Conrizzle

Thank you!

I do have a question about adding crushed coral, with my hardness being so high, do I have to be concerned about that making my hardness increased even more? Also, if I were to be interested in keeping other fish, should I try and keep something in mind of how to lower or balance my hardness? I would love to eventually have Rams or something along that line and I want to get as much knowledge of the basics of my water before I take that next step of a awesome fish of that sort. I would never want to take on more then what I am comfortable with in fear of damaging or killing something due to negligence.

Awesome, thanks for your time!

Thank you. Do you suggest I should do anything about how hard my water is? Or should I be doing anything about how low my pH and buffer are? Much appreciated

Thank you for your reply. I assume when you say to feed the plants, I should use a fertilizer? I will try and skip a week or two of water changes and see if that boosts the nitrates. And as for the Hardness, that one was really throwing me off. I had no idea what color that was. I didnt know if it was way too hard, or way too soft. But after looking at it, it seems like what you are saying is correct and the water is very hard. Any recommends on what I should do for water that hard? Also pH at 6.4 and Buffer being below 40 seems on the lower side correct? should I be concerned with those levels and should I be doing anything about that?

Hello everyone. I am partially colorblind and am looking for some help. I joke and tell people that I'm "color confused" but for me, blues/purples, reds/greens, yellows/oranges etc. all can sometimes blend in and I have a hard time seeing color differences. I have attached 2 Pics of my co-op test strips and was wondering if someone is willing to help me reading my results and point me in a good direction of how to balance my water. I have roughly 15-20 fish in a 40 gallon breeder. All on the smaller side. 3 gourami, 2 clown plecos, 4 zebra snails, 10 "feeder" shrimp (they are pets to me, its just what my pet store labeled them) and the rest are all tetras ranging from black skirts, neons, red eyes ect. I have had this set up for approximately 4 months. Treated Ich and mouth rot successfully. Before this set up, I previously had mollies and platys but they slowly died off approximately over 4-6 months prior. I do 25% weekly water changes. I just recently added in plants and It looks like they are starting to struggle. I know most aquarium plants are grown out of water and die back but something seems up which makes me question my water. As a noob, I was so focused on ammonia that it seems I neglected the other water parameters and now my tank is starting to be stunted / negatively affected. Any and all help is greatly appreciated. Sorry for being so long in text, but I am trying to cover all the basic things I figured what people would ask about. Thanks! Fish are friends, not food.