Ok. So is the percentage of water I'm changing sufficient enough?Well, if you add 7.0 water to 6.0 water, the pH should rise by the percentage of dilution. If your nitrates have climbed from between 5-10 ppm to a definite 10ppm, your water changes aren't diluting it enough. I would suggest twice weekly water changes to help lower it.
I've never been a fan of large volume water changes unless you were doing them from the start. There's too great a risk that the change can be too much for the fish or if the water company plays around with their chemicals for cleaning the pipes, the fish are almost definitely in big trouble. I prefer and have had great success doing more frequent changes of 25%-30% so you are on target for my liking.
If that's a stable pH level, so be it. Better to have stability than messing with it and having swings. Fish and pH are a funny thing. It can change their behavior. I had a case where I had taken 12 small Angelfish from my Mentor's tank and placed them in a new tank. The tank was cycled so the "new" was that it had had no fish yet. All the fish started staring at the back of the tank the next morning. I thought maybe they were looking out the window that was behind the tank so didn't think anything about it. I mentioned it to my mentor that evening and he told me to check the pH and sure enough, it was drastically different than what they came from. I adjusted the pH and all the fish turned around. ( Apparently I had over oxygenated the water which caused the pH to rise. ) So if your fish are eating at the mid and lower level of the tank, that's where you should feed them.
Wow, that’s crazy. So do you have any recommendations for any particular types/brands of food that would help them eat at the middle level of the tank? The only fish that I can see definitely eat well are the two Cory’s and one algae eater that I have. But of course they’re scavenging the gravel like vacuum cleaners. They love those Bug Bites bottom feeder pellets. But all of my different tetras and glass cats are the ones that are mostly in the middle and only eat what may pass them by as it sinks. They used to love the freeze dried brine shrimp but that floats at the surface so they don’t go for it much anymore. Only if some of it hits the path of the filter return and pushes downward a little bit.If that's a stable pH level, so be it. Better to have stability than messing with it and having swings. Fish and pH are a funny thing. It can change their behavior. I had a case where I had taken 12 small Angelfish from my Mentor's tank and placed them in a new tank. The tank was cycled so the "new" was that it had had no fish yet. All the fish started staring at the back of the tank the next morning. I thought maybe they were looking out the window that was behind the tank so didn't think anything about it. I mentioned it to my mentor that evening and he told me to check the pH and sure enough, it was drastically different than what they came from. I adjusted the pH and all the fish turned around. ( Apparently I had over oxygenated the water which caused the pH to rise. ) So if your fish are eating at the mid and lower level of the tank, that's where you should feed them.
If they were eating pellets, choose a slow sinking pellet. Other options include frozen foods ( not freeze dried) or flakes. If you choose flakes, in a cup, moisten them in a cup of tank water then pour them into the tank or use a turkey baster ( $1.00 at the dollar store) and gently blow the flakes into the midwater section for the fish.
