Parameters are...

[roydooms]

Usually people will advice for you to get fish depending on your tap water's pH level, if your water is hard or soft. It is ideal to not mess with those and just get fish that prefers whatever your water conditions are. Test your tap water. Put some tap water in a container or something and let it stand for 24hours and check it. I think that chlorine and chloramine affects your pH and letting it stand for a day will diffuse those chemicals. Test your pH after and see if it's going to be different.

 

[Flossie]

It's fine, but if you're testing right out of the tap, let it set for 24hrs and see what it is. Betcha it drops to 7.8 .

Well i tested it out of the tap and also in my aquarium.. so IDK...LOL but I could try and let it set in something and retest

 

[Flossie]

Usually people will advice for you to get fish depending on your tap water's pH level, if your water is hard or soft. It is ideal to not mess with those and just get fish that prefers whatever your water conditions are. Test your tap water. Put some tap water in a container or something and let it stand for 24hours and check it. I think that chlorine and chloramine affects your pH and letting it stand for a day will diffuse those chemicals. Test your pH after and see if it's going to be different.

I tested straight out of the tap today and out of the aquarium a while ago... i can check the aquarium again. If It stays 8.2 I have no idea what kind of fish to get for the 10g lol ??

 

[roydooms]

Do you have soft or hard water? It will also depend on that. Not just the pH level. Do you have a gH test kit?

 

[Flossie]

Do you have soft or hard water? It will also depend on that. Not just the pH level. Do you have a gH test kit?

I do not have a DH kit... you think the store could test for that???

 

[Flossie]

i had some tiger barbs in there for about a month... none of them died... Idk... Newbie..still...

 

[roydooms]

I do not have a DH kit... you think the store could test for that???

I'm not sure if they'll do that. You can get it for less than $10. It's a "GH"test kit.

 

[Batt4Christ]

Any ammo and it will spike with the addition of fish. Though it might be better than starting from scratch w/a full tank of fish... I really would wait until the ammonia levels fall off the test kit.

 

[roydooms]

I'd give it another day or 2 before adding new fish just to make sure that ammonia will stay at 0ppm.

 

[Flossie]

Any ammo and it will spike with the addition of fish. Though it might be better than starting from scratch w/a full tank of fish... I really would wait until the ammonia levels fall off the test kit.

I think the ammo is zero... I wasn't reading the test right

 

[Flossie]

I'm not sure if they'll do that. You can get it for less than $10. It's a "GH"test kit.

Okay.. I haven't seen one but I guess bc I wasn't looking... lol Thanks

 

[Flossie]

I probably will wait a couple more days thanks guys

 

[roydooms]

Anytime

 

[Rosenweiss]

Agreed that high pH is fine for almost all fish.

Just make sure to do a slow acclimation, adding small amounts of tank water to bag water before netting the fish out. Do it several times over an hour to two hours.

More fish die from pH shock than temp shock! Otherwise they should be fine!

 

[Flossie]

Agreed that high pH is fine for almost all fish.

Just make sure to do a slow acclimation, adding small amounts of tank water to bag water before netting the fish out. Do it several times over an hour to two hours.

More fish die from pH shock than temp shock! Otherwise they should be fine!

Thanks so much... Thats what I thought but I'm not very wise on the aquariums just yet lol I'm pretty sure my water is hard but idk...

 

[Rosenweiss]

Yeah, I used to dump too. Unfortunately I learned that dumping the water is actually very bad, because fish store water can be full of harmful germs and parasites!

So after you acclimate, gently net them in and that should work fine.

 

[Flossie]

Yeah, I used to dump too. Unfortunately I learned that dumping the water is actually very bad, because fish store water can be full of harmful germs and parasites!

So after you acclimate, gently net them in and that should work fine.

Wow that's really good to know thanks

 

[roydooms]

"Drip acclimation" is a great method as well to acclimate new fish. I prefer doing this.

 

[Flossie]

"Drip acclimation" is a great method as well to acclimate new fish. I prefer doing this.

Great thank y'all I'm learning so much

 

[mudraker]

Sounds like you are on your way, just wait a few days.

Are you still looking at African cichlids?

You might want to look at SA instead. Africans have very specific water parameter needs (depending on what lake their wild forfathers came from) that usually require an advanced knowledge of water chemistry to achieve.