Matt B
Aquarium Advice Newbie
Hi folks,
I have a guppy tank that I set up before I was fully aware of how fine an art water chemistry is. When I set the tank up I added a couple of handfulls of crushed coral and a couple of fist size lumps of tufa rock, now the tank is a few degrees harder (GH) than the tap water but still not quite of an optimum hardness for guppies.
If I add some more crushed coral gradually to get the gh/kh up a bit more, is it ok to then treat the tap water im using during a water change with some bicarb and epsom salts - or will this harden the tank even further?
At the moment Im battling nitrates due to a slight population explosion by performing daily water changes, however I noticed the fish are a bit unhappy directly after a change of water for a few hours - I was advised by someone on an another forum it may be due to the TDS levels being so different between tap and tank, something I was unaware of until earlier this week when I got my gh/kh test kit and TDS meter.
Cheers all
Tank water - Thursday 12th July 2012
Daily water changes at 17%
342ppm - TDS
35.8 - 40ppm (2 or 3 drops kh)
89.5 - 95ppm (5 or 6 drops gh)
PH 8.1
Tap water
PH 7.6
114ppm - TDS
35.8ppm (KH)
35.8ppm (GH)
Edit:
I was going to be setting up a second tank to split the population males and females. Im wondering now if it wouldn't be a bad idea to get the tanks around the same level and just move all the fish to the bigger (new) tank and then start from scratch without the tufa and coral with the old tank, since they have quite a variable effect on chemistry dependant on acidity
I have a guppy tank that I set up before I was fully aware of how fine an art water chemistry is. When I set the tank up I added a couple of handfulls of crushed coral and a couple of fist size lumps of tufa rock, now the tank is a few degrees harder (GH) than the tap water but still not quite of an optimum hardness for guppies.
If I add some more crushed coral gradually to get the gh/kh up a bit more, is it ok to then treat the tap water im using during a water change with some bicarb and epsom salts - or will this harden the tank even further?
At the moment Im battling nitrates due to a slight population explosion by performing daily water changes, however I noticed the fish are a bit unhappy directly after a change of water for a few hours - I was advised by someone on an another forum it may be due to the TDS levels being so different between tap and tank, something I was unaware of until earlier this week when I got my gh/kh test kit and TDS meter.
Cheers all
Tank water - Thursday 12th July 2012
Daily water changes at 17%
342ppm - TDS
35.8 - 40ppm (2 or 3 drops kh)
89.5 - 95ppm (5 or 6 drops gh)
PH 8.1
Tap water
PH 7.6
114ppm - TDS
35.8ppm (KH)
35.8ppm (GH)
Edit:
I was going to be setting up a second tank to split the population males and females. Im wondering now if it wouldn't be a bad idea to get the tanks around the same level and just move all the fish to the bigger (new) tank and then start from scratch without the tufa and coral with the old tank, since they have quite a variable effect on chemistry dependant on acidity
Last edited: