How am I doing so far??? (some flashing/GH problems)

[mercsoulja]

I'm new to cichlids and have my first tank is a 29g with 4 n. brichardi. They seem to be doing quite well. One is flashing a bit (once in a great while), so i decided to test the water. Im having trouble keeping my GH up. Each water change I add 1/4tsp of baking soda and 1 table spoon of Epsom salt. I also keep a bag of crushed coral in the filter. Here is what i have:
pH - 8.8
kH - 12
gH - 1!! (stays up for first few days from epsom, but decreases i guess)
nitrates - 10
ammonia ~ .1-.25

any input would be great =) thanks in advance!

 

[Cathy G]

Hi,
Epsom salt and baking soda will bring up your kh, if your tank is planted, the plants could be using up the epsom salts -magnesium. I use Kent's RO Right to add gh to my tanks.
I assume this tank is cycling? How long have you had it set up? The ammonia could be bothering your fish - causing him to flash. They can also flash on items in their personal territory, kind of like leaving their scent I suppose.
Cathy

 

[mercsoulja]

no my tank has already been cycled, it has been set up for about 4 months, about 1 with fish. And the tank is not planted.

 

[Bmeasure]

First off, your GH test reading is probably wrong! Your GH should always be comparable, if not higher than your KH reading. It may ready 1 point or so less, but rarely. As I understand it your KH is more variable than your GH, so it should be adjusted much more quickly than your GH is.

Do more frequent 50% water changes to get Ammonia down to 0 ppm all the time. If your pH is at 8.8, then STOP doing the additions of Epsom Salts, baking soda, and Crushed Coral. It would be better at a lower level of 8.0 to 8.2 pH. Your current levels are above that of salt water! This is most likely what is causing your fish to flash off the rocks and decorations. The less you have to do to make your water usable is generally better. All this stuff you are adding is making me wonder!

 

[wobble]

I agree with Bmeasure on everything.....

Just a quick addition. Water stability is more important that adding a bunch of chemicals to achieve the "perfect" ph, kh, and gh. Do you fish a favor and make the changes slowly.

Something else you may want to do.....test your tap water. Let it sit for 24 hours and do a ph, kh, and gh test on it. That will give you a baseline. This way, you will know what to add. You don't want to start adding a bunch of chemicals in a mad rush to get the water conditions right.

Since you are new to Africans (we all were at one time)

Baking soda: raises kh and ph
Epson salt: raises gh

I can't stress enough, do changes slowly, or your fish will die.

First thing is to figure out why your ammonia is high. How much are you feeding them/how often? What kind of filtration do you have? How often/much do you do water changes? Do you have any rock in your tank? If so, what kind? Do you have sand or gravel? Could you please describe in detail how you perform you water changes?

Not trying to drill you with questions, we're just trying to help. Ammonia spikes are only caused by one thing.....lack of good bacteria. We need to find out why you don't have any.

As previously stated, I also think your gh test is innaccurate. Maybe your ammonia test is also innacurate....just a thought.

 

[liv2padl]

your GH test reading is probably wrong! Your GH should always be comparable, if not higher than your KH reading.

not necessarily. if you use sodium carbonate for example, you'd get an elevated kH but zero gh. there are lots of other examples of sodium salts which would yield similar results. conversely, you might use calcium sulfate to result in an elevated gH and zero kH.

or did i take your sentence the wrong way? perhaps you meant that they 'should' be equal for best fish results? in which case, you're probably right.

 

[mercsoulja]

Well, the changes i do occur every water change, which are once a week. I change out 5 gallons (from 29g) and with each i add the epsom and baking soda, so it generally stays stable. So you're saying i should get off that by adding less and less each water change until there's none? I'll still have the crushed coral in there, so it may take care of some things.

To answer all the questions about why my ammonia is high =)
I feed them just a pinch of Tetra Pro crisps twice a day and it's all eaten. Occasionally i'll give them the freezedried blood worms instead.

-I have an AC70 (300gph),
-I have rocks from left to right that were boiled/scrubbed before added to my tank, i'm not sure what kind, just regular rock... (tested that they didn't fizz)
- The substrate is pool filter sand that was rinsed clean

When i do water changes, i use the lee's ultimate gravel vac, and i have a mark on my tank so i know where 5 gallons is. After vacuuming it and turn it on to fill and as it's filling i slowly add in the cup of baking soda/epsom salt/water solution where the water pours in from the vac. one thing i did differently last time was i didn't add the Seachem Prime that i usually do, i'm not sure if that has anything to do with it.

Don't worry about the drilling questions, they're important!

 

[wobble]

Ok....first, I would change your water change volume to 10g. That's approx 30%. On my tanks, I do 25% - 50% weekly and have no issues water quality. Also, since you are feeding flake type food and blood worms, make sure and move the rocks so you can suck any debris stuck under them on your next water change. It may be that blood worms are getting under the rocks and rotting. This can cause an ammonia spike rather quickly if left alone.

