somnomania
Aquarium Advice Newbie
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2012
- Messages
- 4
Okay, so I have a five gallon tank with a Whisper filter and a heater and a male betta fish. When I set the tank up, I had purchased three live plants from Petsmart along with the fish. I was fortunate that the two taller plants actually had two separate plants within each tube. I planted all of them, but within a month one of the taller plants had completely died, and it turned to mush when I tried to pull it out of the tank. None of the remaining ones seem to be growing at all, just surviving. I wanted more plants, so I bought one of the $3.99 TopFin packages of bulbs, guaranteed to grow within thirty days. I got at least ten viable-looking bulbs out of it, and was hopeful that at least some of them would grow, but it's been at least thirty days and none of them have done anything at all. In addition, when I bought the betta I also bought three neon tetras to keep him company, and they have all died of mysterious natural causes since then, one at a time, after being apparently healthy the day before. I've found all of them dead and plastered to the underside of the heater.
I took a water sample to Petsmart to get it tested for free, and my ammonia and nitrates/nitrites were fine, but I was told that the pH and alkalinity were both out the roof. The betta doesn't seem to mind, but I'm wondering if this is what's keeping the plants from doing anything, and if so, what do I do about it? I am on well water, and I get water from an outside faucet that bypasses our water conditioner, because I have experienced gradual but inevitable fish death if I use the conditioned water. Any advice anyone can provide would be a huge help; I could take advantage of the offer on the bulb packaging, which says that if they don't grow I can send them back in exchange for new ones, but I'm really not sure that would make a difference. These all looked fine, intact and with some visible thready roots, so what's the problem?
I took a water sample to Petsmart to get it tested for free, and my ammonia and nitrates/nitrites were fine, but I was told that the pH and alkalinity were both out the roof. The betta doesn't seem to mind, but I'm wondering if this is what's keeping the plants from doing anything, and if so, what do I do about it? I am on well water, and I get water from an outside faucet that bypasses our water conditioner, because I have experienced gradual but inevitable fish death if I use the conditioned water. Any advice anyone can provide would be a huge help; I could take advantage of the offer on the bulb packaging, which says that if they don't grow I can send them back in exchange for new ones, but I'm really not sure that would make a difference. These all looked fine, intact and with some visible thready roots, so what's the problem?