New and frustrated! Tds, ph,gh,kh!

[Corysmitten]

Been running a wee ten gallon to learn on, have been running empty five weeks , ghost feeding and binge watching videos, learning about cycles etc. finally got decent test kits and my tap is a 9 ph, but softened with indian almond leaves and bark and topping off with distilled or RO water, 20% water changes weekly, one nerite snail for couple weeks, one large, three small plants in and around filter, few very small floaters started, and mmy water is now ph 8, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, trace nitrate, kh 80, gh 120, still too high on ph for the pygmy corys (6), amano shrimp (2), and one notopala snail currently in quarantine. They are in ph just under 7 , gh and kh 2. I need to even that out without killing off good bacteria built up in the ten gallon. But now i for first time check tds and ten gallon is mid 600s and qt tanks mid 100s for tds. How do i get the parameters more equal and healthy for their eventual intro to the ten gallon?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Lowering pH, hardness etc is very difficult. These are a function of stuff disolved in the water, and it's difficult to remove stuff that's disolved. It's far easier to increase these parameters because that involves adding stuff.

The sorts of things you are doing in the main tank are having an effect. Honestly the things you are doing is doing is having more of an effect than I'd expect. If you are wanting to push these parameters down even further the only way to do this is through diluting the disolved minerals down further using RO water. Start doing your water changes with RO, and when your parameters are where you want them figure out what mix of tap water/ RO water will maintain that level for your regular water changes. A 50/50 mix should halve the TDS/ hardness of your tap water.

There are significant differences between your main tank and QT and I would look at what's different between these 2. Different substrate? Different water change routine? Any chemical media in one and not the other? Etc.

You haven't mentioned water hardness or TDS from the tap. And your pH of 9 from the tap, how are you measuring this? You need to let tap water sit for 24 hours before testing pH so that gas content (in particular CO2) can equalise with atmospheric content and ensure you are measuring pH in the tanks and your tap in similar conditions.

You are also reporting KH 80 + GH 120 in the main tank and KH + GH as 2 in the QT. That's a huge difference. Are these both the same unit? ppm or degrees? 1 degree is about 18ppm.

 

[Corysmitten]

Thanks for writing. The two tanks are very different because i had the qt tanks set up with better parameters than my ten and then we ended up under a boil water advisery and so i relied on purchased r/o water a lot for the week they have been here.
Sorry for the confusion in my reporting! The 120 and 180 for kh and gh was off of strips as that was all i had till api test kit arrived then the 2 was in drops counted. I hadn’t found the chart in directions yet for what it was in ppm.
The qt tank has no substrate just some fake rocks stacked together they like going in , under and around few fake plants and couple real rocks. It has been running 5 days before they arrived and about week now they been in it. So it is not a cycled tank. The ten is cycled.
I do have real rocks in the ten. I immersed each one and eliminated any that had any hint of fizz. The p.h. Was measured by test kit as i had a kit with that test and yes after sitting 24 hours.

Anyway i have done a water change of 15% using r/o water into the ten and put water from the ten into the qt tank at about 12%.
I didnt do more tests on aged tap water because of the boil advisory.
I did test boiled water and r/o water fifty percent as you suggested and think that is going to be good long term. Just need to keep nudging the tanks towards the goal of introduction.
How much tolerance range is there in corys, snail and amanos? Do i need parameters spot on or is there some allowance for some species on some of the parameters?
Hope i am making sense!

 

[Aiken Drum]

1 drop is 1 degree of hardness. 1 degree of hardness is 17.9ppm. 20ppm/ degree is good enough. The conversion chart is hidden at the back of the instructions manual.

When you see those parameters for each individual fish species, they are given for wild caught fish. Most fish sold through the trade are farmed in asia, so they will have been bred and raised in different water parameters from their wild environment and farmed fish are going to be more tolerant of less than ideal parameters. If you have concerns, ask your supplier if the fish are wild caught, farmed or bred locally. Ask if the store is using a local water supply to keep their fish for sale and see if their parameters are similar to yours. If the store water is significantly different make sure you have a good acclimation process when adding new fish to your aquariums. Fish will have some degree of tolerance to non ideal parameters, but the further you are from ideal the less well they will do. I keep cardinal tetras in moderately hard water and they prefer softer acidic water. I can keep them 12 to 18 months, maybe a couple of years. In more ideal water parameters no reason they wouldn't live 3 or 4 years. My panda corys similarly prefer softer more acidic water and they thrive in my harder water, breed etc.

The only way to know in your particular circumstance is to give it a go. But its almost always better to match fish to your water rather than trying to adjust water to suit the fish. Keeping parameters stable is far more important than trying to attain what you might perceive as being ideal. And trying to adjust parameters isn't going to give you that stability. If your water parameters are wildly out, and you are set on keeping specific fish then some adjustment is going to be beneficial.

 

[Corysmitten]

Thank you! Your time to do this is deeply appreciated! So far all are alive and look good so will follow up with the aquarium i got them from! Thanks!