jolliolli

Hi Alan KH kit was $15 from organism, they also had Gh/Kh kits whih were $35 i think.

well i bought a carbonate hardness test kit today to find out the KH of the tank, it seems to be around 5-6 degrees of hardness, what would be the optimal hardness i should aim for? I also bought some coral chips which i will be adding to the canister filter to try and stabilise the pH. Should i wait till i do a water change before adding the coral chips to the filter? Also does the coral chips itself raise the pH or just stabilise it? In which case should I wait until the ph drops again before adding the chips (as at the moment it is at around 7.2) or should I add the chips now?

lfs tests for nitrites/nitrates/ammonia not sure on gH, kH, will try and pick up a kit tomorrow and find out. In the mean time i shouldn't raise the pH anymore?

I will try getting a gH, kH test kit this week and see what readings I get, tested the water tonight after using pH up yesterday and have a reading of around 6.5/6.6 up from 6.2 yesterday after the addition of pH up. Tap water 7.2, water in my 300l tank is 7.0, tank reading in my 3rd tank is 6.6 Barbs seem to flicking against the gravel less tonight. I did notice that the golden barbs that i added a couple of weeks ago from one of my other tanks were the most affected fish in the tank, the existing fish didn't seem as bothered by low pH.

Gravel Clean once every 2 weeks with around a 30 - 40% water change Tank is 180 litres with 5 medium size goldfish, 2 Ruby Barbs, 6 Golden barbs, 2 danios, 3 Rosy barbs, 2 bristlenoses. Filter proably is due for a clean, i replaced filter wool around 4 weeks ago, flow seems very good. Spray bar is positioned close to the surface and i get good water disturbance and ripples, so haven't added an airstone. I thought chch water was soft?

Ok well i'll try getting a test kit for kH and gH and then try sorting it from there either with bird grit (is that what its called in the shops?) or bicarb

thanks for the suggestions, i might try the bicarb and epsom salts first, is there a particular dose rate i should use?

ok thanks, its strange that my 300litre tank has stable pH whereas this one continues to drop

thanks guys, can i get coral sand from the lfs?

I seem to be battling a constant falling pH problem in my tank. i have a 180 litre aqua one tank with CF1200 filter. Despite waterchanges every couple of weeks my pH keeps falling. I highly suspect the driftwood i put in the tank around 2 months ago and it leached lots of tannins for around a month and during this time my pH has constantly been falling. The leaching seems to have slowed or stopped but my pH continues to fall. My tap water is 7.2 and today my tank water is around 6.2. Its taken only around 1 week to drop that fast. I changed the gravel in the tank as well and wonder if that is causing the ph to continue to drop. So... my question is other than using pH up solution (which is what i am using at the moment) how else can i increase my pH? Also how long should i expect that the driftwood will continue to lower my pH. Its obviously annoying my golden barbs as the acidity is making them flick? Any suggestions?

Hi Fish Luva I'd also be interested to know size and price

thanks alan, slightly offtopic but i had a question about the stargrass i got from you. I planted it the other week (previously it was floating in the tank prior to planting) and some of the leaves have become transparent and may be rotting and falling off? Im wondering if its the shock of been planted and it may come right or if perhaps its lacking light (currently the 300litre tank has a marine white and marine blue bulb in it ) which i will probably replace with something different this week

how would i cycle the tank seeing as it will be bare except for the marbles? with my previous tanks i have added gravel, driftwood etc from an existing tank and then previously added fish slowly. Im not sure how i would do this with a bareish tank?

I've decided to set up a breeding tank for my tiger barbs and would be keen to hear some advice on the type of setup i should try and achieve for them. They have been spawning in the community tank and i have had 4 surving fry so far so i know they are fertile breeders. I only have the one pair. I have an Aqua one AR380 (38 Litre tank) with built-in filter, light and 300watt heater. I have laid marbles on the base of the tank to allow the eggs to fall through as the barbs spawn. From what i have read i should introduce the female in to the tank and then introduce the male around 3 days later and hope they spawn. A couple of questions i have are: Is there any indicator as to when i should introduce the female? Does the tank i put them in to need to be a cycled tank or is it not necessary as they will be in for only a short period of time. Can I raise the fry in this tank? And if so, do i need to worry about cycling the tank at all?

