[Wolfess]

I have a small tank (10g) with some danios and otos. Currently the pH in my tank is very low. I am in the process of raising it but it is a very slow and delicate process and I am not going to rush it. In the last month or so, two of my danios have died. I only have two left now, along with 2 otos. I am worried about the 2 danios because I know they would be better in a group. I used to have 5 of them. Anyway, especially for one of my danios whom I have had the longest, I am worried about their health due to loneliness.

My question to you guys: it is best to give them some more friends, even though the pH level is not good for new fish? Or is it better to wait until the pH is stabilized before adding any more, even if one or both of the danios would die of loneliness before it is stabilized?

I am naturally a lot more attached to the fish I already have than the ones I would be adding. I hope that doesn't make me sound insensitive though. :\

 

[Wolfess]

what is your ph? how do you measure your water parameters? do you have algae in your aquarium? what do you feel the otos? what about the others?

My pH is 6.0 or lower. (The pH tester I have only goes as low as 6. I have not been able to find one that goes lower.) I have been using API pH Up to raise it. The dosage suggested 20 drops for a 10 gallon tank, but I was nervous about it so I started with 5 drops a day, gradually went to 10 drops a day, then 15, now finally 20 drops a day. Started this process maybe 2 and a half weeks ago.

I measure my water with API pH test kit and API 5-in-one test strips.

I do have algae, mostly on my rocks. Looks to be a dark green algae. I try to clean the rocks once a month. I've never used any algae-reducing stuff since I have live plants. The otos never eat the food I have tried to offer them (sinking wafers, seaweed, zuchinni) so I leave them to the algae and plants.

The danios I feed mostly flakes (Wardley Advanced Nutrition), with occasional dried brine shrimp and blood worms.

You think that the algae is contributing to the pH? I didn't know that was related at all. If it is I'll definitely start cleaning my rocks weekly instead of monthly. I also bought an algae magnet scrubber the other day just to have, but I don't want to take away too much from the otos.

 

[Wolfess]

Okay!

So I didn't have a jug of water and instead used a regular size bottle of water. Tap water is 30 GH, 0 KH, pH of 7.5, 0 nitrites, 0 nitrates.

Tank water is between 30-60 GH, between 0-40 KH, 6.0 or lower pH, 0 nitrites, and between 40-80 nitrates.

The tank has been set up since last August. My first tank was a 5 gal that I started last July, soon realized it was too small, and moved to the 10 g I have now.

The danios I have had are long-finned danios, I used to have 2 glofish in the group but they died. I love the long-finned variety of the danios though. At one point I had 2 long finned blues, 1 long finned zebra, and one long finned leopard. Now I have 1 blue and 1 zebra. The blue I have has been with me since my first adding of fish in the 5 gal, and I am most attached to him since I have cared for him the longest. His zebra friend is doing fine but probably a little lonely, but the blue is not doing well, since my orange glofish died last week he has now been sulking at the bottom of the tank, sometimes even just sitting on the gravel without moving his fins. I worry about him. I know it's my fault, I shouldn't have let the pH get so bad. I don't know how it happened. I used to check it weekly, and since Jan or so it was stable at 7.5, every time I'd check it, 7.5. I got lazy then and stopped checking it because it wasn't changing. Then after maybe a month and a half of not checking it (I know, I know :s), when a fish died in March or so, I checked it and suddenly it was so low. I know I shouldn't have stopped checking it.

I'm starting to wonder if my 2 rocks have something to do with this. I can't remember when I got them, but I do know that I didn't know about neutralizing them first, and I remember clearly that when I put them in the tank, they seemed to fizz, and I thought the bubbles were a good thing.

Last night I cleaned the algae off the rocks. I also poured boiling water over them, which I'd never done before. Probably should have done that when I got them.

The plants I have are gold-ribbon somethings. I think there's about 12 in the tank. Some are newer and some are older.

I do a 25% water change every weekend, and use an Eheim battery-powered vacuum about every Wednesday. I rarely do a 50% water change.

I use API tap water conditioner and API stress coat during the water changes. Also once a week I use Nutrafin Waste Control and Nutrafin Plant Gro, but not on the same day as the water change.

 

[Wolfess]

I'm glad you asked about the plants then. I had no idea these were not aquarium plants. That might explain why I could never get them to grow more than they were when I bought them, they just sit there and eventually die. I will get some new plants asap. Until then I will remove all but the newest plants, I don't want to stress the fish by suddenly having no plants at all.

What do you mean by stem plants? Don't all plants have stems? Or do you mean the kinds of thick plants I see in pet store aquariums that are like bamboo?

I will stop doing extra chemicals and start doing more water changes like you suggest. Thanks for all your help.

 

[Wolfess]

Stem plants are plants like Brazilian Pennywort, Wisteria, Cabomba, Bacopa, and many others. They are under the "Stem Plants" section in the profiles. These plants simply grow a continuous stem from which roots and leaves emerge. You can break them at any point and create new plants with bits of the stem. They can be planted in the substrate (gravel) or allowed to float sometimes. What we call substrate-rooted plants are those like the ones you have, that have a crown from which leaves arise upward and roots downward, to put it simply. Sword plants are good substrate-rooted plants, you should consider some of those in time.

I went out today to look for some stem plants. My nearest Petsmart had none, so then I went to a Petco and they told me Petsmart had a better selection for specific plants as most of the Petco plants are just marked as "assorted." I went ahead and picked out some assorted ones that looked like they might be stem plants. Could you look at the picture and tell me if you think they are? If so, I will go ahead and get more of them to replace the rest of my Gold Ribbons, and if not, I will go check out the selection at other Petsmarts.

 

[Wolfess]

You're in Philadelphia, are there no fish stores other than the chains in that city?

There are I'm sure, I just don't really know of them! The other pet store I know around here is called Monster Pets, which is pricier but has lots of exotic fish (barracudas, piranhas, electric eels, pufferfish, wolf fish, and my favorite red-tailed catfish, of which I hope they warn people about their adult size!). Unfortunately they do not have any live plants.


I'm glad that the plants I got are indeed stem plants. And I think you said that with stem plants you can just cut off part of it and that part will grow on its own? Already you can see that one of them is too tall, so I would like to cut that one down. I tried to look online of what the plants might be, my only guess was moneywort for the tall ones and some kind of anubias for the ones with big heart-shaped leaves, but your guess is better than mine.