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Won’t be that bad of a shock, recent tests say water in tank is 5.7 and water for water changes is 6.2
Will have to filter the new water for longer to get lower ph.Also wondering how slow acclimation should be, the water is pH 4.2 and very soft, the fish will probably be in water 6.5. Not in blackwater, just mildly acidic, so I wonder how long to take acclimating them. I know water changes are done where they raise the pH and it only temporarily stresses the fish but since it would be a whole new environment I thought it might require a slow introduction. (And that is usually a raise in ph where this is lowering it, which is supposed to be worse for fish.)
Does uv filtration remove humic substances or just bacteria?
I thought that the good bacteria lived in the sponge and on surfaces in the tank, but a uv filter can negatively affect an aquarium by killing organisms floating in the water?The tank has hydra in it. There are some strange small animals living in the tank, providing them food. It must be inevitable if there is live food in the tank at all times that there will also be hydra. Should I clean the tank and hope the hydra are reduced over time by that or put in something to treat the problem?
I read that blue gouramis might eat hydra, maybe sphaerichthys will but I bet even the blues would have to be really hungry to go for them.Something more related to the last thread, would a pair of vaillanti gouramis work in a 25 gallon or slightly less sized aquarium? (It’s a Red Sea Max 130 which is 34 gallons but that includes a small sump that I don’t use.)
Sphaerichthys seem to be more of a schooling fish and also aggresive, which might mean one pair would be shy or aggresive. But it’s a more colorful fish that would probably attract more attention in a store if I bred them.
Maybe it would work fine to have a pair by itself in that sized tank.It seems that the abiotic approach is partially correct, because I’ve read books that say to heavily plant chocolate gourami tanks, and that “natural” approach is not actually possible if it is a true blackwater tank. (Many sources don’t really recommend a true blackwater tank, just a somewhat soft and acid tank but not truly in the range of blackwater conditions.) The fact that the fish eat so little and the tanks are pretty undercrowded is something I thought was a more sterile approach, but actually doesn’t preclude some planting and a low tech approach. There are apparently a few key points to remember, which seemed very impossible to untangle when I was not aware of them. This connects with an over all frustration with not really knowing the biology and chemistry of an aquarium, of course they will function without that knowledge but it is unnerving to mess with animals when you aren’t really sure what is actually happening and why. Freshwater fish seem fine in very simple tanks, but with blackwater fish I ran into an apparently much more complicated set of problems with their aquarium requirements.
The thread being ended was smart, it needed to die a natural death. I think it was getting too general, and my questions are mostly answered, though I have to put them into practice so we’ll see.
I think I’ve talked out the issues I was confused about and will leave it to Americans who keep these fish to represent whatever the American methods are!I would edit what I said a little, I think I got the impression that these tanks are very possible and was convinced they are not kept more in America because the fish haven’t been seen enough by people in stores. But this doesn’t mean I actually felt confident about what to do to keep them alive using only my own ideas. Just that they aren’t impossible, but maybe they seem like it because they have no place in most American fish stores at the moment.
I think I was looking at it that way, a really conservative approach, because I thought that it might leave no room for failure. I don’t really have the experience with blackwater tanks to really say I even have an approach I believe in, or know of an approach that works.
I thought the “European” method was the techincal approach, apparently that’s not the case. I think I just wanted to remove the doubt and confusion that I had about how to succeed with blackwater tanks and fish.
I would prefer that it be a simpler, less demanding kind of tank, but when I started posting it was with the idea that the tank would fail no matter what unless I removed all doubt about how to succeed.Something obvious, just use the uv filter for the new water. I assume there is no problem peat filtering and uv filtering, it doesn’t matter that there’s uv filtration in addition to the peat (for creating proper conditions.)
A wet dry filter seems like a good idea, assuming it really will increase the bioload and make the water more stable. It’s less than 25 gallons and I want about 7 fish, so I need to be careful with the water quaity.
Also maybe the reputation for needing heat comes from the delicateness of the fish and has been accepted as a requirement because other conditions were lacking and needed to be compensated for.
Or the fact that they come from extremely hot stagnant water explains it, I don’t know.It’s true, there are some obvious problems I wasn’t aware of or didn’t think of, maybe a more realistic hope is that in stores which already keep less common fish, there is a chance for them to become more common, well known and reliably available, and then find a potential audience that may be big enough to help conserve the fish.
Extra time and money for a fish that might die, for reasons you can’t control, that your store doesn’t need to sell to keep existing, seems like what wild blackwater fish are right now, even to the stores that sell almost everything.
But these places will probably sell them if they’re available locally and are easy for them to acquire and house.
And maybe there are some people who will learn to appreciate the whole experience of breeding the fish and understanding and imitating their natural habitats. It only adds to what are already appealing fish, and maybe if there are people who will pay for and maintain reef tanks, there are some people out there who will keep blackwater tanks even though it’s not as easy as most freshwater aquariums, and in some ways an acquired taste.I’ve been told a wet dry filter is a better version of my sump idea.
Since it is not a 5 gallon blackwater tank, maybe it is good to have a bigger biological filter, some more capacity. In addition to the heavy planting, sponge filter and water changes.Might want an r/o filter eventually, seems like it is the most convenient way to get r/o water, and I will go through a decent amount of it compared to a licorice gourami tnak.
I plan on changing 5-10 gallons twice a week, will have to test the water and see how it is and how much I really should change it.
I had an idea, to create a sump, use a stack of trays so that there is a large surface area, and increase the water volume so that there is no detectable pollution at the point I change the water, but change the water anyway so that it is never too “old.” Seems like an idea that would work, haven’t done it because it seems the tank will be fine without it as long as the water is changed.
The supplier of the fish keeps them in water buffered down but not totally soft because of not wanting to crash the water. I assume they will acclimate fine to really soft, warm water if it is done slowly. See tanks on youtube that have almond leaves and chocolate gouramis breeding, wonder if almond leaves are a really important component or if it is just that the tanks are sufficiently clean and soft.I just bought a uv filter, thinking it was a solution. Oh well.
For the r/o water that I am going to peat filter, I assume this needs to be heated as well, and also wonder about leaving it around for a few weeks, if it gets dirty and if putting in almond leaves is a way to keep the water more sterile. And if almond leaves are what people say they are, something that puts some kind of plant toxin or active substance that is antibacterial.
The tank is heavily planted and sponge filtered, and I have been adding cubes of bloodworms for the last three days, one a day, and noticed the plants growing more and also intending to test the biological filter and plants capacity to filter waste. I bought liquid Sera testiing for ammonia and nitrite and nitrate, haven’t yet used it. Will have to sell the Uv filter and buy the Hanna tester. A germ test, is this more needed for chocolates than licorice gouramis, I thought chocolates were different in that they are more sensitive to disease and need hotter temperatures, maybe the tanks are basically identical so it is irellevant.
This is a temperature, pH, conductivity and total dissolved solids meter for $180. Maybe this is good enough for everything but the germ test, which looks like Merck doesn’t sell anymore.
Peat filtration, checking that it lowered the ph and hardness enough with the meter, and uv filtration of the water also, that should be enough to make sure it is safe?
