Ok small update on the lil guy, unfortunetly it turns out i was remineralizing my r/o water incorrectly! hes been sitting in the corner of the tank all week just moveing to eat food, and like fully grey insead of black so stress colours. I tested the water and the bloody tank was 8.2ph. I was remineralizing r/o water for his water changes with seachem equilbrium and seachem alkaline buffer for the kh. I would do the water test kit tests on it and it would say in the barrel 7.3ph and 3 kdh. Which is perfect right? but then the water in the tank was massivly higher ph like 8.3. So some talking with chat gpt turned out some wierd stuff about co2 and the ph appearing lower in a stagnant barrel but when put in a tank with air stones and flow, the ph shoots up. So im now mixing into the r/o water for water changes acid buffer too, and have managed to find a stable 4-5kh 5gdh and 7ph mixture. That should be more resistant too ph swings from things like aeration. It was quite a big jump going from 8ph to 7ph but in actual fact hes been the most active and the most coloured hes been in weeks today. So i think it was the right move. Hes moveing about, looking less pale. I feel awful, really hope this hasnt perimantly effected his growth or stunted him or something like that. Poor guy!
My super red tiger oscar journal
- Thread starter wormtail
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I'm glad you discovered a reason for the prolonged inactivity, good for you! I'd encourage you to consider, if you haven't already, whether it will be feasible to provide stable water parameters for this fish. Will it be straightforward to do water changes that keep the favorable parameters stable? If so, great, but if it's going to take a lot of chemical balancing/additives/testing, you might reconsider whether you really want to go down that road to accommodate a fish rather than keeping fish that will adapt to the water parameters you can more easily provide and maintain stably.
it wont be difficult at all, its just the ratios. All i need to do is 2 scoops of equilbrium, 4 scoops of alkaline buffer, 2 scoops of acid buffer. Into the water change water the night before. Its the same ammount each time and it will be stable. Because its the same ammount of r/o water each time 160 litres. The problem before was, because the kh was only 2.8, the aeration from the bubblestones and flow from the fx6 was causing c02 to dissipate, which pushed the ph way above what it should be. By raising the kh to 4, and using acid buffer to keep the ph down at the same time, i should in theory, have a nice stable ph.
It just tripped me up that i was recording the water paramaters of the remineralized water and it would say 7.2ph, but then after it was in the tank for a bit, it would rise to 8 or more. I had no idea it could do that lol. Turns out kh is important.
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Its not the ph of my source water thats the problem its that it has 20ppm nitrate out the tap, which is already too high for an oscar. On top of that its 400-450ppm general hardness so about 25-26 gdh xD so ye remineralized r/o water is the way.
I'm confused about why you are remineralizing your RO.
In Colombia where northen S American Oscars come from, the Rio Negro and similar rivers are quite low in mineral content.
The river are normally almost like RO, with pH ranges from 4 to 6.
In such a case re-minerlization, and raising pH, is a waste of time, can lead to HITH disease.
In the southern part of S America where Oscars also are endemic, rivers such as the Paraguay are slightly higher in pH, averaging pH 5, to slightly just above 7 seasonally. and water is also quite soft, minerally poor.
Again remineraling may also do more harm gtthan good, and lead to HITH if pH gets elevated above 7.5.
In Colombia where northen S American Oscars come from, the Rio Negro and similar rivers are quite low in mineral content.
The river are normally almost like RO, with pH ranges from 4 to 6.
In such a case re-minerlization, and raising pH, is a waste of time, can lead to HITH disease.
In the southern part of S America where Oscars also are endemic, rivers such as the Paraguay are slightly higher in pH, averaging pH 5, to slightly just above 7 seasonally. and water is also quite soft, minerally poor.
Again remineraling may also do more harm gtthan good, and lead to HITH if pH gets elevated above 7.5.
my tap water is 25 to 27 gdh water hardness, and 20ppm nitrate lol. Remineralized r/o water with my mix is ph 7, kh 4-5 gh 5
The reason I asked about remineralization,
The data from Rio Negro below
Low mineral content:
The Rio Negro's water is known for its extremely low conductivity (as low as 8 µS) and low levels of dissolved minerals.
Acidic pH:
The pH of the Rio Negro typically ranges from 2.9 to 4.2, indicating its acidic nature.
Negligible hardness:
Due to the low mineral content, the water hardness is almost negligible, making it very soft.
And data from the Rio Paraguay below
The Rio Paraguay's water is generally characterized by a slightly acidic pH (6.0-6.5), low oxygen levels (<6 mg/l), low electrical conductivity (60-100 μS/cm), and temperatures between 24-27°C. The water is also considered to have low salinity and can be classified as soft water, based on electrical conductivity measurements.
The data from Rio Negro below
Low mineral content:
The Rio Negro's water is known for its extremely low conductivity (as low as 8 µS) and low levels of dissolved minerals.
Acidic pH:
The pH of the Rio Negro typically ranges from 2.9 to 4.2, indicating its acidic nature.
Negligible hardness:
Due to the low mineral content, the water hardness is almost negligible, making it very soft.
And data from the Rio Paraguay below
The Rio Paraguay's water is generally characterized by a slightly acidic pH (6.0-6.5), low oxygen levels (<6 mg/l), low electrical conductivity (60-100 μS/cm), and temperatures between 24-27°C. The water is also considered to have low salinity and can be classified as soft water, based on electrical conductivity measurements.
