mulita

I have an Aquaclear in a 30 gallon Wall aquarium and this is not noise at all, probably this is because this is just the size to fit in inside of the wall and inside the width of the aquarium, but from my experience, this cheap little filter works great. Have you review about support of the filter in the aquarium?

About the water agitation, it is actually good to have some surface agitation until certain point, of course to much will produce CO2 loose, what I do with this filter is too keep water line very close or up to the filter output, this minimize the fall but still keep some good surface water circulation.

I guess the oyster grit could be contributing to PH raise up, however, before adding anything, review about KH you have.

 

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Squawkbert

PH=Power Head

The main idea is to avoid removing a significant fraction of the denitrifying bacteria all at once, this way you avoid a mini-cycle (NH2 spike).

mistergreen

So I added 1/2 cup of crushed limestone to my 10G 2-3 days ago.. I have not seen any ph or KH change.. Is that normal?

Prometheus

AHHHHHH!

Yesterday I did a partial water change
and today I came home and one of my neon tetras was DEAD!

Will the aeration and co2 escape really affect the pH so much that it will bring it up to 8.4????
or is that the oyster grit?

How do I find out what the kH is? Do I have to go buy some kind of test kit for that.

I am tempted to add the neutral regulater stuff after I see that one of my fish has died. But maybe it died from something else


I see what you mean. So perhaps I should wait to get a submersible filter and place the old foam pad next to it, before I take out this one completely. The foam pad had all this debris coming out from it though, when I put it in the water. not sure how to avoid that..

Red_Rose

You know, I had tinkered around with raising my tap water's pH just for fun and I found that seashells work great at raising it. I had added just one shell to a container of water and left it sit for a full 24 hours and it brought the pH up to 8.4. You could always give that a try to see how it works.

I'm so sorry about your tetra.

I don't think that aeration will affect the pH that much unless you have it at full blast. My 2.5g tank has one of those treasure chests that opens and closes every few seconds and the pH remains at a stable 8.0.

As for the KH, you can get a test kit by Hagen that contains tests for both the GH and KH. It's a good test to have on hand.

Prometheus

The guys at the store are telling me that the tap water kH vary's between 84-108. what does this mean for me? Does that mean its hard for the pH to shift ? or could the kH in the tank be a little different now? now im confused

mistergreen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH_%28hardness%29
Your KH is fine.

Just add a little distilled/RO water... and add a bunch of driftwood in you tank if you don't mind the tannin.

Prometheus

ok, interesting. I am now wishing I had just put a seashell in there instead of adding the oyster stuff to the soil mixture. I already have bogwood/driftwood in the tank. But if there is a specific kind I should get that will lower pH, I would try that. When you say driftwood, do you mean the kind that is sold in the stores or will actual driftwood from the beach work too? So adding the wood and distilled water will help long term? That is, considering that there are no water changes after that, right? I hope I dont have to add distilled water on a regular basis. This is my first NPT so Im pretty new at this...thanks for all the advice!

dwalstad

[quote=Prometheus;386789]ok, interesting. I am now wishing I had just put a seashell in there instead of adding the oyster stuff to the soil mixture.QUOTE]

I don't think oyster grit dissolves so fast (no faster probably than shells) that it would cause problems, so I would stop worrying about the oyster grit. The high pH is probably more from degassing via your noisey filter. And yes, aeration and CO2 degassing could very easily bring the pH up to 8.4. My co-workers and I had major problems with CO2 degassing and the resulting pH increases when I was working in a tissue culture lab.

I would not attribute your Neon's death to poor water conditions. Its so easy to jump to conclusions when a fish dies.

Finally, I would relax a little. It doesn't sound like your tank has as many problems as you think. Your plants are doing well. You have a lot of fish but only one has died. Your Platies have had babies.

Why not send us a picture of this tank?

Why don't you take a picture of your tank to show us what's going on.

Prometheus

Thanks

Okay, here are two pictures. Yes, the guy at the store got me really worried about the pH. He was even reluctant to sell me any more fish. I added some distilled water and until I get a submersible filter I am using plastic from a bottle to keep the water from splashing. Im not sure if anything has changed since my pH test kit still has a really high reading. It doesnt go up to 8 so I can't tell. I think some of my new neons had neon tetra disease.. some of them were getting fading tails so I had to get rid of a few. Yesterday one of my otto cats died, but maybe from natural causes.

Everything else looks okay. It's 30 gal. Lighting is 98 watts for 12 hours a day. Should I cut this down? I have a lot of emergent growth but i'm still seeing some light green algae on the glass. Some hair algae started growing around the java moss. And I think the snails are eating holes in the lily

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