Fish: Re: [tropical fish club] Connie's tank 9-19-12

Thanks so much, Ray. I agree with your assessment about the guppies.
I would expect them to be the ones to survive the cycle and the neons to
have not survived. The other platys I had also died and the one that is left
has stopped eating and mostly sits on the bottom behind a plant. I would
have
expected them to survive as well.

Of the last three guppies one is not eating at all and remains at the top of

the tank not doing much swimming. There were no further losses this morning
but I suspect I may lose another guppy and the platy before this tank is
cycled.

As for the KH and GH readings. Do you have them mixed up in this message.
The first GH was the one that read 3, not the KH.
The KH was 8 that first reading.

I understood you to say that the KH was part of the GH and that usually the
GH is
higher than the KH. Do I have them backwards?? LOL!
The KH is still the higher reading at 8 and the GH is now 6. You are
probably right
that the first GH reading of 3 was somehow erroneous. There is always the
possibility
of human error on my part. : )

As far as the Ammonia readings....my chart only has colors for 0, .25 and
50 and up.
I don't know how it would look with a reading between .25 and .50 or between
0 and .25. Like your suggestion of .35 or .40. I don't know how those values
would look of
this chart, or if I could detect any difference in the color chart I have.
I use the color that is closest to what I see in the test tube. I don't know
how else to do it.

I know the PWC amount is a best guess for the water conditions. I do
appreciate your
advice getting this tank cycled. I will do a 7 gallon PWC later today after
the water has
cooled off. My tap water temp. is down to 82 now from 85. We are having
cooler days now.
So the tap water should continue to be cooler through the winter months. I
don't know how
cool it will get as I have never measured the temp. of the tap water in the
winter here.

Thanks, Ray, will keep you posted after next water change.
Connie

-------Original Message-------

From: sevenspringss@wmconnect.com
Date: 09/20/12 08:17:06
To: tropicalfishclub@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [tropical fish club] Connie's tank 9-19-12

Hi Connie,

With checking out your KH & GH readings first, They're much better in line
as to be what would be expected -- with your KH higher than your GH. This
might seem to indicate that your 3 dKH reading was faulty. Even since these
values rarely move very fast at all, either the 8 dKH or the 9 dKH reading
may have also been faulty -- or at least read erroneously.

Now, with your Nitrate reading of your tap water resulting in 30 ppm (or
between 20 & 30 ppm), you can't expect it to ever read lower when adding
Nitrate every time you remove it. It's going to remain about the same.
Live
plants will coinsume some of it, depending on how many you use -- if you
plan
to use any.

I knew my suggestion of changing 4 gallons may have been on the light side,
but I didn't want to see the Nitrite drop to zero (which it did anyway). I
did expect to see the Ammonia drop at least to about 0.35 or so from the
0.50 it's still reading, or at least down to 0.40, but as it remained at 0
50
ppm your next PWC should be around 7 gallons as I feel keeping the 0.50
Ammonia (Ammonium) will still be stressful. You may need to continue doing
7
gallon PWC's for a while to keep the Ammonia down near 0.25, but we'll see
if
you can decrease it to 6 gallons soon.

It's not always easy to know how much these values might drop when trying
to take into account how much new water is needed to change them --
especially when your tap water already has 0.25 ppm Ammonia. For now, we
can
disregasrd trying to keep any trace amount of Nitrite in the water for
cycling
purposes.

As for your still losing fish, you may need to increase the amount of Prime
we approximated it at. For all practical purposes though, it should have
been enough, so the amount still may be fine. The SeaChem Free Ammonia test
kit may be worth considering even if it turns out you have no Free Ammonia.
At least that would put your mind at ease in that department. If you do
need more conditioner, you'll know.

Somehow, I don't feel your Guppy losses are entirely due to the water
parameters. Neons are reputed to be much less hardier than Guppies and yet
they're doing fine -- and in adverse (for them) alkaline conditions. Most
Livebearers are fairly hardy fish, especially in alkaline water. None of us
know
the background of these Guppies, and this strain just may be a weaker one
through excessive inbreeding or other factor. Some of the best Guppy
breeders
will tell you that these fish in general are not as hardy today as they've
been in the past. Not saying this is the reason why they died, but it
might be considered into the equation.

Ray

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