unknown tank issue

[SkyAurelia]

just posting to update, seems adding a bit of epsom salt to the tank did the trick, i have no added any new adult guppies but all the babies are still alive and seem healthy.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

just posting to update, seems adding a bit of epsom salt to the tank did the trick, i have no added any new adult guppies but all the babies are still alive and seem healthy.

Good to hear!

 

[SkyAurelia]

my male betta passed away, along with 5 panda cory cats, and 1 rubber pleco, recently added 3 new panda corys to his tank and apparently they was sick, i did a full reset of the tank, new substrate, rocks, plants, 1 panda survived it and i added in a new betta, they seem to be doing great so far.

because of the tank having snails i bought some microbe lift herbtana, anyone have any experince with this stuff?

 

[SkyAurelia]

 

[SkyAurelia]

well the guppy tank is down to 3 guppy's the betta, 2 corys, and a pleco, nothing i do seem to help with what ever is getting the guppy's.

had a water change not long ago, was about 4 days ago. going to collect water samples in a while when i have time and do some tests, will post the results when i have them.

just being help up by a diy light on a salt tank atm, a cheap light off amazon i used on it failed today so i used it controller to make a light out of some old ldds and leds i had laying around, nothing fancy in the tank that really needs light so its mostly just so i can see in the tank lol.

 

[SkyAurelia]

ok did my tests and here is the results

ph 8
nitrite 1.5
ammonia less then 0.25
nitrate 2

i have figured out what the issue is i guess. any suggestiong on getting my ph down?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

ok did my tests and here is the results

ph 8
nitrite 1.5
ammonia less then 0.25
nitrate 2

i have figured out what the issue is i guess. any suggestiong on getting my ph down?

Nitrite is non-toxic to marine fish, but is deadly to freshwater fish. A 1.5 ppm level is really bad for FW fish, but your test kit may be reporting an erroneous reading - what test are you using? Did you add salt to the water? A small bit of sea salt ( 1 ppt) will de-toxify the nitrite for FW fish.

 

[SkyAurelia]

its imgaitarium, petco brand, i have tested along side other test kits to verify my kit, its good, the nitrite is accurate tank is about aa month old and still cycling, i already knew the cause for that, i am more concenred with how to drop that super high ph, what i keep in the tank needs the ph to go down some, 6.5 to 7.0 is where i am trying to get it.

and nitrie being non-toxic to marine fish my experinice says that is inccorect, about 8 months after i first set up a salt tank i had a nitirte spike, it was the only thing that spiked in my tank and it killed all my clowns, so that is for sure inccorrect info.

that being said, if you read up top you will see yes i did put salt in the tank as an attempt to solve a diffrent issue with sickness, the sickness was solved.

here in a bit when i get woke up i am going to start moving the fish in that tank to a diffrent tank thats been set up a long time and recently came mostly open to new fish.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

its imgaitarium, petco brand, i have tested along side other test kits to verify my kit, its good, the nitrite is accurate tank is about aa month old and still cycling, i already knew the cause for that, i am more concenred with how to drop that super high ph, what i keep in the tank needs the ph to go down some, 6.5 to 7.0 is where i am trying to get it.

and nitrie being non-toxic to marine fish my experinice says that is inccorect, about 8 months after i first set up a salt tank i had a nitirte spike, it was the only thing that spiked in my tank and it killed all my clowns, so that is for sure inccorrect info.

that being said, if you read up top you will see yes i did put salt in the tank as an attempt to solve a diffrent issue with sickness, the sickness was solved.

here in a bit when i get woke up i am going to start moving the fish in that tank to a diffrent tank thats been set up a long time and recently came mostly open to new fish.

1.5 ppm nitrite is REALLY high for FW fish. Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate) will NOT help with nitrite toxicity in FW fish - it is the chloride ion that protects the fish, so you need to use sodium chloride at 1 ppt.

