water problem pls help

[zeebo]

hi guys,
got a 20USg tank with a problem

filters: aqueon, penguin/bio-wheel, 2 hydra sponges
amonia-10
ni-0
na-10
ph-6.3

some wood
fish: 1 bn calico ?
4 pencil fish
1 platy
many sm brown snails -plant hitchikers

So i allow the snails (was before i learned how to prep plants to rid them)

Just noticed the snails are above the water line , and the fish seem too active.
I did a 10% wc and and still getting small amount of amonia ....prob from a too big wc :wb:

never test my gh&kh tap water, till now KH -4, GH-9
not sure if supposed to test tank gh/kh but did and couldnt get the gh to turn green -gave up after 30 drops... :wb:
never understood the gh/kh thing
need help here please

i have had small amounts of amonia in past and never seen this reaction of snails and fish wanting out ??? advice appreciated
georgie

 

[Lornek8]

A 10% water change shouldn't bring about an ammonia spike.
Did you clean your filters at the same time? Filtration seems pretty good for the size of the tank & the tank isn't heavily stocked.
What water conditioner are you using? If the water company uses chloramine, some water conditioners can detoxify it but the ammonia will still show up in tests. Seachem I know for sure talks about this on their website in regards to Prime.

GH/Kh out of the tap is pretty good, about where it should be for a community tank. What type of decorations are in your tank & what type of substrate do you have. You're looking for some kind of rock in yuor tank that might be driving up your GH. In that your tapwater is GH/KH level is pretty good, I wouldn't think its the reason for your fish & snails acting funny. If its something in the tank it would have always been there.

 

[Lornek8]

"Q: I am using Prime® to control ammonia but my test kit says it is not doing anything, in fact it looks like it added ammonia! What is going on?

A: A Nessler based kit will not read ammonia properly if you are using Prime®... it will look "off scale", sort of a muddy brown (incidentally a Nessler kit will not work with any other products similar to Prime®). A salicylate based kit can be used, but with caution. Under the conditions of a salicylate kit the ammonia-Prime complex will be broken down eventually giving a false reading of ammonia (same as with other products like Prime®), so the key with a salicylate kit is to take the reading right away. However, the best solution ;-) is to use our MultiTest: Ammonia™ kit... it uses a gas exchange sensor system which is not affected by the presence of Prime® or other similar products. It also has the added advantage that it can detect the more dangerous free ammonia and distinguish it from total ammonia (which is both the free and ionized forms of ammonia (the ionized form is not toxic))."

From: http://www.seachem.com/support/FAQs/Prime.html

 

[zeebo]

hi Lornek,
nothing new in tank , but i did a aprox 35% wc 2 days ago. I usually dont do so big wc in that small tank , but my nitrates were riding high due to food the bn refused . I havent cleaned the filters recently but did a gravel vacuum last week.

I use Prime as a water conditoner ,city water .
I also use ph down when doing wc cuz my tap ph is 7.9 and the wood in tank drops it . I have to put coral chips bag in the filter to keep it from bottoming out .

Something odd i noticed ,perhaps result from using the ''ph down'' which i use to match tank ph , could it be causing an unbalance of somehthing ? I have noticed the ph dropping today ..was 6.8 this afternoon when first noticed snails trying to bail , 2 hrs later , when i posted it was 6.3 , and now is 6.0. what could cause this fast drop? i just took a pc of wood out. :dk:

I do have the free amonia test kit ,didnt test the free amonia as i assumed the low ph would keep it safe.

also, i never top off the water. i keep a marker so i only replace same as i remove.

ok im gonna do a free amonia test now ...but could it be a prob from the ph buffer down i always use in that small tank ?
thanks ,georgie

 

[bigbird]

ok maybe a few tips for you

1. Get a razor blade, while the snails are above the water line, scrape them off and bye bye to them
2. I would also look at your feeding schedulle, looks like as you stated a lot of food left behind, that could also be the cause of so many snails. Snails do also poo and add to the bio load.
3. In a few articles it does state that one large water change is better than a few small ones every few days. I wil try to find this and show you on a graph why etc.

