sranieto

Hello, i'm having some problems with the water in my tank , can you help me ?
My tap water is 40 ppm alkalinity and 25 ppm in GH with a 6.6 pH , i add proper ph 7.0 to buffer my water and prevent further problems , but now my readings are the following : pH 6.6 , 120ppm alkalinity , and 60ppm Gh , ohh my nitrite is 0 and nitrate 20 ppm . my concerns is that 3 of my barbs have gold patches on their gills and seems to have skin discoloration, i just brought them from overseas along with three big loaches , a rainbow shark , and 10 tetras , but all of them are ok except those three barbs , i have a total of 10 barbs in the tank . Should i remove those barbs ? they are eating well and swimming around normally except one of them that seems to loose the balance from time to time .
Thank you for your help

Jay

Hi sranieto

Lets sort this out into three issues

1. Water chemistry is a little funky. <-- Technical Term Where is your water comming from?

2. Adjusting pH with the addition of chemicals which make the chemistry even more funky.

3. Fish purchase and behavior.

#2 first. Altering pH with chemicals is like chasing your tail, you almost catch it and then it gets away from you. Plus other unwanted side effects occur or spin out of control. IMHO stop using pH adjusters. Do a 50 - 60% water change and start from there.

#1. A pH of 6.6 is not that bad. Your KH and GH however need work.

A KH of 40 ppm (2+ dKH) is borderline low and it would not take much for a pH crash. A bag (Handful) of crushed coral in the filter will raise the KH and therefore the pH can go up. It will also provide a more stable situation.

If I had to say I would think you would want your KH at 4 - 5 dKH
Baking soda will give you a short term fix. Crushed Coral will maintain it.

Your GH is low at 1+ dKH you might want to raise that to 7 -10 dGH
Seachem makes a product called Equlibrium that works very well.

#3 I do not know the size of your tank for the amount of fish you quoted, so I can't speak to that.

Be sure to post back with questions.

Hope this helped

Regards,
Jay

sranieto

Hi Jay,

My tank is a 57 G , 6 danios , 12 barbs , 3 big loaches , 1 rainbow shark , 10 tetras , i big pleco and a male swordtail .
My filter is a marineland biowheel , instead of using proper pH 7.0 i will add coral substrate to my media container as you suggested to stabilize the KH ,as of the GH the owner of the fish store is looking for something to help me with that , he's concern of my water parameters and want to check them so he'll be by soon .
The tap water comes from a river but the town use mainly chlorine , i checked on chloramines but there are none .
I'll keep you posted .
Thanks again

Jay

I like Seachem "Equilibrium" for GH or...

here cheaper -> PMDD Store: Barr's GH Booster, Dry Aquatic Fertilizers

Regards,
Jay