Nitrate and PH problems... Help!

[destined_love7]

The one thing that I noticed when I was doing daily water changes (due to a mini-cycle) my PH was elevated. When I stopped doing that, it went down.

You should vaccum all of the gravel whenever you do it. The bacteria stick to the gravel, the stuff under it is uneaten food and poo. You can let your plants float in the water while you vaccum and then replant them when you're done.

Doing large water changes will not mess up your bacteria as it isn't in the water itself.

Search for articles on here about stunting.

Cycle is a waste of money IMO. Most people don't use the aquarium salts, either. They really offer no benifit as a matter of course. I only use Prime or API water conditioners. You don't need to use multiple products for the same things.

 

[livingword26]

African Spotted Leaf fish - 6" - Agressive
Needle fish ? 12" Agressive ?
Silver dollar fish - 5" - Community
Gold Gourami - 6" - Semi-Aggressive
Red Fire Dwarf Gourami - 2.5"- Community
Powder Blue Gourami - 2.5"- Community
Opaline Gourami - 6' - Semi-aggressive
Dwarf Gourami - 2.5"- Community
Plecostumus - 20" - Semi-aggresive
Angel Fish - 4" - Semi-agressive
Long Fin Rosey Barb - 2.5"- Community
Albino cory Cat - 2' - Community

The fish will grow as big as they will grow. I don't think the tank will stunt them much as to the above sizes.

I don't know much about the Needle fish, could you find a picure of one on line?

You say you are filtering the water you are using to do water changes? what kind of filter?

I would not use any of the additives you have listed except the Kordon NovAqua Plus. If you are using RO water, you don't even need to use that.

Doing water changes is the only way to reduce nitrates, except if you have live plants. A 50% water change is not unusual and your fish will be alright. You can check your chemicals a couple of ours after.

With a tank that narrow, you are going to have a pretty good buildup of poo in your gravel, I would vaccum it all, don't worry about the algae, you will have plenty of that later.

Check your LFS for the drift wood. It won't hurt anything.

All those fish are not going to get along in that tank. Get rid of all the fish above 2.5" that are noted in the list above, and get a few more smaller ones.

 

[Star_Rider]

the tank in the link is a really tall tank with very little surface area. you gas exchanges occur mostly at the surface.
as a result the tank also has a very small footprint.

the set up , while it looks cool, does little for carrying capacity of the tank.

most fish need lateral swimming area not verticle.
maintenance of the substrate could pose a large problem and may be one reason you are experiencing nitrate problems.
another issue ou may have is the differences in specis you are keeping geographically.

the species you have sometime just don't mix well.

 

[Draal5]

The needle fish is a type of gar and will also out grow the tank.

You could keep 2 angels and a dwarf gourami or 2.

cory cats don’t like deep water as they travel to the surface and gulp air from time to time.

All of these must go.

African Spotted Leaf fish - 6" - Aggressive
Needle fish= a gar
Silver dollar fish - 5" - Community
Gold Gourami - 6" - Semi-Aggressive
Opaline Gourami - 6' - Semi-aggressive
Plecostumus - 20" - Semi-aggressive
Long Fin Rosey Barb - 2.5"- Community (must go if you keep angels)

Even thou your tank its 30 g it has a small foot print not a lot of swimming room for these fish, and even if they did not tear each other up and they will your filter system could not handle the waste these fish will produce.
This sounds like a petsmart deal which may or may not take these fish back. you should seek out a LFS that has clean tanks and good looking fish they can help you much more than a petsmart or petco and walmart.

As far as your water you should check your tap water before you add it to your tank so you have a base line ie if your water is 7ph out of the tap and your tank ph is 8 something in your tank is raising your ph.
I would agree with every one 50% PWC a day till the nitrates are down then a min of 20% PWC twice a week. Only add prime or something similar to the water.
Don’t give up and go with gold fish like in the picture you could only keep one the pic shows like nine which is waaaaay over stocked and would be dead by the next morning.
I hate it when they take pictures of impossible stocking of tanks this is just bad for the hobby

 

[livingword26]

If you are running the under gravel filter that comes with that unit:

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11171557&whse=BC&Ne=4000000&eCat=BC|48025|55022&N=4016120&Mo=0&No=0&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&cat=55022&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDesc1&lang=en-US&Sp=C&topnav=

Then it is going to be imperative to vacuum out that gravel as often as possible.

 

[Apota]

I'm using RO (Reverse Osmosas) water. I will test the RO water and tell you what the readings are later. I think the PH is about 6.4. Like I said before the PH in my tank was like at 6.7 until I added the Alkaline Buffer and that raised my Alkaline and also my PH from 6.7 to 8.0. Since I raised my Alkalinity it's really hard to lower my PH with chemicals where it was easy to do it before.

I have a long bubbler going along the back side of my tank so it has a good curculation of moving water and really good airation. I don't have any live plants because of the type gravel I have. I found the drift wood on Ebay, so I guess I'll order a piece.

What does PWC mean? So, you think I should do a 50% water change everyday until the Nitrates are down and then do a 20% water change twice per week forever as regular maintenance? Isn't that over kill? Thanks...

