Red Tail Dead! Sand 8.0 pH ?!?!?!

[AlonelyCody]

A week ago I redid one of my 10 gallon tanks. I bought some playground sand at Home Depo, cleaned it and put it in the tank. I have had a Mosquito fish in the tank for 4 days. She is doing fine. Yesterday I put my Red Tailed Shark in the tank he seemed to be a little stressed out. But an hour later he seemed to be doing fine. I went to the library to get some book on fish and when I got home he was no were in the tank. So I started looking for him and found him under the stand, dead. I took a water sample to the LFS to get it tested, I am currently out of tested strips. Everything looked really good except the pH it was at 8.0, that is to high of a pH for a red tailed shark. From the info I have found there max pH is 7.5 not that far from 8.0 but was it enough to stress him out and make him jump? I have Cichlid sand mix in my Cichlid tank and the ph is at 8.0 the sand is supposed to make it that way and keep it at that. So the 10g tank I have set up with sand in it, will the pH drop? Should I or could I use Ph down or would that be a temp fix? or what should I do? I don't have many fish that like that pH besides that Cichlids. Any help on this would be wonderful. Thanks :?

 

[grimlock3000]

What process did you go through to put the new sand in? You could have un-cycled your tank with a substrate switch. Did you check the water parameters BEFORE putting the shark in? Did you acclimate the shark when you changed tanks?

"I am currently out of tested strips"

This should be a warning to everything reading this thread. Do _not_ mess around with tanks when you do not know what the parameters are. Not having test strips is not an excuse for killing fish.

 

[jaysono]

From what other have said here on this forum, my own personal experience, and my local LFS guy, Ph Down does just about nothing. I was recommended to use 'Proper Ph 7.0', a satchel...I'm told it does better than liquid PH down, but otehr here are dead set against adding anything except de-chlorinator and teh occasional med.

The Ph scale from what I understand is similar to the Richter scale. Every notch up or down is the equivelent of 10x. Your Ph should not swing more than .2 every 24 hours....Guys correct me if I'm wrong.

You may want to go to your local lfs store and look into buying RO water if need be and do a water change if your using tap (this time of year, your municipal water supply usually ups the ante on chlorine additives). There are some other articles advice on here that shows that the tannis from 'natural' driftwood will lower Ph over time, but sounds like you need a quick fix. So back to water change it sounds like.

 

[RogerMcAllen]

You are correct about not using the pH down, lower the pH slowly with water changes. Also, as agrimlock aleady asked, what are you other params?

 

[AlonelyCody]

amo .25
nitrite .05
nitrate 10
alk 120
harness 80
pH first test was 7.2 5 days after setup.
second test was 8.0 7 days after setup

and yes i knew better than to do anything with out test strips. i am the one in fault and i feel really bad about it. i had the water tested the day before and when i had it retested everything was the same except the pH it had jumped. i put a mosquito fish in the tank 3 days after setup to help with the cycling. I am thinking i should have left the tank the way it was.

 

[flipz]

AlonelyClod... your tank is not cycled. I'm sorry to say it but unless your ammonia and nitrites are dead 0, your tank is NOT fully cycled. And nitrates are safe up until about 40, which you are fine with. The LFS should not have told you your tank is fine except ph, because it's not.

Also if you are going to by a test kit, get a liquid test kit as they are much more accurate than the test strips. The strips are better than nothing, but liquid is really the way to go.

-brent

 

[AlonelyCody]

AlonelyClod??????? and what are you trying to say?

OK...I have never seen a tank where the ammonia and nitrites are at 0. i have a freind that sets up tanks and maintans tanks, and he has never seen it also. i have only had my nitrates at 40 onces..but they normaly are around 10 - 20. I have tested the water from all the pet shops around me and there tank conditions are off the scales.

I have liquid ammonia test and i like it. I will agree it is less expeansev and more accurate.

so how do you suggest geting the ammonia and nitrites at 0 i have never been able to do it. and have been told by many people that they have never seen anyone do it and what my conditions were was fine.

