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First Water Change Question


JS1987

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In a comment towards tannis the LFS told me to use boling hot water on the driftwood let it cool and leave it over night 24 hours in a bucket there is no "leaching" from the wood at all.

Your pH is fine at 6.6 - I am in central auckland and my tap pH is around 7. My tanks sit around 6 - 6.4. Normally as a tank matures the pH drops naturally as said. Unless you are intending to breed a specific fish with a specialised pH requirement leaving the pH to do its thing naturally is much better than high/low swings which stress the fish. Because of the difference between your tap pH and your tank pH smaller (around 25%) water changes done more frequently are better than one large one as it will cause a swing.

With reference to your driftwood, you will find that it can leach tannins over many months. It all depends how weathered it is when you get it. Either way it is not an issue, water changes will remove tannins if you don't like the colouring you will get however a lot of fish enjoy tannins in the water.

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Thanks Adrinne. I dont want to breed fish.... atm :nilly: just want to have a community. Will keep a watch on my driftwood over the coming weeks.

Driftwood can make a tank. If you can get hold of some christmas moss or anubia and attach it and encourage it to grow then the driftwood can look spectacular.

Post a picture some time, we all love pictures :D

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In a comment towards tannis the LFS told me to use boling hot water on the driftwood let it cool and leave it over night 24 hours in a bucket there is no "leaching" from the wood at all.

I soaked mine for a month before I put it into my tank, and it still coloured the water brown. But now that I've got some angelfish and want it to leach tannins, it's not doing it in significant amounts :(

Once you get your seachem monitor, I'd still get the LFS to do a few checks to make sure they read the same. Mine has never budged from < 0.02 mg/L ( ppm) and I wasn't sure it was working. I double checked it with what was left of my API test kit, and luckily they both agreed. :thup:

I also kept spreadsheets tracking the water parameters so I could see if my tank filters were cycling as expected. I would guess there's likely to be some PDA software you can get too.

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BTW, the Seachem Ammonia Alert measures free toxic ammonia, and not total Ammonia which also includes ammonium. At an acidic pH the ammonia shifts to the less toxic ammonium so if you find disagreement between the API ammonia test, this is the reason.

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Driftwood can make a tank. If you can get hold of some christmas moss or anubia and attach it and encourage it to grow then the driftwood can look spectacular.

Post a picture some time, we all love pictures :D

Is two pieces of driftwood to much for a tank of 130 litres ? also silly question here does it affect the tank in any way if part of the driftwood was leaning against the glass it wont like break. Its not leaning against it at the moment but if i wanted to one day for looks wise. I will actually try to post a picture tonight im looking at it now thinking i hope they are happy in there and have enough things to interest them swimming around

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