New Tank - ideas/suggestions needed

bump.


Any ideas for dither fish? Any other decor recommendations or does it look ok?

Stocking:
Fish I already have...
3 clown loaches
2 yo-yo loaches
1 red tail shark

plus...
3-4 more clowns?
1 or 2 more yo-yo?
other loaches?
school of dither fish... cardinal tetras? tiger barbs? something else?

Thanks.
 
You should really avoid adding chemicals to futz with your pH. It causes instability in the water chemistry and it's also not necessary. Fish can adjust to pH unless it's very extreme. 7.4 isn't even close to extreme :)

What fish have a problem with is TDS - Total Dissolved Solids. Think of it as being how "thick" your water is. Anything you throw in the water (like pH chemicals ;) ), all the waste and stuff produced by the fish, all that adds to the TDS.

TDS is easily taken care of with regular water changes, so it's nothing to worry about.

If you leave the pH alone and keep your water as close to your source (tap water) as possible, you'll have no problems with your fish.
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IME painting the back is the best method by far! I've tried fabric, OceanVisions (can never get that stuff to smooth out all the way!), plastic, and so forth. I like the acrylic painted back best.

Current: your Eheim will produce more than enough current for loaches. In fact, you might have to tone it down some. I've the 2026 in my rainbow tanks and I had to chop the current down about 1/3. Was just a *little* too much for them to sail in all day.

Roan
 
You don't think that 7.4 is extreme? A guy I trust at the LFS seemed to think that 7.4 was a big problem. He suggested taking it down to around 6.8 for a community tank... which seems reasonable to me.

The stuff I put in the water is also supposed to "soften" the water by precipitating metals out of it or osmething like that. I didn't really understand. lol

This is the stuff I got: http://www.seachem.com/products/product_pages/neytralRegulator.html

I figure I can't really screw it up because it takes the PH to 7.0 regardless if it is higher or lower. *shrug* I don't know.

You think 7.4 is fine for loaches and other fish? Looking at fish requirements on liveaquaria.com it seems like that is on the very upper range of comfort for my loaches, and higher than most other fish can take.
 
my pH is 7.8 and my fish are totally fine. 7 is neutral pH. fish are very adaptable and almost ALL will adapt nicely to 7.4 pH. the most important thing, like was laready stated, is STABILITY. using chemicals to artificially lower or raise the pH will cause instability in the pH and stress the fish. but if you just leave it alone, they will adapt readily to a higher pH and be fine, so long as that pH stays the same. 7.4 is a totally average pH and is not extreme at all. the pH ranges from 0-14, 0 is acid, and 14 is base. so long as your pH is between 8.5 and 5-ish you shouldn't need to mess with it, the fish will adapt.
 
pedzola said:
You think 7.4 is fine for loaches and other fish? Looking at fish requirements on liveaquaria.com it seems like that is on the very upper range of comfort for my loaches, and higher than most other fish can take.
Click to expand...

My tap water runs about 7.2-7.4, and when I was doing community tanks I never did anything to lower it. The only fish I had bad luck with were neon tetras and blue rams, and I always suspected that had more to do with the hardness of the water than the pH. I successfully kept several other types of barbs and tetras. The thing I don't like about messing with pH that way is that it's hard to control and I worry about how much it will fluctuate when I do water changes.
 
Hmmmm... thanks for everyone's input.

It doesn't seem very hard to treat the water w/this PH stuff... but if the PH is fine from the tap then I guess maybe I can avoid using it...........

One thing I'm concerned with is that the water the fish are in now is around 6.6-6.8. So if I move them over to the tank w/7.4 that will be a big shock.

Since I've already treated the water it should be at 7.0... so maybe I can move the fish and then stop treating new water when I do water changes. Then the PH will gradually go back up as I do a 10-20% change every week. Right?

So it would be less stressful for the fish that way....

I'm still not totally sold that the fish can adjust to alkalinity so easily? :\
 
Hmmm...

Ok. I believe you that PH is not super-important, and that 7.4 should be fine for my fish. They will adapt to it.

Now I am still confused about water "hardness" after reading some of those threads.

What is the difference between GH and KH? And do I need to test both? Or either?

It is my understanding that GH and KH are both some measure of "dissolved solids." So it seems logical to me that the only way these dissolved solids could increase in aquarium water is if something was leaking minerals into your tank (bad substrate, rocks, etc).

Is this correct? One thread had an aquarists TDS seemingly rising on it's own w/no offending aquarium decor. And it would go down when he did a water change.


What if I test for GH and KH and it turns out that my tap water has high TDS? What can I do? Anything?

I'm really confused on this issue... I don't know if I even need to test it because I don't know what I'm looking for, or what I'd do if the parameters were bad. :huh:
 
Also... the Neutral Regulator I bought said on the side that it softens water by precipitating out some of the metals in the water... but in the threads it said that these add phosphate and actually make the water harder???

I dunno... really confused. :help:
 
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