Tap water quality question

[Rolance]

here he is

 

[armymp327]

looks like a common pleco to me, hopefully someone else will no for sure, but unless you have a 75 gallon or bigger tank, it will need to go. have a look at the bristle nose for your 20 gallon tank, IMO they look cooler anyways. and as someone else said an otto is a much better option for the 5 gallon

 

[Rolance]

Ok, It will be sad to see him go though. I even just got him a piece of driftwood to chew on.. Does the driftwood benefit an Otto? I dont even know what they are

 

[Rolance]

Is an Otto the same thing as a Chinese Algea Eater?

 

[armymp327]

oh no, very different, the chinese sucker fish are just bad ime, i used to have 2 thinking they were cool until they literally sucked the mucus off some of my fish

you want Otocinclus Affinis thats the species name, and every LFS should have the species name posted, if they dont i probably would not buy from there because anyone can call a fish by whatever name they want, but the species name stays the same

and well once you get that 20 gallon tank, you can get a bristlenose and let him munch on the drift wood, and my 4 oto's dont really mess with my drift wood, mostly they suck on my live plants or the glass.

 

[Rolance]

Ok thanks for the info. Hopefully i can get this pH right then deal with my overcrowding. If i get an oto should i just get one?

 

[armymp327]

for the 5 gallon id just stick with one, oto's prefer to be in a school of at least three, but it is not totally necessary. and im sure the other tank mates will prefer only have 1 lol. also try to have a place for him to hide, you mentioned driftwood so that should work fine.

 

[Rolance]

This is my tank as of right now. The pleco is behind that rock on the right. I'm planning on getting a live plant or two and maybe one fake glow in the dark plant for that blue light. If I have those 7 glofish and 1 oto you think that should be fine?

 

[armymp327]

if you keep up with the water changes and keep testing the water, then yes it should be fine

 

[ArtesiaWells]

I don't know if this will help or not, and I don't know if someone else mentioned this because I didn't read past the first page of the thread (my apologies if it has been suggested), but from what I understand, tap water is better than distilled water as it contains trace elements that the fish need that may otherwise be "removed" from distilled water; so long as you treat tap water with a good dechlorinator, like the aforementioned Prime, all should be good...

 

[Convict2161]

I don't know if this will help or not, and I don't know if someone else mentioned this because I didn't read past the first page of the thread (my apologies if it has been suggested), but from what I understand, tap water is better than distilled water as it contains trace elements that the fish need that may otherwise be "removed" from distilled water; so long as you treat tap water with a good dechlorinator, like the aforementioned Prime, all should be good...

Yea the issue here was the pH on the OP's tap is way way higher then the water he's using now. 7.2 is the pH now, if the OP switched to tap the pH would jump to 8.2 stressing and most likely killing the fish with such a drastic swing. Prime is a great dechlorinator but will do nothing to help the issue of the pH.

I guess reading the whole thread may of helped... Then again it was stated on the first page which you said you read

(Just breaking your stones )

 

[bobc4d]

I have high pH, between 8.3-8.7, my fish are fine : in 36g cory cats, neon tettras, guppys and a Betta in a 10g.

You could SLOWLY mix in tap water to the water you're using like less than one part tap to ten or more ro you're using

 

[Rolance]

Ok that's what I am going to attempt to do. Hopefully without any casualties. I will keep y'all up to date on how this changing of water type and pH works out. Thanks for all the info people