Savanna
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Posts posted by Savanna
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On 5/16/2023 at 10:53 PM, Mmiller2001 said:
I assure you, it's not the fertilizer. KH will drop very slowly with a pH below 7. I dump a ridiculous amount of fertilizer into a CO2 injected tank, as well as many other people, and KH drops at a very slow and expected rate. Either the testing is off or reading error.
Checked the tank when I got home today, KH was right at 80ppm, pH around 7.2. Nitrates were below ten, but not quite zero. I added two pumps of easy green (it's a 75g). Just checked it again maybe 3 hours later. Nitrates still aren't at 10, KH is between 0-40, pH is around 6.6.
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On 5/17/2023 at 8:13 AM, JoeQ said:
Another thing that can help with getting consistent results is, it's very important to follow the same procedure each time you test.. A quick dip and then reading the test after 30s will produce vastly different results than a 3s dip and reading the results after a full minute.
I try to be as consistent as possible. I stay there by the strip and watch my watch until 60 seconds has gone by and then read it immediately. I'll probably stop on the way home and get a liquid test kit just to verify
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On 5/17/2023 at 3:23 AM, nabokovfan87 said:
What are you using to test KH? I would highly recommend verifying / checking things with an API liquid KH/GH test kit and PH kit.
Welcome to the forums. I hope we can figure this out!
The aquarium co-op test strips. They consistently read the same so if something is wrong with the strips it's the entire bottle that's bad
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On 5/16/2023 at 8:52 PM, Mmiller2001 said:
Fertilizer doesn't crash anything. What substrate are you using?
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Vigoro-0-5-cu-ft-Bagged-Pea-Gravel-Pebble-Landscape-Rock-54255/202523000
It goes down pretty much immediately after adding ferts. I can check it before dosing and within an hour afterwards and it goes down that fast. It *does* go down slightly over a week, but not anything like it does when I add fertilizer
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On 5/16/2023 at 7:56 PM, Tommy Vercetti said:
Sounds like maybe dosing too much at one time. Maybe try spreading out the fertilizer dose over 1 week. Can you dose 2 or 3 times a week?
I've tried putting in two pumps (it's a 75g tank) and it still brought it down a decent amount
On 5/16/2023 at 8:27 PM, Pepere said:Nitrate in itself is acidic.
What are your nitrate levels before and after dosing with Easy Green?
Around or a little less than 10ppm. It's hard to tell on the test strip, it's got a pink tinge to it but it's not quite at the 10 mark before. I've never been able to get it to 25 without my KH dropping almost to the "low" on the test strip
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I really need some help. I've been struggling with my kh. After a water change it's around 80ppm, but my nitrates are *maybe* 10. However, within an hour of adding easy green my KH crashes and begins crashing my pH as well. I've added a bit of crushed coral and that helped a little, but I don't know how to get my nitrates up for my plants without it crashing the KH and pH. My tank is beginning to be taken over by staghorn algae and I'm really not sure what to do
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33 minutes ago, Colu said:
Sorry to hear he didn't make what I use is a 3% hydrogen peroxide solution to sterilise everything also you can leave the tank empty for 2 weeks as well before adding any more fish that usely works
OK, leaving it empty for awhile won't be a problem. I've got plants in there so I don't want to kill them on accident.
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He passed away this morning unfortunately. What is the best way to decontaminate the tank?
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8 minutes ago, Colu said:
I would treat with kanaplex and furan2 for more severe bacterial infection
It looks like it would be at least a week before I could get it unfortunately as none of the stores around me carry that 😔 I'll definitely get some on order though in the off chance that whatever caused it manages to get into the tank next to his
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Tl;dr: older betta developed dropsy. Is it "worth" treating him at this point? How do I sanitize the tank when he passes, as I'd like to get pea puffers later?
I have a "rescued" male betta that is at least 3 years old, likely older. The first 2 years of his life he lived in a 3 gallon with no heater. I moved him to a 10 gallon with live plants about two months ago. He has always been pretty inactive, even when his previous owners had him, but I noticed about two weeks ago that he didn't seen to be doing well and thought it was old age. He'd be better for a day or two, then back to being unwell. Overnight he started pineconing and I realize now that he has dropsy and most likely won't make it through the night, but I don't know how to euthanize him. My nitrates are at 25ppm after adding ferts today, nitrite is 0, ph is 7.8, his tank isn't gross, I have no idea where it came from. He's in pretty bad shape and I don't know that treatment would even help at this point. What do I need to do to sanitize the tank afterwards? I want to get pea puffers to put in here later on, but don't want to risk them getting it as well.
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2 hours ago, toothgrinder said:
Not exactly related but I have to chime in. I live near Chicago but I have been in Orlando for the last 8 days or so for work, what you guys consider a cold spell, is what I consider shorts weather!! Loving the fresh seafood!!
@Alesha Got any recommendations for fish stores? I have checked out a few but everything is salt water down here. WWC in Orlando was neat to see as they apparently are the biggest coral farm in the world. The guy was nice enough to spend 20 minutes talking to me about corals and the hobby in general when I told him I wasn’t from around here.
This weather is miserable! I can't handle walking outside in the morning and having ice on my windshield 😂 even in North Florida it's still difficult to find a lfs that isn't mostly salt water stuff.
