H2O no Q

[edinjapan]

I've been trying to get my big tank's occupants (various Apistogramma and some N anomala) and the tank of Nigerian Reds P taeniatus to breed with no success. I'm wondering if it's a water problem. Parameters are as follows

Tank 1 150 x 45 x 45cm pH 6.0 KH 20 GH 8 NO2 1 NO3 10
Tank 2 90 x 45 x 45cm pH 6.0 KH 20 GH 8 NO2 5 NO3 25
Tank 3 90 x 45 x 45cm pH 6.0 KH 20 GH 4 NO2 5 NO3 25

Temps or all 3 tanks are between 27-28ºC all 3 tanks have a lot of driftwood ornaments.

 

[RAF]

I've been trying to get my big tank's occupants (various Apistogramma and some N anomala) and the tank of Nigerian Reds P taeniatus to breed with no success. I'm wondering if it's a water problem. Parameters are as follows

Tank 1 150 x 45 x 45cm pH 6.0 KH 20 GH 8 NO2 1 NO3 10
Tank 2 90 x 45 x 45cm pH 6.0 KH 20 GH 8 NO2 5 NO3 25
Tank 3 90 x 45 x 45cm pH 6.0 KH 20 GH 4 NO2 5 NO3 25

Temps or all 3 tanks are between 27-28ºC all 3 tanks have a lot of driftwood ornaments.

You're doing something wrong overthere... your filtration is insuficient, you shouldn't be able to detect any NO2. You're GH and KH are sky high and I wonder how can you have pH of 6 with those values.

Recheck everything and verify yur water tests and filtration, somethin doesn't make sense with those values.

 

[edinjapan]

I retested the tank water using a different test kit and checked the tapwater. Water straight from the tap has a low pH of 6.0, high GH and KH and no NO2 or NO3. Not sure as to why it has those values but, my crypts love it-seems to be the only plants that will thrive in these tanks.

Tank 1 150 x 45 x 45cm pH 6.6 KH 10 GH 6 NO2 0 NO3 0
Tank 2 90 x 45 x 45cm pH 7.2 KH 10 GH 6 NO2 0 NO3 0
Tank 3 90 x 45 x 45cm pH 6.8 KH 8 GH 8 NO2 0 NO3 0

Temps for all 3 tanks are at 28ºC all 3 tanks have a lot of driftwood ornaments and bamboo caves..

 

[dw1305]

TDS - conductivity

Hi EdinJapan,
RAF is right there is something very strange here, are you sure about the nitrite levels? at 5 they should cause pretty rapid fish death (Diana Walstad in "Ecology of the planted aquarium" gives figures of 0.1 to 0.4 mg per litre as the LC50 conc over 3 days for Rainbow Trout), and she says any prolonged exposure to low levels of nitrite (greater than 0.01 mg/l) is likely to cause severe health problems.

The other values are also very strange, can you get a conductivity reading of your water? it could then explain how you have low pH and very high KH/GH.

cheers Darrel

 

[jose_vogel]

Edinjapan, there are huge differences between the levels you stated in your first message and the last one, which of them is right?

If in the last message you wrote the levels directly from the tap, what have you done to lower the PH rising the KH, GH, NO2 and NO3?

I think your tests are very old and so, they´re useless.

 

[edinjapan]

Edinjapan, there are huge differences between the levels you stated in your first message and the last one, which of them is right?

If in the last message you wrote the levels directly from the tap, what have you done to lower the PH rising the KH, GH, NO2 and NO3?

I think your tests are very old and so, they´re useless.

Notice I said I retested with a different test kit. The old test strips were a month old. I got new ones.

 

[edinjapan]

Hi EdinJapan,
RAF is right there is something very strange here, are you sure about the nitrite levels? at 5 they should cause pretty rapid fish death (Diana Walstad in "Ecology of the planted aquarium" gives figures of 0.1 to 0.4 mg per litre as the LC50 conc over 3 days for Rainbow Trout), and she says any prolonged exposure to low levels of nitrite (greater than 0.01 mg/l) is likely to cause severe health problems.

The other values are also very strange, can you get a conductivity reading of your water? it could then explain how you have low pH and very high KH/GH.

cheers Darrel

I don't have a meter to test with. I'm also wondering why the water straight from the tap has high KH and GH and yet the pH is low. When I was living in Saitama Prefecture all the values were low across the board.

 

[chappy]

HI Fella,
I notice in your latest test that your KH readings are higher than you Gh tests. I would maybe suggest that if both tests were done in the same way that one or both of the tests is maybe not very accurate.
The reason I suggest this is because Kh measures carbonate harness which is just part of the GH, general hardness. General hardness will measure total ions, primarily calcium and magnesium while KH measures carbonate hardness, mainly bicarbonate ions in the water. Due to this Kh will always be equal or lower than the GH.
Also Kh and Ph are related. Simply put the higher the Kh, the higher the Ph as it is the Kh/bicarbonates that buffer the water preventing an sudden ph drops. I usually find with a gh 6 and kh 3 that i get a ph of 6.5 if I do a 50% weekly water change.
Hope this helps but if not keep asking the forum, plenty willing to help.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Edinjapan,
Chappy (Mark) is right, the measurement of TDS with a conductivity meter would estimate the total number of ions in the water.
If you had a compound like the sodium bisulphate in your water (mentioned in other posts) it would reduce your pH, but raise your conductivity.
cheers Darrel