Well...what should i do with my fish?

[PUNISHER VETTE]

I'm in no mood to buy new fish since my luck with them has never been very good.

Right now i've got 2 tanks. One 110g planted with all the fish in it and one 29g planted with only shrimp.

Fish include: 3 dwarf neon rainbow fish, 5 neon tetras, 2 rummynose tetras, 1 redfin tetra, 1 harlequin rasbora.

shrimp=cherry

I know most of those are social/schooling fish and need more but i'm not buying any as i don't want to kill more.

I kinda want a small population of fish in my 30g. So i can move all 5 neon tetras or the harlequin with the rummynose's and redfin.

Or I can leave things the way they are and keep them all in the big tank. I know i don't want the rainbow fish in the large tank as well as being too big for the small tank anyway.

[gm72]

You can indeed leave things the way they are.

[Wild Turkey]

I know you dont want to hear it but..

"I know most of those are social/schooling fish and need more but i'm not buying any as i don't want to kill more."

thats exactly what id do first, small tetras can be difficult to acclimate sometimes, dont get discouraged. Test your water and do every thing else you can and try again. Are you buying from a place that gives warranties?

[PUNISHER VETTE]

I know you dont want to hear it but..

"I know most of those are social/schooling fish and need more but i'm not buying any as i don't want to kill more."

thats exactly what id do first, small tetras can be difficult to acclimate sometimes, dont get discouraged. Test your water and do every thing else you can and try again. Are you buying from a place that gives warranties?

warranty or no warranty i still don't want to kill fish. Although i've had great luck with the ones left over for the past few months, and my tank seems to be settling down somewhat i still don't want to try more for a while.

My water was perfect except for the pH when i was having problems. Even drip accumulation didn't do anything. The fish just hated my tank.

I guess catching those small fish in my tank would be so much trouble i better just leave them be.

[mac]

Would you mind posting your tanks water parameters?

If you have trouble with your pH then where about's is your pH?
To me it seems like that could be your trouble.

mac

[PUNISHER VETTE]

Would you mind posting your tanks water parameters?

If you have trouble with your pH then where about's is your pH?
To me it seems like that could be your trouble.

mac


My pH is usually around the 8.3 range. My hardness is also high making it near impossible to change the pH. Even if i wanted to it would take huge efforts and cost that i'm not willing to take anymore.

I tried peat granules in my FX5 filter to try and lower my hardness combined with some acid buffer to lower the pH and nothing really worked well enough for me to continue it.

Everyone said that the fish should adjust to the pH as long as it doesn't fluctuate much....I'm no expert but if i had to guess that info was wrong.

To be honest the less i do to my tank the better and better it gets. Stopped CO2 and fertilizing and the algae started clearing up. Stopped doing weekly water changes and the diatoms went away. All the while my fish stayed alive. I've got so many plants and so few fish that ammonia/nitrites/nitrates never registers.

[mac]

My pH is usually around the 8.3 range. My hardness is also high making it near impossible to change the pH. Even if i wanted to it would take huge efforts and cost that i'm not willing to take anymore.

Boy I am sorry for you. What I would do is try and gather the rain water. That way you can have a better quality water.

I tried peat granules in my FX5 filter to try and lower my hardness combined with some acid buffer to lower the pH and nothing really worked well enough for me to continue it.

That is odd. Have you tried placing drift wood in your tank. That works for me to lower the pH.

Everyone said that the fish should adjust to the pH as long as it doesn't fluctuate much....I'm no expert but if i had to guess that info was wrong.

I don't always have much success in getting fish to survive in extreme water pH.

Just a suggestion. You may want to look at doing a African Cichlid tank. The fish are suited to a higher pH like what you have. I would really try that if you can.

Other wise I would try and get water from a different place or water system which might have softer water.

Sorry about your trouble.

mac

[MCHRKiller]

Go to several LFS, tell them your situation and see if they can tell you their pH and hardness. Some shop near you may not treat their water and it may be similar to yours, also Ive found that cyprinids are highly adaptive to any and all water conditions...may want to look into them. Could just be poor stock to...trust me fish come into the LFS looking like crap and alot of stores dont hold their fish for a period of time before making a sale. So the fish are often times shipped for various distancnes, arrive shoved in a bag filled to the rim with fish...the LFS people sometimes dont take the greatest of care acclimating them as alot of shops Ive seen just net the fish out of their bags and put in their tank. So they have to acclimate to whatever the LFS is...then a day or two later theyve got their bearings a bit and then somebody comes and buys them and its just the last straw...its not your fault the fish die from taking proper methods of acclimation, its more of a chain of events. Atleast they had a fighting chance going home with somebody who gave a crap enough to try to acclimate them.

[sleeby]

Here's my 110G with over 8 PH. Four species of tetra in there as well as four, said to be delicate, German Blue Rams. No death in a long time. Two of the GBRs are young and newly paired - they've made nests of eggs twice now.

