water issues

It seems like this knowledgable person may not be as knowledgable as he think he is...

First and foremost, if done properly, there is generally no such thing as too large of a water change. The more frequent water changes are done, the more simliar your water will be to the source that you use (usually the tap water). This is good news, because if you accidently spill a container of food into your water, or something else nasty happens, you can easily do several large water changes, and your fish will not suffer. All of my tanks get at least one 40-50% water change once a week, more if I have the time. I just did two 40% water changes on my planted tank this afternoon.

Second of all, unless you have some pretty specialized fish in mind, don't bother buying any RO water from your fish store. In most cases, regular tap water will do just fine... with the exception of a few people here and there. My water is also quite hard, in the same range as yours, and I don't bother adding anything to adjust its pH... all of my fish thrive, whether they are soft water tetras, or hard water cichlids. Adding things to your water to adjust pH will only lead to an unstable pH, and that is much worse than a stable but "imperfect" one. IMHO, if your LFS' water is different from yours, take your time acclimilating your fish. While acclimilating your fish, add some of your tank water to the bag while its floating in your tank. Adjust the amount you add to the bag, and the amount of time you spend acclimilating according. I've seen some people go to the extent of drip acclimilating their fishes.

It is possible that your LFS' test kit is reading a false positive from your water. When chloramine is neutralized, it produces two ammonium ions... which can give certain test kits an ammonia reading. What kits did your LFS use?

HTH
-Richer

Gotta agree with Richer... the LFS guy doesn't sound like he knows as much as he thinks he does. Test strips are generally OK for quick and dirty testing, but if they're old or haven't been saved correctly (i.e., if they got wet) they can be quite inaccurate.

The Jungle test strips for ammonia use the Nessler method. They should be fine for general testing, but if you use an ammonia-binding dechlorinator (e.g., Amquel, Prime or AmmoLock2) you will get false positive readings.

I would put more faith in your test results. I suspect his ammonia test is faulty.

You are wise to disregard what this LFS guy tells you. Rather, get some test kits (if you don't already have them) for KH, GH and nitrates. Those are the most useful tests. Let a sample of tap water age overnight in a bowl, then test for GH, KH, ph and ammonia. That will allow us to start giving you some specific recommendations.

HTH,
Jim

Later on if you do want to lower your pH, you can always try your hand at CO2 injection. If done properly, in many cases, CO2 injection can effectively lower pH, and it'll benefit your plants, even if they are growing in low light conditions.

Check the plant forum, there are several threads in there involving DIY CO2 injection.

-Richer

Although in the references and on the web boards folks refer to "soft water" fish - that is really GH under discussion, not KH or pH. The fish from blackwater and similar water do prefer, but do not require for maintenance, low TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) water and may well require low GH (calcium and magnesium ions) for breeding. The thing that tickles me about these discussions is the suggestion to use salt exchange media (as Culligan and others) to "soften" the water. That works great for laundry, but not so great for fish. Post salt-echange, the water is normally higher TDS than the pre-exchange water. Duh!

I have to agree that the LFS guy is in the situation of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. He knows just enough to confuse himself, and others.