fatal mouthful/wood ph

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fastfly48

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Jul 29, 2005
Messages
274
Location
Perth. Western Australia
:!: It seems one of my neon tetras has bitten off a bit more than he/she can chew. He has a piece of fish food (hopfully) the size of a piece of gravel (hope not) lodged in his/her mouth. I'm afraid he/she will die because his/her mouth is blocked. What can I do!? If it was fish food it should have crubbled/dissolved by now hey?

My ph is 8. Too high I'm told. The guy in my lps said that by adding some wood into my aquarium my ph would drop.
I don't have any wood in my aquarium at the moment, just rocks (moss rock), gravel java fern and vallis.
Would adding some wood be a good move?
I bought some Aquasonic PH-DOWN (act. cont: sodium biphosphate) should I be using it?

Hope you can help! :D

Ry.

ps. did I say thank you?...thank you.
pps. cloudy water still present...bummer. did a water change and gravel vac just then so hopfully that should clear a little up... :?
 
Driftwood can lower your pH. But make sure you treat it good before putting it in your tank or your water will turn tea colored for awhile.

As far as PH Down.......Throw out the bottle and never ever buy pH altering chemicals again. They will do you more harm then good.

Most fish can adapt to different pH levels but they have an extremely hard time dealing with swinging unstable pH levels which is why chemicals like pH up and pH down can wreck havoc on a tank.

I ignore my pH. I don't even test it. If you are really worried about your pH you could try the driftwood or stock with fish that prefer a higher pH. But unless you are having trouble keeping fish alive in your tank I really would advise you to ignore the pH.

As far as the neon with the food stuck.....you could try getting it out with some tweezers but neons are sooo small you would probably do more harm then good. I'd probably just leave it alone and see if he can deal with it on his own.
 
talloulou said:
As far as PH Down.......Throw out the bottle and never ever buy pH altering chemicals again. They will do you more harm then good.

Hey! isn't that my line? I swear that's what I always say...and yes Talloulou is right, pH products like this are very short term fixes. In fact, pH down is a strong acid...do you really want to be adding something almost like battery acid to your aquarium? Didn't think so.

If your tetra food is big enough to get stuck in their mouth, I think you're feeding the wrong food. A simple staple flake, and some daphnia would be fine for tetra species.
 
thanks for all that guys.
I bought a cool piece of bog wood from my lps tday. I plan on soaking it for a week...or is wood from the shop allready ready to go?
Is soaking the wood in boiling/hot/warm water better than cold water?

I feed my fish Complete fish food. On the lable it says it's for all fish...but I normally crummle it up a bit to get smaller peices for the neons. They dart around eating the small pieces while the danios eat the larger peices.

Oh, and the whole mouth full thing has resolved. I check him again then and he's looking fine...mouth empty an all. YIPEE! I'm suspecting he had a piece of gravel in his mouth.

Well, thanks again!

Ry.

ps. can you mix foods? As in feed with flakes and pieces at the same time? As long as the amounts still about the same I GUESS it would be alright?...right?
 
Even though the bog wood (this came wrapped in cellophane?) is "aquarium ready", it is still a good idea to soak it in plain water for a few hours, just to loosen any particle matter that may have attached to it during processing. :)

Glad to hear that your fish swallowed/jettisoned the food.

In regard to mixing foods, tetras don't care what size the food is or where it is placed, they are going for it whether it fits or doesnt. It's a good idea if you have a community tank with different species to use the same sized food even if you have to modify it to make it small.

I made a mistake of dropping some floating cichlid pellets and thank goodness, they couldn't get it into their mouths...but they did try. :)
 
Yep, as long as you adjust the portions of each food, so that you're not overfeeding, you can mix at each feeding, or simply feed one type one day, another the next.

if you saw how many types of food I feed my various tanks, you'd do this: :roll:

What can I say, they like variety!
 
My family often jokes that I feed the fish better than I feed them 8O Nothing like searching for a frozen veggie burger in a freezer stocked with krill, plankton, brineshrimp, bloodworms....... :roll:
 
Thanks a heap for that guys! :D
No...the wood wasn't wraped. The store just had a heap of bog wood on a shelf. I figured that it was probably best to soak it before I added it to my aquarium. I soaked it in boiling water too. Does that do anything?
I guess it would be pretty safe to put in my tank now...aftr soaking for a few days?

Oh...my water's still cloudy! I'm getting a little worried...

Anyways...I can't say thanks enough! You guys all rock!

Ry.
 
Yes, you can add the wood. You may want to attach one of your ferns to that as well...looks really sweet.

The cloudiness is more than likely bacterial/algae bloom. It will dissipate in a couple of days. The wood will more than likely release some tannins and turn your water a little yellowish but that too will dissipate.
 
Great Idea with the java fern and wood! I'll do it now!

About this cloudy water....it still hasn't gone. It's been a good solid week now.
I cleaned ONE (that's one of the three) of the sponges in my filter in some old tank water. Once done I could hardly see an inch into that water!

Overall the water in the tank isn't looking better at all. :(
I went down to my lps the other day....it was nice to see clear water in a tank for a change! It really looks great when the water's clear doesn't it?!
Anyways, the guy there gave me a nother filter insert called AquaClear activated CARBON. He said it would "polish" my water quality, getting all the dirt out.
What are your thoughts on this activated carbon? :?:

Cheers, Ry.
 
I like using activated carbon and it definitely won't hurt to try it and see if it helps clear up your tank.
 
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