I'm not sure of your whole history with the tanks but from your second append about not wanting to spend the time & money trying to lower the PH any longer I'm reckoning that you were doing so before - that may have been the cause of the problems as you mentioned that you are no longer losing fish now as well. I have never done anything to affect my ph or hardness - it is what it is out of the tap.

The only fish I ever had any problem with was neons. I lose about 1 out of every three that I buy within the first 48 hours. The ones that last two days have never died on me (tank is only 6 months old now though).

The rummies are also said to be delicate but I lost one (started with ten) right off and then the remaining nine have been perfectly solid. The GBRs have never had any sort of problem.

I'd say get back on the wagon and try something other than neons to start with.


Here are my tenants:

Leopard Danios 4
Lake Inle Danios 6
Synodontis Petricola 2
Julii Cories 4
Otos 7
Neons 7
Koi colored Angel 1
Black Angel 1
Gold Veil Angel 1
Betta male 1
Flame Tetras 3
Rummy Nose Tetra 9
Serpae Tetra 2
Cherry Barbs 5
Guppies M/F 2
Black Fancy Male Guppy 1
Pair Red Fancy Guppies 2
Red Mickey Mouse platies M/F pair 2
Dwarf Guarami 2
German Blue Rams 4
African Dwarf Frogs 2

[Wild Turkey]

Hey now Punn, i think you are being a little hard on yourself. Its not uncommon to loose small tetras and such in the acclimation process. YOU ARE NOT killing your fish.

Look at it this way, you are 1/50 people (MAYBE) that even check their water parameters before trying. Its not your fault for sure, and in a way by trying harder than most , you are saving fish not killing them bud.

I really dont think your ph is the issue, but drip acclimating will help if you werent already.

[BigMac]

My natural ph right from the tap is 8.3 and the water is so hard I cannot get a real GH test result.

I added plants and driftwood and my tank ph sits at 7.6.

I have NEVER lost a fish to PH. They just do not live up to their potential colors and vitality depending on the species.

[PUNISHER VETTE]

It would be nice to try again seeing as how i have a feeling my tank has settled a bit. Not trying to lower pH, intense lighting, excess fertilizers... It was just not a very happy tank for a while.

Chichlids would be nice but they do stuff to plants and i'd take my plants any day over a fish(i would have gotten kissing fish long ago)

[PUNISHER VETTE]

Well i went out and got 5 rasboras today since i feel bad that he's the only one.

I'll see how well they do(they didn't look too good to begin with but maybe it was just the trip home)

IF they survive and seem to do well i'll think about getting more later on.
Probably neons but since those were the hardest fish to keep for me i might just start a harlequin population. My goal is to just get a huge school of a fish. Other small populations is nice and wont hurt anything.

[mac]

Hope all goes well for you.

mac

[Amazon]

ph a fish killer TEST IT

[fraggle]

Good luck Punisher, if you think the tank has settled it'll probably better. A big school of rasboras would look great in a planted tank! :)

[mac]

A big school of rasboras would look great in a planted tank! :)

They do look nice when in large shoals.
Very interesting fish.

mac

[PUNISHER VETTE]

Well so far it's been 2 days. 1 rasbora died the night i got them and the others couldn't look better. Color has come back to them after the trip and they all eat and swim fine.

No way of knowing but the guy at petsmart did drop one of the rasboras on the ground and didn't notice until i pointed it out a few seconds later. Then he spend another 10-20sec trying to net the thing off the ground eventually getting it. Figured he would put it back but i wasn't going to question his decision. I don't think it hurt the fish that much but maybe it did stress it out that much more to cause it not to make it through the night.

They don't school as much but i think it's due to them still having a small population and other things to do.

I'll probably wait another couple days and if all is good pick up 5 more.

[Wild Turkey]

No way of knowing but the guy at petsmart did drop one of the rasboras on the ground and didn't notice until i pointed it out a few seconds later. Then he spend another 10-20sec trying to net the thing off the ground eventually getting it. Figured he would put it back but i wasn't going to question his decision. I don't think it hurt the fish that much but maybe it did stress it out that much more to cause it not to make it through the night.



I would have definitely made him replace it with a new one right there, usually i ask if i can scoop my own, so theres less chance of me getting banged up fish and them not acclimate well because of it.

[C-Dub]

Best of luck, mopani driftwood significantly lowered my ph level, just another suggestion. Can't hurt to try

[terrapin24h]

PV--
It sounds like your ph is super stable, but high. Part of the problem could be that you bring fish home and put them in your tank without enough acclimation, even if you take an hour to acclimate them, that's a heck of a jump(remember that every .1 change in ph is 10x) Maybe an extended acclimation of some sort, across a couple hours? Also, a way you could bring your ph down to saner levels would be to mix your tap water with RO or Distilled water when you do water changes. You wold of course have to continue that to maintain the lower ph, and with a 110 it would NOT be cheap. Sorry to hear about your troubles.

--chris