I am currently forming a community tank. Anyway, I have been wanting put my guppies in with them, however my dilemma is that I have been keeping the water hardness in this tank at 6dH, is this too soft for guppies?
Is This Water Too Soft?
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I would just keep your tank water parameters where ever your tap/source water parameters are. Fish will adapt, or all ready have adapted if bought locally.
I wouldn't call your water "soft" compared to where I've lived, but I haven't kept guppies in it either. I "think" they'd be fine like Joel (FF) said. I'd say go for them!
It's MUCH easier to keep fish in your tap water parameters than to try & hit the "perfect" parameters. Really, my husband is a chemist & when, many years ago, we would read the "ideal, wild fish" pH or hardness, he could get it there, lol. Needless to say, our early fish suffered for the roller coaster ride we put them through. Don't do it!! Either guppies will be fine (likely) or you should find fish that can live in your water.
It's MUCH easier to keep fish in your tap water parameters than to try & hit the "perfect" parameters. Really, my husband is a chemist & when, many years ago, we would read the "ideal, wild fish" pH or hardness, he could get it there, lol. Needless to say, our early fish suffered for the roller coaster ride we put them through. Don't do it!! Either guppies will be fine (likely) or you should find fish that can live in your water.
The big thing is to have the toxins under control, such as your ammonia, nitrite, both at 0, and then nitrates pretty low.
Heh, yeah. One time I had a super busy month, and didn't due any water changes in my guppy tank. I paid for that, they all had ammonia poisoning and I lost five fish. I made sure to always moniter the tank very carefully after that, and haven't had problems since.
Unless there was something else going on that you missed (an unrelated couple of fish death or something), the lack of water changes shouldn't cause ammonia to increase. That should only allow the organics and nitrates to creep up. If that (long time without water changes) happens, I'd do a number of smaller water changes to get parameters back to normal. It's probably overly paranoid, but I'd have concerns of Old Tank Syndrome, which I've had, and didn't know until many years later.
Agreed. Even if you don't have a means to measure your water parameters, water changes will never hurt provided you have a good tap water conditioner like seachem prime or safe.
Guppies and Endlers are incredibly tolerant of water parameters, as long as ammonia and nitrite are not elevated.
I've kept Endlers in water ranging from incredibly hard (700ppm tds, 8.3 Ph) to quite soft (100tds, 7.0 PH) with no problems.
I've kept Endlers in water ranging from incredibly hard (700ppm tds, 8.3 Ph) to quite soft (100tds, 7.0 PH) with no problems.