Your tap water is free of nitrite, nitrate, has virtually no
GH or
KH and very low TA (total alkalinity?), and the pH is acidic.
Your aquarium water is similar except the
GH,
KH and pH have gone up a little bit, but the TA has gone up a lot. This is probably caused by the Continuum Aquatics
KH+ buffer. It increases the
KH of the water, which pushes the pH up a bit and it would appear it also pushes the TA up a lot. You could try adding less of the
KH buffer and the TA should not go up as much.
If you are keeping tetras and other fishes from soft acid water, you probably don't even need to add the
KH buffer. If you are adding the buffer directly to the aquarium while there are fish in it, you could be causing a sudden rise in TA, which is harming the fish. A fluctuating pH can also harm the fish.
SeaChem Prime neutralises chlorine/ chloramine in tap water and won't be causing the TA to go up.
The microbe lift nite-out starter bacteria is a filter bacteria supplement that helps to speed up the cycling process in the aquarium. I recommend adding a double dose every day for a week and then pour the remaining contents into the tank, or put the rest in the fridge. Try to add it near the filter intake so it gets drawn into the filter where it belongs. This product should not affect pH,
GH,
KH or TA either.
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OLD TANK SYNDROME AND REGULAR WATER CHANGES
If you didn't do regular (at least once every 2 weeks) water changes on your old tank, you could have had old tank syndrome. This is where the pH drops over time due to nitric acid and other pollutants, and the nitrates go up. When you moved house, the fish went from water with potentially a very low pH and high nitrate, to water with no nitrate and a slightly higher pH. This can kill fish.
When water evaporates, it leaves all the minerals and nutrients behind. Only pure water evaporates out. If you just top up the aquarium each week, the nutrients and minerals gradually build up over time and the fish can deal with it to a degree. However, it does stress them and if you add new fish, they usually die shortly after behing added, while the original occupants appear fine.
In tanks with old tank syndrome, fish will normally die off one at a time for no apparent reason and most people assume it was old age or just the fish's time. Sometimes this is true, most times it isn't. The water quality deteriorates to a degree that eventually all the fish do eventually die from poor water quality.
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All aquariums should get regular partial water changes for a number of reasons.
1) to reduce nutrients like ammonia, nitrite & nitrate.
2) to dilute disease organisms in the water.
3) to keep the pH,
KH and
GH stable.
4) to dilute nitric acid produced by fish food and waste breaking down.
5) to dilute stress chemicals (pheromones/ allomones) released by the fish.
6) to dilute un-used plant fertiliser so you don't overdose the fish when you add more.
7) to remove fish waste and other rotting organic matter.
Fish live in a soup of microscopic organisms including bacteria, fungus, viruses, protozoans, worms, flukes and various other things that make your skin crawl. Doing a big water change and gravel cleaning the substrate on a regular basis will dilute these organisms and reduce their numbers in the water, thus making it a safer and healthier environment for the fish.
If you do a 25% water change each week you leave behind 75% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 50% water change each week you leave behind 50% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 75% water change each week you leave behind 25% of the bad stuff in the water.
Imagine living in your house with no windows, doors, toilet, bathroom or anything. You eat and poop in the environment and have no clean air. Eventually you end up living in your own filth, which would probably be made worse by you throwing up due to the smell. You would get sick very quickly and probably die unless someone came to clean up regularly and open the place up to let in fresh air.
Fish live in their own waste. Their tank and filter is full of fish poop. The water they breath is filtered through fish poop. Cleaning filters, gravel and doing big regular water changes, removes a lot of this poop and harmful micro-organisms, and makes the environment cleaner and healthier for the fish.
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The brown algae could be diatoms, which regularly appear in newly set up tanks. They normally go away when things have stabilised. It could also be blue green algae (Cyanobacter bacteria), which is a photosynthetic bacteria that can occur in any aquarium and spreads rapidly over stuff. It grows in a film/ sheet and can appear in a range of colours including dark blue, dark green, brown, black, purple, pink and red. It loves red light, nutrients, slow moving water and low oxygen levels.
If you let the brown algae grow a bit and then post another picture of it, we might have more idea of what it is. You can also see if it lifts off in a sheet/ film and smells musty mouldy. If it does lift off in a sheet and smells musty, then it is blue green algae.
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