New member with questions

[Freshwater Rookie]

Hello,

I am new to the hobby and loving it. I am hoping to get guidance and information from those of you with years experience so I do not need to make too many mistakes.

I have a few initial questions. I am hoping to add to my 90 gallon though I am waiting to see if my nitrates come down. They are at around 30. Nitrites and ammonia 0. PH 7.4 to 7.6 though I seem to spike every week or more to 8. I am doing weekly water changes.....maybe 30% or more, with city water, as I am on a well, using Prime, changing filters out or servicing the external one....wish me luck. Anyhoo, what would be a neat fish that would suit my tetras? I looked at something bright like cherry barbs or swordtails as an option. What do you all think would fit? (I think my list of fish will be at the bottom of my post?) I am not interested in filling up to the max. I like the dynamics right now. Everyone seems happy.

I inherited snails from plants I purchased. Anything I see I destroy but I shut down my 20 gallon and as I was cleaning it I noticed itty bitty ones on the glass. Will I be infested? The plants all ended up in the other two tanks. Should I get a loach? I have seen nothing in the 50 g where 4, plants went but have found 5 snails in the 90 g that has had plants already since I set it up over a month ago. (A used aquarium and came with the Cory catfish)

Thank you in advance for any advice. I love working with the aquariums but want to do things right.

[SlyAngel]

Hello Freshwater Rookie, welcome to Ovas! I will let someone with more experience answer you question.

[robt18]

If you've moved plants between the tanks, I'm sure you've got some. Pond snails and trumpet snails tend to be quite prolific.....

If you get a loach it'll take care of them in no time. I had a yoyo loach for snail control a while back and he did a fantastic job and was very healthy and happy. All you can eat buffet, all day every day!

[mm]

Hi Freshwater Rookie -

You seem to be on the right track. Here are some thoughts:

1. Nitrate at 30 is not too high and it will come down quickly with your weekly 30% water changes with your small bio-load. I aim at around 10ppm in my planted tanks (but have difficulty keeping it that high).

2. Your pH swing is probably due to the water change. If you let the water stand for a while (several hours) before adding it to the tank you should see smaller fluctuations in pH. My pH out of the tap here in Ottawa is 9.2 with KH and GH of around 2-3. The reason the pH is so high is that the CO2 out of the tap is out of balance with the atmosphere. Basically, at that point the CO2 is close to 0. As the water aerates and the CO2 of the atmosphere dissolves in the water, the pH will start dropping until it reaches a balance of around 7.4-7.6. You can google pH/KH/CO2 relationship to learn more. I recommend buying a digital pH meter from Amazon. It should cost around $10-15 and once properly calibrated it works great.

3. Prime is good and since the City of Ottawa uses chloramine you may want to use the recommended double dose (see label).

4. Don't clean the filters too much. You don't want to kill the good bacteria. I rinse the sponges every few weeks in old tank water.

5. I use a few assassin snails to keep other snails in check. A loach would work too.

6. I personally like a school of Rummy-nose tetras and ram cichlids.

I hope this helps.

[Freshwater Rookie]

Thank you both for your input! I had actually asked at the store loach versus assassin snails and opted for snails. I didn't want to throw off the awesome dynamics and I already had the Cory catfish and pleco as bottom dwellers.

I have a question about some of the points....I will do what you said about the filters. I was following someone else's advice from a store on the regular changes but what you said makes sense and I am sure I had read that elsewhere.

I had originally used my well water. I tested it once (I can't test hardness) and the pH was 7.4 to 7.6.  Now, based on advice, I moved to using city water the last water change and let it sit over night with an extra heater before adding it. How do you feel about sticking with well water but letting it sit overnight and heated? I am not trying to avoid work but not hauling city water every week or so would be lovely if I didn't have to. Our water is hard....KH was 9 and GH was 16 the one time I had the aquarium water tested at the store. Not sure how that reflects on what it is normally. I will look at a digital pH monitor though, thank you.

The last values in the 90 g had a nitrate of 10 for a few days. I went ahead and added 3 assassin snails, 2 zebra danios to go with the other two, 4 cardinals and then 3 Denison barbs based on advice at the store on what would work. Thank you for your input though! I am finished adding fish. Do you think I could reasonably add shrimp or a small crayfish or lobster in a week with good values holding? It is interesting to watch for my young children....well, me....

One last question to pick your brain....the nitrates in the 50 g are 80. This was the 3rd water change, it was 30 or 35%, I used heated city water that sat over night, and instead of prime, I used al's conditioner. The cichlid has old injuries and this says it will help with repair and slime coat in addition to treating water. The nitrates stayed right where they were. I asked at the store and was given some nitrasorb and told it is because they are two big fish. I had also got some advice  about removing the gravel all the way down to a small cover.  It is 3 or 4 inches deep right now and came with this well established tank. This has a big parrot cichlid and catfish. The only reason I didn't do that advice was I didn't want to change too many things and then not know what worked. What do you think?

With a nitrate value of 80, can I safely add a snail? I only ask because while I manage this tank, I have wiped down a bit of green algae with water changes and was only looking for a bit of help. It does have live plants now.

Sorry for the thousand questions. I really appreciate the help!!!!

[silentdan]

I think you should be able to add shrimp to your tank if you already have fish in it.  I'd be hesitant about the crayfish or lobsters.  From what I've heard, they may try snacking on any fish they find sleeping or any plants you may have.  I have amano shrimp and they are quite interesting to watch.

