Recent content by NRB

Hey Doug, Nice to meet you! I'm assuming the PA in your name is for Pennsylvania? I live in the York/ Lancaster area, just wondering where you're from?

You are going to have a hard time finding something exotic for a 6 gallon tank. Neons are probably the fish that will fit the best with the coolest coloring. I used to have a 5 gallon in my office with neons and cherry shrimp and they did very well together.

Do you have any other fish in the tank? Cory catfish are a schooling fish, so they like to be in groups. With a 10 gallon you won't be able to add too many, but at least 2-3 would be good. If your tank is newly setup, you will have to do water changes regularly at least 25% daily. If you can...

Hi Lexi, Glad you found the culprit :) I'm not sure there is really much you can do to fix the problem. There are natural ways to lower KH, but I think doing so may cause a major shift in your parameters and stress out your fish. As long as they are active, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

The substrate and plants shouldn't be affecting your water. The only thing I could see would be the castle and arch. Have they been in there since you setup the tank, or added recently? I would try removing them, do a partial water change, test your pH again and see if it starts to rise? KH...

Fin rot is normally caused by poor water conditions. I would try to do more regular water changes until the fins start to repair themselves. I never had much luck with fish medicine. Aquarium salt can help as long as you don't have any other fish in your tank that are sensitive.

Hi Lexi, Couple of questions for you: How long has your tank been setup and is it cycled? What type of substrate do you have? Any decorations, if so are they natural ( rocks or driftwood) or man-made? Can you test your tap water to see what the pH of that is? Also, if you have a KH test...

If it's only been a week it most likely is a bacterial bloom. Just be patient, It can take a week or so to clear. Don't try to clean your tank or change anything it can prolong the problem. If you need to do water changes to keep your ammonia or nitrites low, then do that.

The safest way to cycle your tank, would be to use the fishless cycling method. You can find a lot of info on here or on the internet. Basically, you just add fish food every day or every other and the beneficial bacteria will form to break down the ammonia created by the food. A test kit works...

What are you using to test your ph, strips or liquid? A ph of 4 seems very low, especially if your tap water is closer to 7. I would recommend using the API master test kit. Test your ph with that and you may also want to get the kh test as well. I would then test tank water and tap water and...

I don't think there is a set calculation for days. There are a lot of factors involved: Type of filter, type of filter media, size of tank, etc.. 5 days seems really quick to already seeing a large nitrite spike, but it's not a bad thing. Normally the entire process takes about a month to...

I add argonite to my canister filter because I have two huge pieces of driftwood, and it was lowering my ph too low for my fish. Since I've added it, the ph holds steady just below neutral. If you are concerned about the affects of driftwood or certain substrates, you should get the API kh & gh...

You can replace the carbon pad every month or two. The plastic piece in the filter should not be cleaned anymore than a quick rinse in tank water. If you scrub it you will lose the bacteria. The other place the bacteria grows is in the substrate. When you clean the tank, only clean half the...

If your angels are new to the tank, it may take them a little bit to get used to things. When I add new fish it takes a couple of days for them to coming up with the other fish to feed. If they get hungry they will get in on the action. As for the sex of the angels. I'm not an expert on this...

Hi Dan89, Are you looking for info on equipment as well as plants and fish, or do you already have the tank, filter, lights, etc.?