 

[grimlock3000]

Technically, the ammonia and nitrites will never be at a literal 0, because they have to exist for a short ammount of time to get processed into nitrates. Having said that, the exist in such a small level it is all but undetectable in a fully cycled tank, and .25 on the ammo reading is certainly detectable...

 

[jaysono]

Yes, it's very hard to get them to zero,...I think the moral is really to strive to achieve zero. Anytime you can test for amonia, and it's present in the tank, you should take action to eliminate it...a dog chasing its tail no less :|

I personally was doing fin with amonia at .25ppm, and it recently climbed to .5ppm. I took action using Ammo-Lock, a water change, and vacuuming my garvel, and...voila...it was back down. My fish seemed okay at .5ppm, but I think realistically for most hobbyist's (and I'm sure I'll get flamed), don't beat yourself up if you can't get zero.

Ph is so tricky as well, and as you change one parameter, you 'most likely' will change other readings as well. I'm struggling right now with Ph at about 7.8. Ph down did nothing for me...it was a waste of money as far as I was concerned. I also noted my tap water was a little hard. I stared with 16 gal tap water, and over time, I'm about 13 gal tap now 3 gal RO. Over the next two days, I plan on removing yet more tap, and adding more RO, hopefully reducing my Hardness and Ph at the same time.

But I do think you need to get a liquid test asap, and write down everything you do the next few days and test daily at about the same time. I say test every 24 hours. I still say that anything more than a .2 change in Ph over 24-30 hours may prove a bit stressful on the fish. So if your 8.0 today, shoot for 7.8 by Thursday, maybe 7.6-7.7 by the weekend.

 

[grimlock3000]

"I personally was doing fin with amonia at .25ppm, and it recently climbed to .5ppm. I took action using Ammo-Lock, a water change, and vacuuming my garvel, and...voila...it was back down. My fish seemed okay at .5ppm, but I think realistically for most hobbyist's (and I'm sure I'll get flamed), don't beat yourself up if you can't get zero. "

To have had a spike to .5 in the first place, something would have already had to have been out of whack to begin with. Unless you figure out WHY it went up, you haven't actually solved anything, you just pushed it under the rug.

 

[AlonelyCody]

OK....sounds good i am going to go and get some testing stuff...and should i do a 20% water change or just wait and see what it does? see if it stays at 8.0 or rises or lowers?


yes .25 is noticable. i have tested my tanks befor and it was some where between .25 and 0 but i really couldn't tell because it was faint. it was closer to 0 than .25.

thanks for the info.

 

[Cichlidguy]

I dont think he jumped because the water quality was bad. I keep my rainbow shark in a pH of 7.8 and he doesn't mind at all. Sometimes fish just jump for the sake of jumping.

 

[jaysono]

Actually I believe I did solve it:

I went from 3 Danio's to 4, adding a little more urea and waste product to begin with. I also switched to TetraMin Flakes, where I notcied that some flakes would sink to the bottom during feeding, and it woudl take the fish slightly longer to locate and gobble up, thus leaving uneaten food (albeit very small) on the bottom of my tank. Lastly I attrribute some percentage to the fact my local LFS guy (owner of lfs for 15+ years) told me not to change the water for a a bit more than a week.

Since I do monitor my water.....I noted the problem and took coorective action: 1) Water change back into play despite conflicting advice, 2) vacuum gravel to rid of excess food debris, 3) Ammo-lock. Tonight I will continue with another small water change and measure yet again, but my actions did indeed lower the readings.

Grim, you must realize that as hobbyists, we all are at different levels of expertise and experience. Some like to learn through trial and error, while others may disagree. And in no way, shape, or form is this directed to you....just an observation I've made the last few days.

To be blunt, advice whether it comes from your lfs, or this helpful board can confuse any hobbyist. I find a lot of contridictory advice on here. For newbies, even like myself, this board can be intimidating when you pose a question, and the responses are more like a lecture from your parents than empathy and helpfullness. There are times I feel like I am being talked 'down' to here by the 'self-proclaimed' experts. Bottom line is I'm a noob, I enjoy the hobby, and I want to make friends here and seek advice....not to seem inferior.

