I need water help

[Queeny707]

My water is ridiculous. I didn't know what I was getting myself into until it was too late.
I have 4 tanks all together. Currently, buying water for my 10htank.. in all 4 of my tanks I have problems... everywhere.. I have a 40g grow-in rank with 2 Oscar's- I plan to move these guys to the 150g currently in it, are a 9" pleco & 6 Texas cichlids (american)... in a 10g I have neons & some swordtails I guess? And in my 75g I have a bad mix. But they get along so... why separate just yet... in the 75g I have a large frontosa, 1 angel, 3 SD, 4 Baby Peacocks, algae eater, bristlenose... they have been in the same tank since they are babies... about 3-4 years...(tank was not mine & came with fish) I only added the peacocks for growing and moving later.... anyways... I have water issues...
In my oscar tank I have a hob 60 and a heater at 79 & airstone. Water was changed 50% and ammonia was a notch off the yellow.. if the kit was by decimal I say I'd have like .10 ammonia &not .25 like they say... nitrites are 0, nitrates were 20 after the water change.
My albino got ich. I treated it for the 3days &it was gone. Last week, I swear they both were getting fin rot, just frayed fins.. both fish, both swimming fin were the only ones that were frayed. I treated that. Just now they are looking a bit better... and then today I'm sitting here just thinking why am I having so many problems?! I have super hard tap water from a well.... I did check the hardness (GH) and the drops were 14... so that's over 200... and the KH was 9 drops I believe. Still high.
I am spending so much $on product to help my fish that the head to be a better solution for my water quality. I thought about a RO system, however..... I'm unfamiliar with those & they take out all the needed minerals for cichlids to thrive. I just want to soften my water a bit. Softener pillows you have to recharge every 2 days.
Just wondering if my tap water is being the evil in most of this.
I change water in my tanks on Wednesday's & Sundays...
In my 150g with my Texas. I was battling ammonia with them since I got them. I got that ammolock & I know it detoxifies it, doesn't remove it... I did a 30%to 40% WC every two days and the levels still never wentdown..I did a 50% yesterday, and it dropped 1 color notch. One week I did a 25% daily ..... nothing..
I got another filter, hob... and an additional heater... they seem to be doing so much better.. they are actually excited to eat! And don't hide every time I walk in the room. I'm not worried about them much... the tank water yes... still has ammonia that I can't remove! My water has 0 ammonias... it's stubborn... so I'm thinking a 50% WC daily until it's gone?
Now, I really wanna put my oscars in the 150g but would it harm my fish to? I want to wait to grey out 100% cycled and then rearrange my fish. I'm worried about my 75g tank.. first my frontosa was eating and he got some rocks in his mouth & appeared to be choking right? Rocks came out, but he never stopped opening &closing his mouth like labored breathing... not eating... just in his cave all the time.. he's been doing this for weeks now... I used API WCondioner and ever since I switched to prime seems like my fish are falling apart. I now have 2 orange peacocks just acting dumb- ones near the bottom of the gravel just laying &the other Is laying on my ornament. I have another one always by the filter. I have 2 hob 60 on it and a bubbler and a powered that isn't too powerful. I looked My one peacock and it looked like he had tiny tiny tiny black or red spots on him developing into his color? Currently my 75/40 are both on their 2nd day off melafix & pimafix... I just want normal healthy tap water. I have had so many issues it's crazy. It's getting expensive just for medication. But, I think it may also be what I'm feeding them... I recently bought food from a company that makes their own... I'm wondering if that Is what is causing things to go downhill lately with them...I've really been struggling in the last month and ur was about Feb early March Is when I started to feed them the new food.... but, thoughts about RO?
Before everyone freaks out, I know I can't keep my 6 Texas in a 150... but, I don't think they are gonna get any larger than they are. . They were in a 10 gallon when I got them and the lady had them since fry... so ithink they were stunted in that dirty water. I felt bad and couldn't say I didn't want them type thing... they are fun! They love crickets & grasshoppers & worms! Yumm!

Anyways, help.

 

[deeda]

Welcome to the forum!!!

Alicia, what brand and type of test kit are you using?

Does the test kit have an expiration date on it or if not, how long have you had it?

Post the water test results for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate of your tap water please. Also test the pH of your tap water in 2 ways, 1st immediately after drawing from the tap and then leave a sample out for 24 hours and test again.

I don't see anything wrong with your GH or KH test results.

You should be seeing a reduction in ammonia, nitrite and nitrate by doing any large percentage of water change so if you are not seeing a change, either your test kit is expired, you aren't doing the test properly or your test tubes are contaminated from not cleaning them properly after use.

What type of medications have you used? The reason I ask is that some meds affect the biological media and can lead to some problems that you may be seeing.

 

[A201]

^^^^^ +1 ^^^^^

Wow. Take a deep breath and relax Alicia. IMO, ditch all the water altering products. 50% WC's a week on each tank. Use "Prime" to dechlorinate. Thorough gravel vacs.
Your local fish store likely uses the same tap you do. Keeping the water clean with a stable PH should be your goal, unless you plan to keep wild caught, imported fish.

 

[squint]

If I was on well water I'd use RO, maybe even RO/DI.

I don't believe API Tap Water Conditioner detoxifies ammonia. The only API product that claims to do so is Ammo-lock. I did notice that OP wrote she had better luck with API TWC than Prime. I can't explain why API TWC would be better than Prime on well water with ammonia. I can think of a reason if OP was on municipal water with chlorine/chloramine though.

Prime and most other products that bind ammonia should make it non-toxic on a temporary or permanent basis depending on the product. Most ammonia tests raise the pH to something like 11 which converts all ammonium to ammonia and also converts a lot of the bound, detoxified ammonia present in the water to ammonia as well. That's why they're technically considered "total ammonia" tests.

