High GH levels in my biorb

A

Ajaye64

Registered Member
Dec 30, 2005
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London
This is my first post so hope someone might be able to point me in the right dirction. I was given a bi-orb a year ago, failed miserably with goldfish, moved on to a few tropicals and hopefully starting to get it balanced. I have 6 small tropical fish and 1 catfish, building up slowly after initial death toll. Main problem is the GH level is very high. NO level minimal and PH 6.4, KH 0.
Is this okay??
 
don't "bio-orbs" come in different sizes (gallons)? what size is yours since this will determine its capacity to hold fish.

you say your gh is high but you don't specify what the actual number is?

check that kH again. zero? doubtful given that you say you have a high gh.
 
Thanks for your reply. My bi-orb is 30 litres. I have since managed to find out a bit more info re water hardness, which is a problem in London. KH is between 0-3d using the tetratest 5 in 1. I may need to use a water softener, what do you think?
 
Don't do water modification unless you absolutely have to do so. Fish are very adaptable to water pH/GH/KH without negative effects on life span and health. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
 
your water is not particularly hard and i'd leave it alone. your fish will be just fine and your water will be stable ... the most important parameter. note that your tank cannot hold more than about 5 'small' (neon tetra sized fish). i suspect your fish are larger and thus your tank can hold even fewer.

don't be tempted to overstock ... you'll lose more fish.
 
what fish do you have exactly? do you have a heater?

make sure you use the original ceremic media graval that comes with the bowl because they are some of the best media for bio filter and due to the very small base size of the biorb you will need all the real estate you can get for the good bacteria. In mine i stretch the base bio filter as much as i can.

never fill the water to the top, fill it about 2 inchs above the bubble tube.

never EVER have any direct sunlight on the orb, the biorb serves as a VERY powerful magnifying class. even a little bit of direct sunlight will fry your entire bowl not to mention cause a fire harzard at the focal point of the backwall of your bowl.

as to your original question, i did say dont worry about it for most fish, as long as you take the time(couple hours) to acclimation the fish.
 
Thanks, I do have a heater and 6 small neon tetra type fish as well as a small catfish and it is well shaded. It does say on the instructions for the bi-orb that up to 14 small fish are okay. However it would seem that would be far too many, is that correct...a bit confused!!
 
dont believe any fish advise from an instruction book that has 3 gold fish in a biorb lol

It really depends on how much water change you want to do, biorb itself has a very good filtration system. Currently i have 6 zebra danio and 4 whiteclouds, and water change once a week is more than enough. My nitrate never reachs over 15ppm. (40ppm is considered the threshold). I plan to add a guppy and platie to that mix as well.

So you can definitly add some more fish if doing weekly water change, just make sure the max length is 2" or less. On the other hand if you want to just do a monthly water change like the book said, then i advise against any more fish.

Btw i would not recommend putting a catfish in biorb, I assume it's a panda cory or something similar when you say small cat fish?

The bottom media rocks are very sharp, and definitly not suited for a bottomfeeder fish. They will eventually cut themselves and die, and those cory are schooling fish so having just 1 is also bad. I put cherry red shrimps as the bottom dweller, they are very cool to look at and eats algae and leftover food. You may want to consider that instead of bottomfeeder fish.

gaga

ps: all this is based on your birob is already cycled -> ammonia 0, nitrite 0. search cycling on this forum if you not sure what that is.
 
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