somethingclever

Thanks for all the responses. I wish I had taken a better picture. I’m taking my time making changes to my aquariums since I’m still learning so much. I liked my duckweed but there are just too many little pieces.

My wife and I took our kids to the New England Aquarium last week and I saw this electric eel tank that really inspired me. My son stared at it for 5+ minutes. I may try and recreate this look (without the eel😁) in a 20 long. The floating plant was really interesting. I heard another visitor call it giant duckweed, but it doesn’t seem to match a google search. Is it Brazilian pennywort?

@quikv6 Thanks for the suggestions. It's good to hear multiple people say that baking soda is a viable solution for low pH issues. The internet is so confusing. One thing I really like about Cory's videos is the amount of gray area he admits there is in keeping fish. Could baking soda kill your fish instantly? Yes. Could they live forever with baking soda? Yes. I've already been following your 3 tips for working with baking soda so this is reassuring. I've been doing 20% per week. Probably not needed because my nitrates are always low, but it's a nice routine and lets me spend some time looking at the tank. I can't say enough how nice this forum is. Everyone is so knowledgeable, respectful and positive (in my limited experience). I've become addicted to this and am already planning my text tank.

I tried your suggested test. The pH in the test water increased the expected amount. I’m really curious what happened initially but probably won’t be able to figure it out. I guess I could run similar tests with tank water but include gravel, decorations… till I can find the source of the problem. I guess I’ll stick with extra coral and baking soda for now. I’m reluctant to try the seachem in case it causes the same issues. Thanks for all the help.

I put the coral in about 5 months ago (before I added fish). I guess it's hard to tell if there was eventually a change because I've also been using the baking soda. I'll make those adjustments. Maybe I'll also test with putting coral in a jug of tap water and see how long it takes to change it.

Thanks for that suggestion. I have a hang on back filter, it's the stock one that came with the aquarium kit. There's not much room in the back but I did scrap the original filter media and charcoal after watching the Aquarium Coop video about upgrading filters. I put on a pre filter, and put the extra 2 prefilters in the hang on and added as much coral as I could in the remaining space (only a small handful). I didn't see enough of a change with the coral which is why I started with the baking soda. Maybe I can swap out one of the filter pads in the box for more coral. Putting the coral on my daughters purple substrate will be a problem 🙂 I was keeping things pretty consistent with the baking soda. My experience with "ph up" is really baffling me.

Hi All, I have a heavily planted 10 gallon tank that's been running for 6 months (4-glofish tetras, 6-guppies, 2-otocinclus, 1-snail). Fish and plants are all doing well. Nitrates are usually close to 0. I add liquid food as needed to bring it up a bit. My tap water has 0 kh, 0 gh, and low pH (usually around 6). I've been adding seachem equilibrium to keep the snail happy, this has been working to keep the gh up. I was adding baking soda to bring up the kh and keep the pH around 7. The last time i was at my LFS I got some "API ph up" figuring that maybe it was safer / better than baking soda. When I add it to the tap water and test I see the expected increase in kh and pH. However when I add this water to the tank it seems to have the opposite effect on the pH. Testing the water after adding the new water shows very low pH (off the chart), and 0 kh. It is lower than both the existing tank water and the new water. I did several water changes to try to raise the pH with "ph up" before switching back to baking soda. Does this make sense to anyone? My chemistry is very rusty.

Getting ready to start a similar project for myself. What do you think caused the death of the 2 shrimp? Looking forward to the pictures. I like the driftwood you used.

Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll try and fit some in.

Hi all, I recently set up a 10 gallon tank with my 6 year old daughter. This forum and the YouTube channel have been so helpful getting started. I've watched so many videos by Cory and Irene. I really appreciate Cory's view of keeping fish and recognition of how many variables there are. Both my wife and I work in horticulture but this is my first time growing aquatic plants. I've definitely caught the bug and just dug out an old 1 gallon pickle jar to set up a simple cherry shrimp tank for myself. The aquascaping being done by people on this forum is incredible and inspirational. We've got 3 otocinclus catfish, 3 glofish tetras, and 1 mystery snail. Hoping to add a few more of the same once I'm confident in their happiness and my abilities. I can't believe how fast the hornwort and frogbit grow. The dwarf sagittaria is sending out runners, the java fern is growing babies, and the amazon swords have tons of new leaves emerging. Most of the plants have been in for about 8 weeks. I've been growing the algae intentionally to ensure that the catfish would have plenty of food. I'm starting to reduce the lighting now that I have a better idea of how much they eat. Remember this tank belongs to a 6 year old. 😃