Nitrite is non-toxic to marine fish at any level likely to be experienced in a home aquarium (you would have to add sodium nitrite to spike it to 50 ppm+ before you'd see any harm to marine fish. Freshwater fish, with no salt in the water can be harmed by as little as 0.60 ppm nitrite ion. Some marine fish have been exposed to over 900 ppm, which would never be seen in an aquarium before starting to see toxicity.

 

[SkyAurelia]

yes i am aware that i need to get the nitrite down in that tank, in the mean time the fish have been moved to a tank that is very well establised.

will grab some normal aquarium salt friday didnt know there was a diffrence.

this fresh water tank has a ph of 8.0 i would very much love to make that go down to around 6.0 to 7.0 range, i have fish in there that do not like a high ph, have asked a few times now about lowering the ph in the tank, going to assume both times it was overlooked.

only other tanks i have with a ph that high are salt water tanks, so i cant figure out why a FW tank is this high.

that said thank you for the help weather it was help with what i asked for or not.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

yes i am aware that i need to get the nitrite down in that tank, in the mean time the fish have been moved to a tank that is very well establised.

will grab some normal aquarium salt friday didnt know there was a diffrence.

this fresh water tank has a ph of 8.0 i would very much love to make that go down to around 6.0 to 7.0 range, i have fish in there that do not like a high ph, have asked a few times now about lowering the ph in the tank, going to assume both times it was overlooked.

only other tanks i have with a ph that high are salt water tanks, so i cant figure out why a FW tank is this high.

that said thank you for the help weather it was help with what i asked for or not.

Most tank raised FW fish are adapted to a pH of 7.5 to 8. If you want to make conditions more suitable for wild caught South American tropicals, you should start by softening the water. There are resins you can put in the filter, or you can mix tank water with some reverse osmosis (RO) water. Once the water is softened to 50 to 70 ppm carbonate hardness, the pH will naturally drop.
You can “bulldog” the pH down by adding an acid buffer like sodium phosphate mono basic, but that leaves the water still hard, and soft water is better for these fish.

Be careful about using regular salt in a tank where Epsom salts have already been used, as they combine to raise salinity.

 

[SkyAurelia]

i keep panda cory cats they dont really like the higher ph is why i am wanting to get it lower.

the tank i moved my most of the fish to has a ph of 7.5 witch is ok for my panda cory as 7.8 is max they seem to be able to tolerate before starting to show signs of strees, they can tollerate up to 8 but in my experince with them they do not like it at all, mine where breathing hard and a few even died, i think i posted about them dieing up above in this thread as well sense im useing the same tank. the two tanks have same type of substrate, plants, but this one has driftwood in it, i think that might be whats making the ph lower in this tank.

i am going to do a 50% water change and let the tank sit a week before doing another 50% then will add the salt so i dont raise salinity to much.

right now the tank only houses a female betta as i dont have a tank for her my other 4 FW tanks are a goldfish/shunbunkin tank, 1 has a blue crayfish and sunfish in it, and the other 2 are co2 infused so shes cant go in there it would kill her.

 

[EuphyllinOHk]

+1 to RO water. I'm not a huge fan of additives for lowering pH or hardness, but they do "work". I've found that a healthy crop of plants will lower your hardness naturally, as well as sponge up left over nitrogen. My water comes out of the tap at about 6 degrees GH and 2 degrees KH according to the API kits. By the end of the week, after a water change, these are pretty undetectable/low, and, because these are low, the pH is allowed to drop (my tap pH is about 7.2-7.4, and it naturally drops to around 6.8-7). Tannins in driftwood will lower pH naturally; Catappa Leaves are moderately popular and do this but not as well.

I'm able to keep some healthy green neons and julii cories. Don't force the changes too hard and fast, though, because it never goes well.

 

[SkyAurelia]

my tap comes out at 8.0 im not going to do anything that forces that ph to lower i am looking for natural methods like the driftwood and catappa, seems im going to be getting more driftwood soon.

i actually drip acclimated the guppys and corys to the tank i moved them to, normaly thats not something i do with fresh, honestly i have never done it for my salt either except whent he tank was new. but this tank is co2 enriched and the other tanks was not.

here is the tank they are in now. they all seem to be happy so far.