Fresh water aquarium issues.

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Tue Oct 08, 2013 4:09 pm

I've been waiting till I got back from vacation to get some more fish I was thinking about getting some dwarf gouramis and some small neon tetras so I had my water tested this past Fri.Wouldn't you know it after months of having my water test perfectly I have to have a low 5.8 PH reading which means the water in the tank is too acidic for the fish I have and the ones I want to get.The owner of the pet store I get my water tested at told me what to do to get the PH levels back up to around 7.0 which was to do a fifty percent water changeout and to remove a new peice of decor that we think is the problem.I ended up testing the water straight from the faucet when I got back home and my tap water only tested at 6.0 which was also our other concern which I'm going to have to let the pet store know.I'm supposed to go back at the end of the week with another water sample from my aquarium and get it tested to see where my PH is at.It looks like I might have to get some crushed coral to buffer the water and bring the PH up which I'm trying to avoid as I'm afraid a rapid swing up or down might kill my fish.....This tank has been running nearly a year and since my tap water is so soft I believe that the PH has just fallen off on its own over time as I hadn't been using a buffer until now.My ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels all tested low meaning they were in the safe range so I know this drop in PH isn't due to an ammonia spike which leads me to believe its just soft tap water and age on the tank responsible.

jenok · Post by **jenok** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 9:44 am

Since we're back on a freshwater fish topic I'm going to ask if anyone has had bumble bee gobies in their tank before and how they did? My local shop had a request for some and got a few extras but didn't know a whole about them. I bought 1 to try and have been looking it up online today. Of course everyone has their own opions the only thing websites seem to agree on is that the gobies are verrryyy cute. Which I'll admit is why I got one. Some say freshwater is ok and others say brackish/salt. Some say they eat live food, others frozen, and others say flake is ok. The pet store had them in fresh water and they feed a mix of foods so I have it with the new glo fish I bought my daughter for her b-day Monday and I guess if its hungry enough it'll eat whatever. I feed flake food mostly with the occasional frozen brine or blood worms.Any opinions welcome!

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 10:04 am

I've never had bumble bee gobies before so I don't know anything about them.lol

jenok · Post by **jenok** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 10:28 am

I haven't either til now. You'll have to look up a pic they are really cute. Mine is less than an inch long and according to my research stay less than 2 inches long. I hope it does ok in my tank cuz its just a 2gal with led lights to make the glo fish show more.

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 10:54 am

Yeah from the research I've done today you need a tank no less than 30gallons to keep these little fish as they are highly territorial and very aggressive.They do best with shoal of their own kind only though if they tank is large enough they can get along peacefully with other fish for the most part.I don't think two gallons is going to be big enough the small size of the enclosure may force it to act aggressively to the glo fish.

jenok · Post by **jenok** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 11:05 am

I figure on keeping a close eye on it and moving it to my bigger tank if need be, but it is only a 10g. I read several comments on people having up to 5 in a 10 gal peacefully. I only have one for now. I guess I'll just have to see how it goes. Will update on it next week.

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 11:08 am

Okay do let us know.As an aside how often to you do water changes?

jenok · Post by **jenok** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 7:26 am

Ok its been a week. My initial tank setup was a small 1 1/2-2g tank with a small colorful cave and a couple of live plants floating on the top. I put in 2 bigger tetra glo fish and 4 smaller danio glo fish along with the bumble bee goby and 10 ghost shrimp. After 2 days my daughter had overfed and food was everywhere. Since the tank was overcrowded I moved 2 danio glo fish and 7 of the ghost shrimp to my bigger 10g tank. I dumped the water and filtered it out to get the food out and put everything back in the tank. I also decided to put 1 of the 2 snails we got into the small tank out of the big one and put some empty shells in for the goby and shrimp to hide in. The snail died the next day but everything else seems to be doing fine so far. I have not seen it act aggressive with any of the shrimp or fish. And it doesn't look skinny so I guess its eating the flake food or sometimes I put freeze dried blood worms in. I still have fresh water in both tanks and both have filters that stay on constantly. I add water to my main tank about once every week. My mom use a tube and kind of cleans and adds water about every 2-3 weeks probably 1/4 to a 1/3 taken out and replaced. About every 2 months I do a deep clean and take everything out rinse it off and change about 1/2 the water the other 1/2 if it is dirty or has stuff floating I use a towel or pillow case to run the water through. Then put everything back in. It also has some live plants and a bigger cave. Gravel is still used for sub. It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks my mom wants the gravel so it stays. I guess that why I always have to do a deep clean cuz the junk gets trapped under the gravel and is nasty.

