Hi, I'm a new fish enthusiast here and I was wondering if I could get opinions on what I should do about my water chemistry.
First off about my tank, I spent 6 weeks doing a fishless cycle and recently finished it last week. It is a 29 gallon freshwater tank and I have 2 orandas and 4 nerite snails. I also have some plants: 2 water sprites, 2 anubias, a few water cabbages, 2 amazon swords, and a java fern. I'm running a fluval 206 canister filter and an aquaclear 30 hang on back filter for filtration.
Things are looking pretty good at the moment but I was wondering if I can get opinions about optimizing the water that I use.
I'm currently using just tap water and it is pretty hard with a high pH and some nitrates. I'm currently using the API testing kits to test for ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, pH, KH, and GH. I also use Prime to condition the water.
Tap Water:
pH: 8.2
KH: 12
GH: 11
Nitrates: 20 ppm
When I actually test my tank water after about a week, my pH is actually higher than my tap at around 8.4 or so. To me, it seems like this is a little on the high end. After doing research online, I'm seeing various opinions about this: just let the fish get used to the pH, mixing tap water with RO water/distilled water/spring water, or using something like peat granules in a reservoir tank. The only thing that I can really find that is unanimous is to not use chemicals to lower the pH.
Given my specific situation, what do you guys suggest I should try to do?
Thanks!
First off about my tank, I spent 6 weeks doing a fishless cycle and recently finished it last week. It is a 29 gallon freshwater tank and I have 2 orandas and 4 nerite snails. I also have some plants: 2 water sprites, 2 anubias, a few water cabbages, 2 amazon swords, and a java fern. I'm running a fluval 206 canister filter and an aquaclear 30 hang on back filter for filtration.
Things are looking pretty good at the moment but I was wondering if I can get opinions about optimizing the water that I use.
I'm currently using just tap water and it is pretty hard with a high pH and some nitrates. I'm currently using the API testing kits to test for ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, pH, KH, and GH. I also use Prime to condition the water.
Tap Water:
pH: 8.2
KH: 12
GH: 11
Nitrates: 20 ppm
When I actually test my tank water after about a week, my pH is actually higher than my tap at around 8.4 or so. To me, it seems like this is a little on the high end. After doing research online, I'm seeing various opinions about this: just let the fish get used to the pH, mixing tap water with RO water/distilled water/spring water, or using something like peat granules in a reservoir tank. The only thing that I can really find that is unanimous is to not use chemicals to lower the pH.
Given my specific situation, what do you guys suggest I should try to do?
Thanks!