 

[Apota]

No undergravel filter, I removed it before I started the tank because that's what I was told to do. I have a Marineland Penguin 200 BIO-Wheel Power Filter.

 

[livingword26]

If you do your water changes without putting anything else in the water, then your ph should come down to what the replacement water is, or close to it. You don't need any driftwood or buffers. Since you have such a difference in ph between your tank, and the supply water, I am going to change a bit and say only do a 25% water change every day until the ph is more equalized, when that happens then do 50% changes if you need to, to get the nitrate down. PWC means partial water change.

 

[livingword26]

No undergravel filter, I removed it before I started the tank because that's what I was told to do. I have a Marineland Penguin 200 BIO-Wheel Power Filter.

That was good move.

 

[jpappy789]

This is a picture of what type of aquarium I got, but it's not my actual aquarium.

http://content.costco.com/Images/Content/ProductLarge/138101LL.jpg

I have semi-aggressive and none aggressive fish in my tank. I guess you can mix semi-aggressive and none aggressive gouramis together.

I didn't get big fish, they are mostly really small. I have one of each fish. These are the fish I have:

- Needle Fish way too large
- African Spotted Leaf Fish not a great community fish
- Silver Dollar Fish too large, and sometime nippy
- Gold Gourami semi- agressive, not good with other gouramis
- Red Fire Dwarf Gourami can be kept
- Powder Blue Gourami is this powder blue "dwarf"?
- Opaline Gourami like gold gourami
- Dwarf Gourami too many dwarfs, most likely all males
- Plecostumus probably 'common' pleco, will outgrow tank and has a huge bioload
- Angel Fish not enough room
- Long Fin Rosey Barb needs more horizontal space
- Albino Cory Cat possibly could be kept, but you need more as they like groups

- I thought the fish will only grow to fit the size of your tank. So, if you have a small tank they won't grow that big?
that is stunting, which causes a lot of problems to the fish. their body doesnt grow any larger but their internal organs still try to...

I'm not sure if my Nitrates are 80, but it looks redder then 40 and 80 is next on the chart. It's kind of hard to read, so I guess they can be between 50-80.
yes do a water change

- Where do I get this Malaysian drift wood and how much and how fast does it lower the PH and is it safe for my tank?
driftwood will not lower the pH by much. you should be able to get some at your lfs

- Wouldn't doing such large water changes stress out the fish more and screw up my cycle?
you should have cycled before getting all these fish...removing water does nothing to remove the bacteria as very little reside in your water, most are on solid surfaces (filter media, deco, substrate, etc...)

- It was so easy to lower the PH before I raised the Alkalinity. Should I worry about the water hardness or the Alkalinity at all? I'm not sure what they are at right now.
How did you raise it? Please do not use chemicals, they usually end up doing more harm than good. There really is no need to worry about specific pH/Gh levels as long a they stay stable

- What should I add to the new water before I put it in the tank? I add the Aquarium Salt, Kordon NovAqua Plus and AmQuel Plus, and Cycle.
No aquarium salt unless treating for ick. Cycle does not work very well it is better to just do a fishless cycle by adding your own ammonia

- What is happening to the Ventral Fins of the Gouramis? I don't see any of the fish being picked on anymore. Maybe when the fish first get added to the tank they get picked on a little bit, but it stopped a long time ago. I don't see it happening.
they probably are detoriorating from poor water quality

- How much should I vacuum and should I vacuum all the gravel? I have some plastic plants and a rock in the tank and it would be hard to gravel under them. How deep do I vacuum? I don't want to vacuum up all the good algae, from the gravel, right?
vacuum as much as much as you can to get all the mulm out, as that is what releases ammonia. there are no 'good algae' in the gravel so I have no idea what you mean

I guess I'll do a 33% water change today and see what happens. When should I test the water again to see what the new levels are at? 24 hour? 48 hours? I will test it again and see what happens and take it from there. I don't want to do too big of a water change to stress out the fish, and it takes about 4 hours to fill up a 5 gallon container of filtered water..
test right after the wc...your levels should decrease
Thanks....

comments in red

I'm using RO (Reverse Osmosas) water. I will test the RO water and tell you what the readings are later. I think the PH is about 6.4. Like I said before the PH in my tank was like at 6.7 until I added the Alkaline Buffer and that raised my Alkaline and also my PH from 6.7 to 8.0. Since I raised my Alkalinity it's really hard to lower my PH with chemicals where it was easy to do it before.is there any reason you are using RO water...your tap should be fine, just add dechlorinator. the problem with RO is that it removes everything. there are still trace amounts of certain minerals and such that fish need

I have a long bubbler going along the back side of my tank so it has a good curculation of moving water and really good airation. I don't have any live plants because of the type gravel I have. I found the drift wood on Ebay, so I guess I'll order a piece.

What does PWC mean? So, you think I should do a 50% water change everyday until the Nitrates are down and then do a 20% water change twice per week forever as regular maintenance? Isn't that over kill? Thanks...pwc= partial water change...yes do as large of water change as possible, but 50% is good, to get those nitrates down to a safe level. after that it really depends on what you keep but I advise removing what others have suggested, we can go from there