I'm not really sure how much removing the gravel would do.  I can see that waste could get down into it and would stay, but I would think you could just vacuum it up.  If you have live plants in it, I would say add some more.  They should be growing nicely.  Again, if you have fish in it, snails should have no trouble with it.

[Pyrrolin]

the tank with 80 nitrates will need a few large wc to catch up.  If it isn't planted, use your gravel vac to clean up as much junk as you can when draining water.  I assume it isn't planted as normally cichlids and plants don't mix.  Adding a single snail will make so little difference that you can go ahead.

I am a little confused about your well verses city water thing.  What water do you have at home?  Bringing water from another location sounds like just too much work to me.  I was in Kingston on city water until my recent move and now I am on well water.  Use what you have on site and your fish will get used to it.  I brought as much old water as I could with me from the city to make sure the change wasn't too sudden for my fish.

If the water source is hard, there are things you can do to help soften it such as driftwood and peat moss

[mm]

I am also a bit confused about your water sources/parameters.

Which water has a KH of 9 and GH of 16? With a KH of 9 your pH should be above 8 unless you are injecting CO2. That would be perfect water for African cichlids but hard for your tetras.

If you well water has a pH of 7.4-7.6 then the KH should have been low (assuming you are not injecting CO2). Unless you are hitting the top of the scale of your pH test kit and the pH is actually above that. In that case you will need a high range pH test kit or the pH digital meter to get an accurate pH measure.

I agree with Pyrrolin that it is not worth it to mess with the water chemistry (unless you are trying to reproduce your tetras).  Although your hardness is high for tetras, they will adapt. If you are going to use well water you might still want to use Prime or other similar product to neutralize any potential heavy metals. You can also use carbon on your filter to eliminate other contaminants. You might also want to test you well water for nitrates. Sometimes those can be quite high in farming areas.

No problem with adding snails to the 50g. It will have a negligible impact. Given that you have 2 large fish in there you will need to keep up with the weekly water changes to keep the nitrates low (anything below 40 is ok). I would just keep up with the 30% weekly water changes and see if that works.



Cheers.

[sas]

Hi and welcome to OVAS. You have some great questions. I've moved this thread to the Freshwater discussions since you will probably get more replies there.
Once again welcome!

[Freshwater Rookie]

Ok, I tried replying and it disappeared so I will start again.....

-I am on a well in the country
-the kH and gh values I regurgitated from what the store told me when I brought a sample from the aquarium a month ago.
-I did test my tap water with my home liquid test kit and got 0 nitrates and the high range pH test was 7.4 and normal pH was 7.6.
-I have been using Prime with water changes, yes
- no Co2 injectors here
-I solemnly swear to keep with the big water changes with the 50g and I will go with a snail....it is planted because my dear cichlid is too big to root things up
-I will stick with shrimp as the last cool thing to add in my 90g, thank you!

Question..how do I add peet? I tried and I am not sure I did it right. I have an emperor 400 biowheel in both tanks and an eheim external filter in the 90g. There is drift wood in both tanks, yes.

I am trying to add photos.....

Thank you!!!! This means a lot!!!

[Freshwater Rookie]

50 gallon photo, I hope....

[Freshwater Rookie]

90 gallon partial photo....I hope....

[silentdan]

The plants look really good for no CO2. 

[Freshwater Rookie]

Now that is something I didn't look into and when I asked about plants, it was never suggested. I do fertilize and prune away dead leaves.....over time, will this be enough or do I need C02?

[Pyrrolin]

co2 is not needed usually.  Generally co2 is for those with high light with demanding plants.  Many people have beautiful tanks without co2 and also many have beautiful tanks with co2.

Co2 is just a higher level of aquarium keeping.  I have gone years without a co2 system and recently started to get serious about co2 and had a fairly good system going in a 20 long with some demanding plants and things went great and bad.  The plants that needed high light and co2 did wonderful when I was able to keep things consistant but went bad when I had to black out the tank for a while due to BGA, the carpet plants started to grow up on me.  The low light plants took off and grew so fast causing me to have to reduce the plants a bit.

I have a basic co2 system going on my 90 now and just waiting for funds to buy a 10 lb tank

[exv152]

CO2 is good for all planted tank setups; low, medium and high light setups etc., but really isn't necessary if you choose the right plants to keep, like the ones you already have. CO2 greatly increases the growth, health and appearance of all plants, and the difference is not negligible, it's quite noticeable. But it's not necessary.

To help keep your nitrates in-check I would increase the water changes, to like 50% water changes a couple of times a week. Clean out the mulm in your filters, and vacuum the substrate (not all at the same time though). Your parameters (pH, KH, GH) are ideal for african cichlids, rainbowfish, livebearers and some killifish species. I usually recommend folks find fish to suit their water parameters, instead of vice versa, which makes life a lot easier. There are so many types of fish for all types of water conditions available nowadays.

One thing I will say about keeping large fish and shrimp is the shrimp will become food for your larger fish, especially for the parrot cichlid.

[Freshwater Rookie]

Thank you both!

I set up a 20 g again to play with some low light plants and will just keep shrimp in there for now.

I did do big water changes for a while and then was shown that my comprehensive liquid fertilizer was essentially adding nitrates or 'waste' so I cut way back on that. Talk about learning curve!

I just got a lively bushy nose albino pleco for the 50 g and all is well. The 90 g is great and I love the setup. My favourite and last addition was invertebrates. I got the blue Gabon shrimp or Viper shrimp and they are beautiful. All the water values are way better and to all the help I got here, thank you. I also found a great place to deal with for livestock and plants and such. I feel bad that I ask so many questions but they remain patient and gracious.

I will post some photos once my plants have filled out a bit.