Good Solid Advice

[pkdiaz]

I have a 55 gallon aquarium with community fish in it. I have a Penguin Biowheel 330 filter and a heater. I keep my temp at about 78 farenheit. I want to know what works for all of you aquarists with lots of experience. I have hard water, but right now my PH is at about 6.2 although my water is typically at a PH of about 8. I only keep up with the PH and ammonia levels. Right now there is no ammonia in my tank, although for some reason, it did spike up high about a month ago, although I have had my aquarium for about a year. How often do you do water changes? What chemicals do you add? I don't have any plants. I do have air bubbles. Right now my fish seem to be sluggish. They are eating fine, but they don't seem to be as energetic as they used to be. One day I hope to be as knowledgeable as all of you are, but I definitely need advice now.

[Bantam]

hi,

i don't really know where to start ;).

exactly what fish do you have in there, and how big are they? it sounds like there could be a problem with the water. if your pH is 6.2 but is normally 8 it is quite worrying. over how long did this change occur?

test for nitrites and nitrates if you possibly can. have you added anything to the tank at all recently; decorations, chemicals or new fish? when did you last change the water? and when did you last rinse the filter - i'm not familiar with the penguin filter so i can't really offer any advice there.

sorry to fire so many questions back at you but a lot more info is needed for anybody to be much help.

regards

[beviking]

hey pkdiaz, hopefully you noted your other posting. All your answers, o.k. some of your answers, are there.

Bantam, love the signature!

[pkdiaz]

Bantam, I didn't do anything out of the ordinary. I will admit I got lazy on my testing and didn't test for about 2 months and when I did I discovered the PH had lowered and the ammonia spiked. I guess what caused the problems was the chemicals that the LFS advised me to add at each water change. (A water conditioner, aquarium salt, and Ick treatment, although I have no ick) I know it was very bad advice now, but at the time I had recently purchased some fish from Wal-mart which had all died within a week and I was terrified of losing more fish and was willing to try anything. After much research, I realize that it wasn't anything that I did wrong that killed the fish. It was just the quality of fish. After all, I never lost any fish before the Wal-mart fish and luckily I haven't lost any since. I am now just doing monthly water and filter changes and still adding water conditioner, which I am considering stopping that also. As of today, I am doing a 20% water change daily until I get my PH right. My fish seem to be fighters, thank goodness.

[wetmanNY]

You might add a few drops of AmQuel to detoxify ammonia. As the pH rises, any NH4 ammonium will convert to its toxic form NH3 ammonia. Besides the partial water changes (they will restore some buffering to the water and the pH will rise) you need to clean the filter media. Rinse it in water siphoned from the tank.

Fresh granular activated carbon would be a good idea.

Do you know how much "conditioner" has accumulated in your water? I'd stop using "cocktail" type conditioner mixes and stick with AmQuel. Don't overdose anything.

[RTR]

Wetman - this tank is in OTS, multiple posting, longer thread at:


http://64.191.28.50/forums/showthread.php?threadid=6201

[wetmanNY]

Thanks RTR. I'm wasting my time.