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 8:21 am

It would actually be better to smaller water changes more frequently as this lowers the amount of work that needs to be done when it comes to time to do a deep clean.When you add fresh clean treated water from the tap your adding minerals back into the aquarium that get used by the live plants and beneficial bacteria to stay alive and by not doing this regularly your depriving the plants and the bacteria which can cause the water chemistry to become weak and easily dis-imbalanced which can lead to ammonia spikes, drops in ph and worst of all can actually lead to your tank plants, fish and all getting wiped out suddenly and for no apparent reason.I do a twenty percent water change every other week since I have a twenty gallon I can get away with this but when I had my five and ten gallon tanks running it was a twenty percent change out every week.Theres a condition with established tanks called old tank syndrome which is basically when your water chemistry has peaked and is on a downward slip because the water will only hold it's stability with regular change outs and supplements which most people don't see as necessary once the tank has some age on it.When the tank goes into old tank syndrome you'll notice your beneficial bacteria aren't staying alive and your water parameters are swinging wildly from extremely low to extremely high and this is due to a loss of the waters natural buffering ability so your no longer able to maintain a constant healthy balance.I've been through the old tank syndrome two times in my life and that was because I got lazy and quit maintaining the filters and doing regular water changes waiting until the water looked dirty before doing any work.The thing with water is it can look clean but actually be as toxic or polluted as a cesspool because ammonia, nitrate and nitrite are invisible pollutants so by just removing the visible debris your only getting half of the contaminants.I'd recommend avoiding filtering the water and putting it back in once it has gone a week it needs to be replaced with new water to avoid the dangerous build up of pollutants.The filter kits sold for aquarium usage are only good for getting rid of or trapping the visible debris and if your filter cartridge has activated carbon it will neutralize some odors and some chemicals but wont address ammonia, nitrate or nitrite only by doing regular water changes and having a healthy bed of beneficial bacteria will the water truly remain clean.Some snails don't tolerate sudden changes in water chemistry well so it's entirely possible that the water in the larger tank has a completely different ammonia, nitrate and nitrite balance not to mention ph and hardness which could have shocked the snail and caused it to pass.

jenok · Post by **jenok** » Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:28 am

I figured it was something to do with the difference in water, but oddly enough my daughter got mad at me for killing it cuz she thought I starved it since there wasn't very much algae in the tank with it being new. I had moved a couple of glass/plastic sea stars from the bigger tank that had some algae but not a lot figuring that would probably work til it started to grow in the rest of the tank. Now try to explain that to a 11 yr old.

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Sat Oct 19, 2013 4:14 pm

I've had snails in the past and I found that they don't just need algae to survive they need a constant supply of calcium to maintain their shells or they will develope soft shell disease and will litterally fall apart.Snails need to have algae wafers, sinking pellets like shrimp and even some fresh lettuce every now and again to maintain the growth of their shells.Going one or two night with little to eat wont starve a snail but going from one set of water conditions to another can stress it and even outright kill it.If you dose with fresh water aquarium salts or epsom salt these will quickly end a snails life and prevent any fertilized eggs in the tank from ever hatching.I went and got my water tested again Sat and after doing two large water changes my PH only tested at 5.0 and thats because my tap water is too acidic and we are on county water which tests at 7.0 at the water treatment plant so the Water authority dosen't know why it gets so low by the time it reaches us.So I had to buy two bags of dolomite to put in the sand to boost my PH gradually over the next few days, I've got to go back on Mon and get my aquarium water tested again and see if anyting else needs to be done to it before I start back adding fish. LOL.

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:06 am

Well I had to wait till today to get my water tested again but the wait was worth it my water tested at a solid 7.0 thanks to the dolomite/coral mix thats currently in the sand.The dolomite/coral mix will keep the water buffered at 7.0 so it wont drop when I do my regular water changes which is a good thing.I will be slowly adding more fish in the coming weeks and I think I might go with some naturally colorful fish and get a few more Rasboas to give my lonely Rasboa some species buddies to shoal with.

jenok · Post by **jenok** » Sat Oct 26, 2013 7:50 am

Good I'm glad. I didn't know that snails needed calcium too. But I think I'm ok cuz I have shrimp too so they get the sinking pellets every 2nd or 3rd day ( I let them eat the left over fish food the rest of the time)and I have one species of live plant in the tank. With the live plant in there should I still offer lettuce? What kind and how often if so? On a side note so far the little gobi is doing fine along with the rest off the fish. I'm having a hard time keeping the tank clean without taking everything out and cleaning it which is stressful on the fish so i'll have to try something different I guess. I may end up carefully moving them to the 10g and just have the 1 tank instead of 2. One other question have you ever breed shrimp? I have a whiskas shrimp that has eggs on her belly but the last 2 times that has happened when they get to the stage that I can see little black dots like eyeballs the shrimp will shed and then I never see any babies actually survive.

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Mon Oct 28, 2013 8:52 am

I've never bred shrimp before but I've done quite a bit of research and the simple answer is the baby shrimp are easy prey for the fish in your aquarium and are quickly eaten after they hatch.This is common with tanks that are on the smaller side or have too many fish in them either way your stacking the odds against the fry surviving very long.Your filtration is another thing to consider as any kind of filter unit will make quick work of fish and shrimp fry.Getting back to the snail, the live plant will offer some food as the older material dies and falls off but you might still want to provide some ice burg or romaine lettuce once every couple of weeks and only leave it twenty four hours.Make sure it's small pieces to make it easier for the snail to eat.

Kirrie · Post by **Kirrie** » Tue Oct 29, 2013 3:06 pm

As far as maintaining your tank, it is much more beneficial to change out 25-30% of the water each week. Replace it with conditioned, temperature matched water. If you completely clean everything in the tank (100% water change, cleaning gravel, changing filter, etc.) You lose your beneficial bacteria which help to break down fish waste and make it less toxic. Most of this bacteria lives in the gravel and filter. The most cleaning that should be done with the gravel is using a gravel vacuum once a week to clean 1/3 of it. As far as the filter, the cartridges should only be changed when they are falling apart, but if it contains carbon, you will have to dump that out and replace it, or leave the cartridge in the filter without the carbon because it's really not needed.With all of this fish talk, it sounds like you guys belong on a fish forum! myaquariumclub.com is a great forum! The people there share a wide variety of knowledge and could more than likely answer any of your questions. I spend a lot of time there answering questions myself (my username is the same there is at is here)