Water Quality

[catfish_mad]

As the titles says, how can i get better water quality as my tap water is bad and i cant fit a water butt outside my house. I'm using tetra aquasafe and tetra easybalance right now but it doesn't do what it says its surposed to do. i'm really thinking of packing away the troical stuff and changing to cold water as these are less demanding in the water.

Any suggestions would be greatful.

 

[Tessla]

What sort of water quality issues are you having? Nitrates in the tap? pH (not as much of a problem as most people seem to think)? Hardness or buffering capacity? Are they cycling issues with ammonia or nitrites (nothing to do with your tap water)? Some numbers from a good test kit would help.

Changing to cold water won't change any water quality issues besides dissolved oxegen which is affected by water temperature. If you're thinking of goldfish they're actually the single most demanding fish I've ever kept.

 

[WILDER]

How many gallons or litres is the tank as you have some big fish there.

 

[mommyof2bettas]

yeah, those fish grow pretty big.
How big is your tank?
What are the water parameters?
Have you cycled the tank?
What problems are you having (high nitrites, ect.)
Since you have tiger barbs: When there is a high level of nitrites tiger barbs will often stay still in the water with their head pointing down. This often helps to tell if something is wrong with the nitrites.
Also, if you have high ammonia readings, and you have plecs and other big catfish it's usually because they produce big amounts of waste. Fish waste= ammonia. Once again, how big is your tank?

 

[catfish_mad]

My tank is 180l. it is a nitrate problem.

i cycled the tank for 4 weeks prior to the fish going in, the tank has been setup about 4 months now and the water came from my last tank that was setup for just over a year, the water paras were pretty good 10ppm but now since putting some new plants in the nitrate has gone up quite alot.

My biggest fish in the tank is 4" which one of the clwon loach is that size along with my catfish (Synodontis), all the other fish are 2 at 3", 2 at 2" and smaller, i have now got rid of the tiger barbs in for looking for something smaller.