With the scientific part I will let that for Lornek and the others.
cheers jk :thumbup:

 

[zeebo]

hi again,
test for free/total amoina is :free amonia -0 , total amonia -0.02 , so not much.
thanks Lornek
what could be causing the fish/snails to want out ? still have not settled down.

thanks BB, yeah, wont need a razor soon as some dead shells on the intakes, removing as see them, notice the brown shells of live ones are turning white so looks like the ones in the water will die anyway..will keep up on that... but worried the fish wont make it either, and dont have any clue to what is going on :dk: only clue is the unstable ph noticed today.

advice appreciated... georgie

 

[Lornek8]

I'd say its probably due in part to the buffer you add and one of the problems with using buffers. You've got a lot of stuff going on and are probably making it more difficult than it should be. This is part of the learning curve that everyone goes through at one time or another. In the beginning you don't know any better but as you gain knowledge you learn that there are things that should be monitored and why they are important. Then you begin to obsess about the values you see and amke adjustements to compensate for them. In a small tank things can go bad fast & all the constant tinkering makes it worse. Here's what I see:

pH out of the tap a little high so you add buffer. Problems is that tap water changes as you let it sit & stabalize. Thus if you're buffering the water immedately out of the tap, the water might not have had a chance to stablize & you might be adding the incorrect amount of buffer. Then, you try to counteract natural pH drop in the tank with coral which can also create problems as you're continually adding stuff to the water which helps with the pH but destroys the hardness. This is probably where you're getting the wacky hardness readings in the tank. All of this can be made worse if for instance you happen to miscalculate the amount of buffer you use, the amount of tannins the wood releases or the buffering capacity of the coral decreases. This in a nutshell is why people use RO/HMA/demin water to start and simply add to it what they need & don't worry so much about what is going on in your tank. Things like the wood pulling down your pH occur slowly in the tank & only really become a major issue if you don't change enough water.

My recommendation, as you typically change small amounts of water, is to simply add the tap water in as is, stop using buffer & remove the coral form the tank.

 

[zeebo]

ok that sounds exactly like what i'm doing :wb:
I will stop using the ph buffer down and coral.

will follow your advice .. cant thank you enough !

BB, yeah, with the snail exposion , it is from too much food , was trying some new differnt things for the bn and did not remove uneaten food soon enough. I should know better :wb:

got some snail scraping to do ...thanks very much guys :hi:

georgie

a good reason to get another big tank:whistle:

 

[Lornek8]

ok that sounds exactly like what i'm doing :wb:
I will stop using the ph buffer down and coral.

will follow your advice .. cant thank you enough !

BB, yeah, with the snail exposion , it is from too much food , was trying some new differnt things for the bn and did not remove uneaten food soon enough. I should know better :wb:

got some snail scraping to do ...thanks very much guys :hi:

georgie

a good reason to get another big tank:whistle:

Should have said this earlier but make sure to make any changes SLOWLY!!! We like to stress how values outside certain ranges can be dangerous, but fish are adaptive. Problems are made worse when changes are made abruptly as it overcomes the fishs' ability to adjust.

 

[zeebo]

thanks Lornek,
yep, learned that the hard way .
Few yrs ago, added some harlequin raspboras to that small tank, was my q-tank at that time. Got some amonia due to add of new fish, did a probably 25% wc , the new tap water did not match the lower tank ph and well , you know what happened, watched them all filp over and die. That is why I was so cautious with the matching the ph in that small tank. When I do a daily 10% wc in big tank, dont matter so i dont bother to match the ph in that one.

Obviously , i got too anal about the small tank as it is harder to keep things in line , but you hit the nail on the head with your diagnosis and yep, slow and small changes, especially now that i wont be using the buffer down or the coral chips. Just hope ok in am. Gotta say, that stress nearly burned me out today and although not outta the woods yet, at least i know my f.u. and go from here.

georgie

 

[macvsog23]

Hi

I agree with advice so far

The obsession with PH that we all get when first keeping fish is one of the main problems.
The TDS and K/h is by far the most important values to keep stable.
Fish will tolerate PH swings over a long period better that K/h and TDS changes.