::Hugs all around::

 

[grimlock3000]

So you did indeed figure out the problem and solved it to boot. You just never said that initially From your initial post it seemed like the ammo just sort of went up with no reason, thus prompting my response to let you know you still had something going on. One thing you will notice on this forum is that A LOT of people post up incomplete or inaccurate information and get undesired responses as a result. Anyway, do not let me scare you away, you have been a good addition to the board, and are showing very good habits

As far as the flake food goes, try picking up some OSI or Omega One flake food when you run out of Tetramin. It seems to float around a bit better and end up in a fishes mouth more than the rocks. I have noticed a lot less food in the rocks after switching food.

 

[Maillis]

If you can't get Omega One or OSI, try Tetra Pro if you like the tetra products, it doesn't disintigrate as quick as the normal Tetramin stuff.

 

[smilla4]

Alonelycody (or "clod" was that a freudian slip?? ), I was wondering what it says on the packaging of the sand you bought - ie silica? I don't know if there perhaps could be something that would cause the ph to rise...

BTW What was the ph before you redid the tank?

Do you have other tanks? What is their pH?

You might also want to test the pH of the tap water after it's been standing out overnight.

From what I understand, the pH doesn't have to be perfect (ie 7.0). I wouldn't recommend using chemicals as that can create problems (too many shifts in pH). It might be easier to find fish that can acclimate to the pH you already have (I can't comment on the cichlids, I know nothing about them). I don't know enough to make suggestions. But I think there have been other threads on this.

As for the Red Tailed Shark The baench aquarium atlas states "use soft to medium hard water (to 15° dGH and ph 7.0)". It also says that they're loners, they're aggressive, and need hiding places, and place(s) to stake out as their territory. It also mentions they need a min of a 31" long tank. (Did I read that right? That seems a rather odd length. A 29Gal is 30".)

For it to jump perhaps it was stressed by the new environment, the ammonia and nitrates, the mosquitofish... I guess you don't have a lid?


-----

Yes, it's very hard to get them to zero,...I think the moral is really to strive to achieve zero. Anytime you can test for amonia, and it's present in the tank, you should take action to eliminate it...a dog chasing its tail no less

Funny, it never occured to me that it could be difficult. Once my tank cycled they've both been undetectable (I am a noob who started ~1 year ago). I think that took approx 6 weeks. I've been performing regular water changes and gravel vacuuming. And I have a ghost shrimp that would take care of any excess food at the bottom.

Perhaps that can also be due to having plants in the tank. It is my understanding so far that they can utilize ammonia in some form, as well as nitrates. I've heard breeders keep hornwort floating in breeder tanks to keep the ammonia down.

 

[AlonelyCody]

I am not sure if it was a slip.LOL

it did not say it was silica sand. that made me wonder.

the pH befor i redid the tank was 7.4

yes i have other tanks and the pH in them are: 55g 7.4, 30g cichlid tank is 8.0, 10g 7.4 .

I have some fish that i can put in the tank if it doesn't change. and yes the red tailed shark is very agresive and needs terratories.

Hornswart..humm that is what i took out of the tank when i redid it. maybe i should put it back in.

I have only had one incodent when the pH has ever gotin over .25 and that was because i had my feeder fish in the tank.

I have a hood on it but there is a space in the back where the hang on the back filter is at that i think i might need to cover up.

 

[smilla4]

Unless there's something else in the tank that could have brought the pH up (like a rock), perhaps it was the sand.

To be honest, if that's the case, I don't know how long it will remain that way. Months? Years? Perhaps someone will know. At least you can work with it either way...

Did you change your sig, or did I completely miss that you had other tanks!

That sucks, sneaky fish. I don't know how they squeeze out of small spaces like that!

 

[AlonelyCody]

Update.

amo .15
nitrite .05
nitrate 10
alk 120
harness 80
pH 7.8

so the pH and the ammona has droped a little. WooHoo...

my cam isn't the best but this is what the tank is looking like.

 

[jaysono]

I'd actually like to know what test kits you are using. They seem to have more detailed or smaller increments of measurment than mine.

Thanks,

-Jayson