Hi, I was just wanting to confirm the issues with my water parameters and hopefully confirm the advice the internet gave me.
We’ve had the tank a couple of months. We’ve recently added driftwood with some anubias, have ferns and mosses. I’ve also recently added red root floater and frog bit with a small pothos plant either submerged roots at the top. My aim is to ultimately bring nitrates down with the plants rather than water changes. The base is just stones/pebbles as the aquascaping started after we’d already setup the tank.
We have neon tetras, mollys, guppy’s and corydoras. We’ve lost one tetra, 4 mollys (2 bleeding heart and 2 balloon) and 1 guppy since we started, but we did have issues with ammonia and nitrites before we were more educated. Most recently and at the time of water measurement we lost a guppy. This was after a water change and I rinsed the filter sponge in tap water, which I believe may have caused a spike in nitrates. I also know that there are health issues with balloon mollies due to their shape, we won’t be buying more.
Water temp 24
pH 6.6-6.8,
ammonia negative,
nitrite negative,
nitrate 20ppm,
KH 71.6ppm,
GH 214.8
We use the API master test kit, plus the API GH and KH separate kit.
According to the internet our pH is too low for some of the fish and also our KH and GH are low. It said to add crushed coral to the tank. I would just like to confirm that this is the correct action to take. I don’t want to add bicarbonate as I know it can be fiddly and harm the fish if you get it wrong.
Many thanks
We’ve had the tank a couple of months. We’ve recently added driftwood with some anubias, have ferns and mosses. I’ve also recently added red root floater and frog bit with a small pothos plant either submerged roots at the top. My aim is to ultimately bring nitrates down with the plants rather than water changes. The base is just stones/pebbles as the aquascaping started after we’d already setup the tank.
We have neon tetras, mollys, guppy’s and corydoras. We’ve lost one tetra, 4 mollys (2 bleeding heart and 2 balloon) and 1 guppy since we started, but we did have issues with ammonia and nitrites before we were more educated. Most recently and at the time of water measurement we lost a guppy. This was after a water change and I rinsed the filter sponge in tap water, which I believe may have caused a spike in nitrates. I also know that there are health issues with balloon mollies due to their shape, we won’t be buying more.
Water temp 24
pH 6.6-6.8,
ammonia negative,
nitrite negative,
nitrate 20ppm,
KH 71.6ppm,
GH 214.8
We use the API master test kit, plus the API GH and KH separate kit.
According to the internet our pH is too low for some of the fish and also our KH and GH are low. It said to add crushed coral to the tank. I would just like to confirm that this is the correct action to take. I don’t want to add bicarbonate as I know it can be fiddly and harm the fish if you get it wrong.
Many thanks