Thanks for all the nice comments , its my first attempt at setting up a tank, and im really happy with how quickly the plants are growing. I put down a layer of Daltons aquatic mix and i think thats really helped the growth. The background is just a flat poster background that was designed to fit the juwel rio 300 tank i think it cost around $15 - $20 from memory. I got it from redwood aquatics and i know they had rolls of backing paper that you could cut to length but not sure if they had the rock wall variety as a 'cut to length' option. They had very very cool structured rock and tree backgrounds which made a great 3D look but the cost was over $100 eek! Also i already had substrate and water in the tank and the 3D structures needed to be siliconed in before putting the substrate in so that option was out the door. The piece of driftwood came with another tank i bought which had goldfish, tiger barbs and rosy barbs in it. I took the wood out, and transferred it to this tank. About 1 week later i discovered 4 Tiger barb fry swimming around the grass! The tiger barbs in the first tank must have been spawning and some of the eggs must have landed on the piece of driftwood. The fact that they managed to survive not being eaten by 5 or 6 very hungry goldfish and they managed to survive me pulling the wood out, repositioning it several times over and survived hatching in the tank is amazing!

I;m not sure what the foreground plants are, I picked them up from Animates. There are 2 varieties of grasses, one is much nicer than the other having a broader flat leaft while the other has a stringy appearance. The other plant next to the grasses is a small shrub but again i don't know the name sorry, also came from animates.I'd love to get Discus, would they a couple be ok in this size tank with the current tankmates. i'll have to keep an eye on the albino ruby shark he's been a bit nippy lately. The background is a juwel fake rock wall background from Redwood Aquatics. Everyone seems happy in the tank (this isn't the tank I mentioned in another post that had problems, ironically that tank has been running longer). Water parameters in this tank have been good, nil on all nitrates, nitrites, ammonia and a stable pH at around 7.2. Size is 300L. Up until last week it only had the corys, tetras and bristlenoses, and honeys but the purchase of another tank meant the mollies, 3 spot gouramis and ruby shark needed to be rehoused.

Ok third time lucky got it working with photobucket

Thought i'd post a couple of pics of my first tank, ive had it running about 6 weeks now and am starting to see some growth. The two amazon swords and stargrass came courtesy of alanmin4304 (thanks ). The tank is a 4ft Rio 300 and currently has 2 3 spot Gouramis, 2 Honey Gouramis (still trying to work out if one of them is female or not), 10 cardinals, 10 neons, 4 Sterbai Corys, 1 Albino Ruby Shark, 6 Black Mollies, 3 Bristlenoses and 4 Tiger Barb fry (floating in the hatchery at the top of the tank). Anyway heres some pics Tank when first set up 6 Weeks Later Left Side of Tank Right Side 3 Spot Gourami, Honey, Albino Ruby Shark and Tetras Honey, Golden balloon ram Sterbai Cory

Update: Everyone in the tank is looking much better, barb is healthy and swimming normally again . I medicated for ich and the only loss i had was a snail that died due to the ich medication (bottle didn't mention that it was toxic to invertebrates) although the two mussels survived ok. No scratching seen since dealt with the problem . Thanks for everybody's advice!

Really, ahh i wondered about that. Oh well i guess i'll have to see if it turns up

I just looked at getting some of this.. might be worth trying to order some for yourself not sure if others have used it or if its any good, http://www.uskoi.com/prazipro.htm

nice.

Heya Just wondering if anyone has ever used this to treat fluke etc.. http://www.uskoi.com/prazipro.htm Looking to get some for myself and wondered if anyone had bought it before..

were you able to buy prazi at a shop? or is it a special medication? thanks for the help

Thanks for that advice.. now to try and find something that wont harm the media. Did you find anything at a LFS aside from PP?, which to be honest scares me as im just a beginner to all of this.. Would i be able to see the fluke in the water or is it microscopic? Thanks again