This may be a stupid question, but I've seen this done. When you are sucking the water with the siphon, do you just suck the water out, or do you go along the bottom and suck the poo and leftover food particles?

To answer your question on what to add during water changes, I would stop adding anything accept chlorine neutralizer. This should bring your ph down to to a respectable leve. Wait a day after water change, then re-test ph, kh, and gh. Also, set a cup of water from your faucet aside today. Then test tomorrow. Post your results of ph, kh, and gh. Some water is actually high in these areas and don't require any buffering. Better to not add if you don't have to.

I think you are lacking beneficial bacteria because you don't have any type of bio product they can start colonizing on. I am assuming you are using a sponge and crushed coral in your ac70. You may want to remove the crushed coral and put some type of bio media in there. If you do this, don't clean the bio media when cleaning the filter. This is one of the most common reasons for someone running a hob and canister filter on the same tank. hob filters provide great mechanical filtration, while canister filters provide great bio playgrounds for bacteria.

You mentioned the tank has been set up for about 4 months with 1 fish in it. What was that fish? When did you add the brichardi? Were you monitoring your ammonia levels during the 4 months?

I've never used seachem prime, but from what I understand, this is for new tank setups to aid in bacteria forming in your bio media. (I could be wrong). I'm not sure if you should keep using this product or just use a chlorine neutralizer.........someone else who knows more about this could help you more.

As far as your fish flashing, I notice this mainly when there is an abrupt change in water condition (ph, kh, gh).

Since I've never had ammonia spikes, someone else can chime in for more info on how to help reduce current levels.

There are some very smart people on this forum who have alot of knowledge. They should be able to help you more than I can.

If it were my fish, I'd stop feeding them for a few days. I wouldn't add anything else to the tank that could continue to raise the ammonia levels. It won't hurt the fish at all. This will give the tank a chance to start breaking down whatever food/fish waste is in the tank. Also do water changes every day/other day to get rid of that ammonia.

 

[Bmeasure]

not necessarily. if you use sodium carbonate for example, you'd get an elevated kH but zero gh. there are lots of other examples of sodium salts which would yield similar results. conversely, you might use calcium sulfate to result in an elevated gH and zero kH.

or did i take your sentence the wrong way? perhaps you meant that they 'should' be equal for best fish results? in which case, you're probably right.

I agree with what you said, and I made that statement based on standard water that has not had anything added to it. While there are extreme examples, it's not what you generally find in nature. pH 8.8, GH 1 water is pretty extreme!

Also, if I'm not mistaken, your GH should not be dropping at all unless there is an acid in the tank (maybe carbonic or from build-up of waste). I do know that salts don't dissappear from the tank on their own, so if you are adding more Epsom Salts between water changes you are adding more salts (magnesium sulphate). Your fish certainly shouldn't have trouble having a "movement". :clap: Salts are only removed with water changes, and only the amount of water added to the tank is used as a basis for how much salts to add. Do not base it on the size of the whole tank again. Seachem Prime, by the way is a great conditioner, and I have used it for years. It should also help you as a short term aid in detoxifying Ammonia and Nitrite spikes. Don't think this is going to fix your problem though, just a very temporary band-aid. Somehow it binds up the molecules so they cannot be harmful, while still allowing bacteria to break them down. ***ask the chemists!***

I'd just stick with doing a 50% water-change each week (daily till no ammonia) and start with continuing to add the 1TBSP of E-Salt. This will start to slowly dilute your salts in the water to a reasonable amount. You can always adjust back up or down from there. Crushed Coral isn't a problem in your tank, but it isn't going to do much with such a high pH / KH reading anyways. It has to be dissolved by acids slowly to do it's job. Your KH reading is already pretty high so you really don't need to be adding Baking soda at all, unless your tap water is less than 4 dKH. You really do need to post your tap parameters, though for our advice to be most effective.

Oh, and one more thing, get some of your tank and tap water to a fish store and get them to run tests on them also. This will tip you off as to whether or not your test kits are old or corrupted. Those are my thoughts.

 

[mercsoulja]

Sorry i worded that wrong... 4 months the tank has been running... 1 month with fish (the 4 brichardi) and i have been monitoring ammonia the whole time and found none.

I did notice something though.. I have a submersible heater and on the wire and on the suction cups is a white film. On the suction cups there was also what looked like little pods. They weren't eggs or anything, but about that size. So i took it out and cleaned everything. It has reappeared after about a week (the film, but no pods yet). When i wiped it off above water it was almost yellowish. Does this have to do with something here?

I have a feeling I did not cycle my tank properly, from everything that has been said so far.

I have tested my tap before and here are my levels:
pH - 7.2
nitrate - 0
ammonia - 0
nitrites - 0
gh - 5
kh - 4