New 180g Tank Mysteries....

[Cliff.W.]

You dont have to worry about the driftwood dropping the Ph drasticly. Its a rather slow process to slowly soften water. Id guess max youd see the Ph drop .5 in a week. Driftwood cant hurt and it always looks great in tanks. Id go ahead and get some drift because im assuming you water is relativly hard around ur parts. Pretty much all woods have the same properties. Check you LFS and if nothing blows your dress up, ebay got niiiiice looking rooted pieces of wood. Tie on some Anacharis and that will definatly help regulate things. Scaleless fish like loaches can easily surcome to changes in ph. Avoid chemicals. Your Ph is high because of what the tank is lacking, not whats in the tank. Unless you have some crazy bioballs that are raising the ph like ive stated previously. Any alkalinity is a no no. Buffers help "keep" a steady ph tieing up alkaliods or acids. This will take care of your problem in less than 2 weeks.

Thanks for the help and promp reply I very much appreciate your help! So Yes! today I went to Big Al's and bought some Malaysian Driftwood and OMG! 80$!!!! for 4 pieces... i had no idea 4 good pieces @ 4.99lb would end up being like 80$. Anyway... the damage has been done and over with... and i hope this will be the solution to drop my 180g tanks ph low enough for my clowns. I visited my clowns today at the LFS and it looks like they have ICH !!! Now I dont even know if i want to drop them into my 180g anymore since they will cause more bad then good to my other tetras =( probbaly giving them ICH as well and if my RTG is in there it will give my RTG ICH =(((

How Hard is it to treat ICH???? in a 180g?? I think I will need a LOT of Meds no? Or is it just that simple to treat ICH by just turning up the HEAT? and Add salt?? Some say to add SALT and some say to just turn up the heat. I have no idea...

Do you think this is enough Drift to lower PH>>>???

 

[jp80911]

heat treatment would work. 86F (30C) or above for 10-14 days

 

[FishingOut]

Not a bad deal you got. IMO woods completly overpriced.
Pet store was a bad place to leave your loaches. They are very susptable to any diseases and meds can kill them pretty quick. 1/2 strengh with loaches. Salt and min 85dgree will take care of them in a week. Tetras will be fine even if they get a little ich but they shouldnt wil the salt in the water. Get you loaches out of there or they will surcome to ich. RTG are pretty tough, They are usually tough enough to where ich cant get on them, like most larger cichlids.
*Best advice i can give, get your fish away from the pet store and do the heat salt treatment. A 10gal tank would be better than that filthy cycled bacteria heaven pet store water.

 

[Cliff.W.]

Not a bad deal you got. IMO woods completly overpriced.
Pet store was a bad place to leave your loaches. They are very susptable to any diseases and meds can kill them pretty quick. 1/2 strengh with loaches. Salt and min 85dgree will take care of them in a week. Tetras will be fine even if they get a little ich but they shouldnt wil the salt in the water. Get you loaches out of there or they will surcome to ich. RTG are pretty tough, They are usually tough enough to where ich cant get on them, like most larger cichlids.
*Best advice i can give, get your fish away from the pet store and do the heat salt treatment. A 10gal tank would be better than that filthy cycled bacteria heaven pet store water.

The loches use to be in my 180g and one died =( after placing in the drift the PH is now 7.8 instead of 8+. I'm not sure if I should move my RTG out of 75g and give my CL's the 75 or put the Loaches back into the 180g cause I'm afraid they would die again due to PH difference. the PH at the LFS is very low prob 7.4? 7.6??? and my 180g is 7.8 right now. might drop PH more in a week or soo with the drift.