxides like sodium or calcium it will form bases and move the pH higher. If it contains non-metal oxides like sulphates and nitrates it can form acids and drive the pH lower. A balance of metal and non-metal oxides can neutralize each other and give a nice 7.0 pH. All of these combinations can be very high or very low in mineral content, it is the specific minerals that determines the pH.

The reason it is easier to move the pH of water that is lower in minerals is that there is less buffer in the water to prevent moving the pH. I use an RO to remove many of the minerals from my tap water and when I dilute tap water with the RO water, I can move the pH much more easily. At the right time of year, I also collect rain water to dilute my tap water. The environmental impact of rain collection is low but making RO water wastes more water than it makes. That is why I collect rain water when I can.

 

[kaivalagi]

Thanks for the explanation Oldman47

Happy new year

Edit: Ammonia now down to zero, will monitor every day for a little while longer, so far no NO2 spike. I get the feeling one or two decaying shrimp bodies (unless the remains were just from a moult) in the filter canister could have been partially to blame for the crash...I removed all the nasty bits from the water in the canister a couple of days back with a net. Or it could just be a coincidence.

 

[OldMan47]

That does not sound like a coincidence. Rotting organic matter can be a major ammonia contributor.

 

[kaivalagi]

The danios have been rehomed now, so I now have:

2 x firemouth (M/F juvi < 6cm)
5 x peppered cory
3 x oto

The friend I have given my Danios to also bought 2 blue rams, which both turned out to be male...one of which is a little bit of a bully (these are the only cichlids in her tank)

She has asked if I can take on the bully blue ram, to leave all the fish in peace...I just wonder whether the blue will cause me problems or potentially not bully the fish (and hopefully not get bullied) in my tank because of the firemouths

What do you think? Would adding 1 male blue ram to my tank, that has history as a bully with other non-cichid fish, be too okay? Or atleast worth a shot? If I take it, it will be on a 14 day give back guarantee

 

[waterdrop]

Well hopefully Davo or one of the other cichlid experts will happen along to give advice there kaivalagi! Without really knowing for sure, I'd be worried of two things, that of course there'd be some sort of territorial problems between the blue and the firemouths and secondly that the blue (GBR, german blue ram I'm assuming) which is notorious for being one of the most sensitive to water conditions and is normally recommended to be introduced to a long ago perfectly cycled tank, would suffer in a fish-in cycling tank (forgive me if I'm getting it wrong and you feel yours has finished cycling a while ago!)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[kaivalagi]

Well hopefully Davo or one of the other cichlid experts will happen along to give advice there kaivalagi! Without really knowing for sure, I'd be worried of two things, that of course there'd be some sort of territorial problems between the blue and the firemouths and secondly that the blue (GBR, german blue ram I'm assuming) which is notorious for being one of the most sensitive to water conditions and is normally recommended to be introduced to a long ago perfectly cycled tank, would suffer in a fish-in cycling tank (forgive me if I'm getting it wrong and you feel yours has finished cycling a while ago!)

~~waterdrop~~

That's a fair point on the fish-in cycling but I think I am well in the clear, the tank has been going for a while now, since October. It was initially matured with fish stocks about the same as now and has also had a mini-cycle much more recently as you may have seen above.

Everything seems stable now, liquid tests have been done regularly over the past months (I even eventually started plotting all the results in a spreadsheet chart, 15 tests since early Dec and am happy with what I see) and I have just taken load out of my tank (4 x very greedy danios).

Ideally my tank would have been active for longer, but I am not sure whether the blue ram in question wont just kill a few fish where he is right now (betta and gourami's in the tank also), versus probably/possibly making it in and being more happy in my tank...

Do you think that behaviourally the blue ram might calm down in my tank but also not suffer at the hands of my firemouths? If a blue has attitude could it be put in it's place and co-exist with FMs? My FMs have not paired as such in that they are not bothered by the cories in my tank going all over, although who knows what's next...

I think I might just have to take the fish on anyway and see, my friend is quite distressed about her other fish, I doubt anything else in my tank will come to harm so worst case I am left where I was and my friends fish communtity are safe, not the best situation but I think the best option - either that or my friends take the fish back to the store

Should I post this in the cichlid section of the site do you think?