It's a sort of a false positive because the ammonia is actually non-toxic. Of course, ammonia binders have their limits so if you have a lot of ammonia they may not be able to detoxify all of it. In this case it wouldn't be a false positive. Context is key.

Nitrifying bacteria are supposed to be able to consume bound, detoxified ammonia as well as ammonium and ammonia. So if you do a water change and your source water has ammonia, you add an ammonia-binder and would get a false positive if you were to test right away. A functioning bio filter should reduce total ammonia levels to undetectable levels within a few hours. Thus, even though it's a false positive reading, it can still provide useful information.

 

[MrsE88]

Stop using ammolock. It will mess with your test results. I switched to prime and it works great. I have very hard well water that has 2-4ppm of ammonia in it. It detoxifies it till my bio filter takes care of it.

As mentioned looked at the expiration date on your test kit. This is a liquid test kit, right?
Reading all directions is important. If tests aren’t done right the reading will be way off. And always rinse test tubes in tank water before filling them for the tests.

Also... how are you cleaning the filters?

 

[deeda]

Little difficult to find in the OP's 1st post but her well water does not test for any ammonia.

@ Kathryn, you do not want to use tank water to rinse out your test tubes, not sure if that was a typo or not.

 

[Deadliestviper7]

Did you say you used well water? Has it been tested

 

[duanes]

For Texas, Frontosa, and Peacocks (the African kind?) very hard, high mineral content water is perfect The water they come from is often called liquid rock. So for them I see no need to use anything but your tap water.
The pH where Texans, and those rift lake species come from approaches 9, with hardness reading that can easily top 250ppm.
Any aquarium strain oscars and angels may also easily adapt to your tap conditions. Stability is much more important than trying to alter water, so using your tap water for changes is generally the best thing to do.
Can you post your "tap" water test results, parameters like pH, hardness, and anything else you know?
If you've ever had your well tested, you should have plenty of info somewhere.

 

[Queeny707]

Welcome to the forum!!!

Alicia, what brand and type of test kit are you using?

Does the test kit have an expiration date on it or if not, how long have you had it?

Post the water test results for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate of your tap water please. Also test the pH of your tap water in 2 ways, 1st immediately after drawing from the tap and then leave a sample out for 24 hours and test again.

I don't see anything wrong with your GH or KH test results.

You should be seeing a reduction in ammonia, nitrite and nitrate by doing any large percentage of water change so if you are not seeing a change, either your test kit is expired, you aren't doing the test properly or your test tubes are contaminated from not cleaning them properly after use.

What type of medications have you used? The reason I ask is that some meds affect the biological media and can lead to some problems that you may be seeing.

Welcome to the forum!!!

Alicia, what brand and type of test kit are you using?

Does the test kit have an expiration date on it or if not, how long have you had it?

Post the water test results for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate of your tap water please. Also test the pH of your tap water in 2 ways, 1st immediately after drawing from the tap and then leave a sample out for 24 hours and test again.

I don't see anything wrong with your GH or KH test results.

You should be seeing a reduction in ammonia, nitrite and nitrate by doing any large percentage of water change so if you are not seeing a change, either your test kit is expired, you aren't doing the test properly or your test tubes are contaminated from not cleaning them properly after use.

What type of medications have you used? The reason I ask is that some meds affect the biological media and can lead to some problems that you may be seeing.

 

[Queeny707]

I use the api freshwater kit I got it about 2 months ago. I read up on the directions, google, YouTube, the book that comes with it..etc...
My tap is over the 200GH/KH... not sure the exact #. I'll have to di that test the 2 different ways. I'm sorry I was so slow at responding- I didn't think anyone ever replied to me until today... I was wrong..
I bought distilled water and set up a 2nd 10g just to see what the water would b with 7g of dis. & 2.5g of tap and it came out to be an idea range with 6 maybe 7 drops rather than 15.
Tap directly out of spicket is 7.4. 0 everything else. My LFS is over an hour away so they have city water and I don't. I live right by a lumber mill so my water is probably contaminated by that.. I moved here in September of 2017... my last house was closer to the same lumber mill and I had colligan test and the guy said it would take 3 colligan tanks to make the water drinkable. The number on his chart ranged from 1 to 10 & I scaled a 25 he said he has never seen it so high. I look out my window abs I can still see my old house.. more I'm just a bit more farther from the mill... but I haven't got it tested personally.. the owners before me said they grew up on it... they drank it & arnt dying & they are 60yrs old.
So. With that in the back of my head- I thought it was my water in general... thought about a RO but hear that kills a lot of the needed minerals as does the distilled...
I know I have been doing water changes like crazy but i was wondering if I'm even doing them right to begin with?!
Tap water goes straight to the tank via hose.. I know of ppl who premade their water buckets and add the prime etc... I add mine in 1ml in the middle & the rest at the end of adding it. My 40g I have to do with buckets for as of now. I fill up my bucket and then add a splash of conditioner til it and then put it in the tank... I always vacuum the gravel.. and then I have an electric vacuum that has a bag on it that collects the poop & puts the water back into the tank... so I do it twice each water change... but after each its never crystal clear... takes a few days to clear up with minimal feeding.. esp in my 75g. Read up on that for bacteria and or algae bloom answers. Not sure 100%.
There are days I feel like I'm being defeated &the are days where the is a good 2weeks &I'm like finally, I got it!
I wash all decor and filter parts in the aquarium water... I have 4 filters sides... so I rotate in between them.. so the are never 4 clean new filters.. 2 are always used... both my filters on the 75 are hob... both are for a 60g.
My 150g has a big 4 tray sunsun canister on it & a hob for extra...
The 40g has a hob that's for a 60g
The two 10g have hob up to 30g..