Frusterated and Confused on Ph!

[Michelle4698]

okay so i set up my fish tank about a week ago, i switched from gold fish to tropical. Apparently i dont have much luck with goldfish =(. so i set up my aquariam, put neon rocks at the bottom and three medium sized decorations, i also have a fake plant, a water heater and a filter. i have around 8 little fish in a 10 gallon tank. among those 8 fish i have about 3 guppies and they just dont want to stay alive! Petstuff refused to give me fish because they claim i have enough for now. LAME so i went to petco and vented my story. i bought some more guppies and within about 2 days, they were struggling to stay alive. i went back with a water sample and my poor colorfull guppies and she said my PH was fairly high. but everything else was great. She told me to get my ph down i need to siphon my tank and the rocks. is this true? will this really help or am i wasting my time? is this why my guppies are dying? and if this will work how many times a month should i do this? thanks for all answers!

 

[Joker741]

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forum...-but-i-already-have-fish-what-now-116287.html

 

[DizzCat]

Petstuff refused to give me fish because they claim i have enough for now. LAME

Not lame, if your tank has not been set up at least 2 months they are right. They gave good advice. You are pretty maxed out in fish numbers now. Even after it has cycled 8 grown fish is a big load for a 10 gallon.

How long has the tank been running? How often do you do a water change? A tank is really not stable enough for more than one or 2 hardy fish until it has been up and running at least a month, sometimes longer. And then you need to SLOWLY add fish, 1 or two at a time so the good bacteria can keep up with the extra ammonia levels the new fish create. You need to cycle that tank. Your fish are probably dying from ammonia spikes, especially if you are not doing water changes, the tank is only a week old and you have at least 8 fish in it. I am no good at explaining the chemical changes, etc that go on in a cycle, but I am sure others can tell you.

You should be doing at least a 20% water change once a week. This includes vacuuming the substrate to remove any uneaten food and fish poop. If you need to clean out the filter media, do not rinse it under tap water. Swish it out in tank water. If you clean it in tap water you will kill off the good bacteria that keep ammonia levels down. If you are not doing this chances are your fish are dying from lack of tank maintenance.

 

[DizzCat]

I just learned about cycling but I already have fish. What now?!

The best thing to do is get at least an ammonia testing kit and test at least once a day. If you see any numbers but 0 on

ammonia​

, do a 30% water change. That is about all you can really do. Do a water change, maybe 20% twice a week until your testing numbers are stable.

 

[thincat]

dizzCat...+1...good advice

 

[happygirl65]

So sorry to hear you are struggling. It can be frustrating at first.
Basically the following things could be happening here...
1. Your cycle is not complete (or it may have started over)
2. There is some kind of disease in the tank.
3. Something is effecting water quality in a way that was not tested for.

The first one is the most likely which is why the previous posters are suggesting reading the nitrogen cycle information (all good info) but if you are like me you want to know what you can do right now to help your fish.

First, hold off on putting any new fish in until you figure out the problem and second, buy a liquid test kit so that you can test you own water and not have to rely on LFS employees. They likely only tested for pH and ammonia and you are probably well into the second phase of your cycle where ammonia is no longer measureable but nitrite is spiking and killing your fish. The other possibility is that your cycle is complete but since you have had goldfish in there and perhaps not vacuumed the gravel the nitrates may be too high which is also harmful to fish in high levels.

Don't worry about the pH. The important thing is a consistent pH, not a magic number. You are more likely to have a consistent pH if you do not add anything (like pH down products) to alter it.

You say that a week ago you switched from goldfish to tropical....how long was the goldfish tank up and running and did you clean the tank in between or did you you just add tropicals?
Did you stop keeping goldies for a specific reason? Did they also keep dying like the guppies?

If you can not get a test kit right away you can still do daily water changes but how much you should do depends on where the true problem lies.
If the problem is the tank is still cycling....then do 30-40% daily changes for a couple of weeks
If the problem is too high of nitrates then you should do smaller changes, like 10%
If the problem is some mysterious unidentified illness then you should do larger changes
If you are able to get a test kit, posting your readings would be helpful.
Ammonia
Nitrite
Nitrate
How frequently do you do water changes?
Do you use a decholorinator with water changes?
We are happy to help, just need a little more info. Don't let this little setback get you discouraged we have all been there.
Best wishes!