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4 hours ago, JettsPapa said:
That's true for chlorine, but it's my understanding that many water systems are using chloramine instead of chlorine, and it doesn't evaporate like chlorine does.
That was also one of my concerns, but I looked around on our electric company's site and they say they use chlorine, and I didn't get any ammonia readings that would suggest chloramine
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4 hours ago, Cory said:
I've never had a problem really. I tend to dose dechlor more than recommended cause I just squirt it into the tank instead of measuring. Mostly Ifind I just have more bubbles on the glass as the water holds more oxygen than during warmer months.
OK good to know. I've only had my tanks since may and I tend to overthink everything 😅
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10 minutes ago, Alesha said:
@Savanna - I noticed the same thing this morning!!! I live in FL, too. South of Orlando. I wonder if that's something the counties correlate together, or if we just live pretty close to each other. We're doing water changes today. I'll definitely test the tap water before adding to the tanks.
I'm in Jacksonville, so a little bit away. I went and got the last pack of test strips petsmart had and tested my tap water and it didn't show anything, but it smells so strong I don't know that I trust it. I did look and see that they use chlorine and not chloramine, so I think I'll leave some water out for awhile just in case
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12 minutes ago, JettsPapa said:
I use well water, so don't have to worry about chlorine, but won't the Prime, or whatever similar product you're using take care of it, even if the levels in your municipal water change?
As far as the pH, I don't know that the change will have a negative impact on your fish, but I certainly think smaller water changes more often would help mitigate any possible ill effects from it.
Yes, but my concern is that the chlorine level may be higher than what the suggested dosage is meant to cover, and I don't want to double dose if I don't have to. I just worry about everything so I want to be sure. We were on well water where I lived before so I've never had to deal with this either
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11 minutes ago, Daniel said:
The tetra test strips will test for chlorine. That would be a cheap insurance policy and answer your question.
I have not experienced problems with moving fish between water with different parameters as long as it was clean water on on both sides.
I'll have to check back at petsmart, they've been out of a lot of stuff lately and the strips I'd gotten a few months ago didn't test for chlorine, but I don't remember what brand they were
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This will be my first "winter" having fish tanks. I live in Florida, so we don't really get much of a winter, but we've had a longer than normal cold snap and I noticed last night that the water now smells strongly of chlorine, when it never has before. Last year was a pretty mild winter and I don't recall the water smelling like it does now. They only release water reports for the year prior, and it doesn't show chlorine/chloramine levels so I have no idea what level it normally is, so that's no help. My pH also went from 7.8 to 8.2. I do water changes every other week for all but one tank, but I'm worried the sudden change in water quality/parameters may cause issues. Will small, gradual water changes help? Should I change a smaller amount more frequently?
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3 hours ago, Fishkeeper125 said:
It shouldn't be something to worry about, as long as you don't put it back in the tank.
Nope, went down the garbage disposal
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3 hours ago, KBOzzie59 said:
A leech?
Oh no 😩
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3 hours ago, Fishkeeper125 said:
Did you ever get plants or fish from a stream or river? I wonder how a leach got into your tank.
Nope. I got some red root floaters a couple weeks ago from an online store but that's it. I keep rocks outside in a bucket for my otos in the tank next to it , but that's water from the tap
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Any possible ideas of what this thing is? It came out of my 6 gal during a water change. I tried to take it out to take a clear picture, but it immediately rolled up into a ball. From what I can see it isn't segmented and it moved very smoothly. Can't figure out how to compress the video on my phone to upload that
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1 hour ago, Fish are Friends not Food said:
Hello Savanna,
A word of advice on Pothos, this plant is extremely good at filtering Nitrates but it also can be TOO good at filtering the nutrients out of the tank. This can starve your other plants out as the pothos absorbs it quicker than they can. I'm not bashing pothos as it's a wonderful tool for aquariums and adds a different feature to the tank. If it's stealing the nutrients out of the water column then it wont just be your java fern leaves that are looking unusual. Monitor all your plants and try to get a balance on fertilizing.
Goodluck, FAFNF
Thank you, I'll be sure to keep an eye on it if I put it in there. I got a small one to start with just in case. I usually test my water twice a week so I should be able to take it out pretty quickly if it does become too much
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8 minutes ago, RyanR said:
Mine were doing the same thing and I starting thinking back that I hadn't fertilized in a couple of weeks. Even though your nitrates are at 40, you still need to fertilize, but it also means that you might need to do water changes more often. High nitrates could be coming from rotting leaves or other sources that the plants can't use.
Thanks, I'll give that a try. I definitely wasn't able to change as much water in this one due to a breeder box I had hanging inside, but I've since gotten rid of that so I can lower the water level more now. I also just got a pothos to put in to help with nitrates
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38 minutes ago, Sleepy said:
Are you dosing? If so what and how often?
Right now about once a weekish. The tank is only a month old so I didn't want to dose too much too quickly and get a ton of algae. I made that mistake in my very first planted tank and I'm still trying to fix that. Easy green and root tabs for the dwarf chain and a sword in there
Easy green crashing KH?
in Plants, Algae, and Fertilizers
Posted
Nope, just a low tech tank. The lilies and pogo have grown quite a bit since this was taken