 

[macvsog23]

Oh and this post is very refreshing to see some one take advice rather than ague. Top marks Georgie you go far with fish keeping you have all the right attitudes

 

[Art_Gal]

I see we don't live far from each other, so we probably have similar water quality (I have public water). I agree with macvsog23, don't stress over the ph, the fish will adapt. I became obsessed with my ph out of the tap vs. in the tank when I started keeping my angelfish several years ago. My tap ph is 7.6 - 7.8 and my tank ph ranges between 6.4 and 6.8. I look at it this way (and maybe I'm wrong) but when I add the tap water to my tank, the tap water gets diluted into the tank water, so the ph may go up a bit but it probably doesn't go that high. I just do weekly pwc's, pretreat the water with Prime (a few drops per bucket) and add the water. I don't know but so far, it worked for me and my angelfish haven't had any problems with it. In fact, 1 angelfish likes to go under the waterfall as I pour it into the tank. And both my cories and angelfish spawn regularly, so I guess it can't be all that bad

 

[zeebo]

Oh and this post is very refreshing to see some one take advice rather than ague. Top marks Georgie you go far with fish keeping you have all the right attitudes

thanks mac, the way I see it is that we are all here cuz we love plecs. The fact that there are expert fish/water keepers here who are willing to help those of us who are less experienced is priceless. It's obvious people here honestly care. I appreciate and respect that.

A-G, :yes: does look like we have the same water and swings of ph in our tanks same ! thanks , won't be freakin about the ph like i was

thanks all :thumbup:
georgie

 

[L777]

Oh and this post is very refreshing to see some one take advice rather than ague. Top marks Georgie you go far with fish keeping you have all the right attitudes

Not seen anyone arguing on this forum yet, perhaps I missed something. Debate / discussion is a good thing, but brow beating people into believing incorrect facts is appalling behaviour on a public forum.

Surely if someone is wrong then the record should be put straight, and just because x poster or y poster has x number of thousands of posts to their credit it doesn't mean they know everything. It simply means they've been an active member of this forum for a long time and posted up a lot. No measure at all of quality of posts or even if the information was correct.

Some things are subjective and people can adopt their own views but others are set in stone facts. If someone has there facts wrong should we not correct them. Sorry that could be seen as arguing..... Best just to shut up and tow the party line then. Let all and sundry visit the site and take away with them a bunch of myths (cause we don't want arguing do we) and in turn let the informed amongst them tell everyone else what a wonderful load of old crap is spouted on the forum.


Off my soap box now. :lol::lol::lol::lol:




I concur with the others and believe that the problems were due to the incorrect use of the buffer.

Chris.

 

[Lornek8]

Not seen anyone arguing on this forum yet, perhaps I missed something. Debate / discussion is a good thing, but brow beating people into believing incorrect facts is appalling behaviour on a public forum.

Surely if someone is wrong then the record should be put straight, and just because x poster or y poster has x number of thousands of posts to their credit it doesn't mean they know everything. It simply means they've been an active member of this forum for a long time and posted up a lot. No measure at all of quality of posts or even if the information was correct.

Some things are subjective and people can adopt their own views but others are set in stone facts. If someone has there facts wrong should we not correct them. Sorry that could be seen as arguing..... Best just to shut up and tow the party line then. Let all and sundry visit the site and take away with them a bunch of myths (cause we don't want arguing do we) and in turn let the informed amongst them tell everyone else what a wonderful load of old crap is spouted on the forum.


Off my soap box now. :lol::lol::lol::lol:




I concur with the others and believe that the problems were due to the incorrect use of the buffer.

Chris.

Your view is excatly what most all believe. It isn't about accepting advice w/o questioning. In fact they should question so that they may understand. However, there are a few users out of the majority that ask a question with their minds already made up simply looking for someone to justify their beliefs regardless of what "conventional" wisdom says. I could point you in the direction of some threads if you'd like to see the arguing. These are the ones that Macs talking about.

I'd like to think that the forum is pretty well covered and the record set straight if need be. I don't think that there are many that hold back simply because they care to avoid a debate if the accuracy of information is in question.

 

[L777]

Hi,

My comment was made largely tongue in cheek in reply to Bob liking the no arguing thing, but still holds true.

I believe I know what your referring to (jamous91) and will completely concede that point though.

Chris.

 

[macvsog23]

Over the years I have noticed a few cussed sods myself being one.