Water Quality

I'm possibly going to be purchasing some bumblebee gobies, my LFS is supposed to have them in this Thursday & if they look good I hope to get about 5 for my 29 gallon brackish BioCube. I did a water test & everything checked out OK, except the PH was a bit high @ 8.2, is this an acceptable level for BB gobies & eventually figure-8 puffers, or should I try to lower before adding fish.

Don't worry about the pH, as fish can adapt to a wide range of pH levels.

Have you cycled your tank and what is in your tank right now?

Also, what test kit are you using?

-FHM

FHM- Thanks for your input. I have a bunch of pond snails & at least 20 ghost shrimp, they are all breeding like rabbits. It's a planted tank, fully cycled & been running for close to 4 months.

I'm using an Aquarium Pharmaceuticals AFI freshwater kit.


Any further thoughts are appreciated. Here is a photo, its a bit overgrown, I need to do some aquascaping maintenance:

Both Figure8s and Bumblebee Gobies prefer a higher PH. I've had mine (5 F8s and ~14 BBGs) for over a year at a PH of about 8.4 with no troubles. I would worry more about your nitrogen than anything, but it sounds like you've got that under control. Best of luck!

p.s. Your ghost shrimp won't last long once you introduce F8s

Even though you tank is fully cylced, I would hold off on getting 5 bumblebee gobies. Since you just have snails and shrimps on your tank, these guys do no produce that much ammonia in relation to fish, meaning; your Autotrophic bacteria count is not that high.

Instead of adding 5, I would add just one, maybe two, once a week, or once every two weeks until you reach 5 total. This will give time for your bacteria count to increase in relation to your ammonia level or "bio-load."

If you just throw in 5 at once, you will most likely have an ammonia spike since you do not have enough bacteria to cope with the higher level of ammonia.

So, ad 1 or maybe 2 once, or once every 2 weeks. Keep a close eye on ammonia and nitrite. Say in one week after adding 1 or 2 and you check your ammonia and nitrite level, and they are both at 0 ppm. Then go ahead and add a couple more.

-FHN

myenigmaself said:

I would worry more about your nitrogen than anything, but it sounds like you've got that under control. Best of luck!

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Yeah my nitrites were 0 but actually my nitrates were at about 5, which I wasn't thrilled about, even though the AMI kit says anything under 40 is OK.

p.s. Your ghost shrimp won't last long once you introduce F8s

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I was planning on losing some or all the shrimp, I'm guessing they wont be able to hide even in a heavily planted tank. To prevent the puffers from over eating, I'm going to stash the snails in the back compartment of the BioCube, at least thats the plan for when I get the figure-8s. I wonder if some bigger Atyopsis shrimp or could hold their own?

fatheadminnow said:

..I would add just one, maybe two, once a week...

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Good point, I will start slow.

Your nitrate level is fine. Test have proven fish can safely tolerate nitrate up to 400+ ppm.

Your nitrate will never get that high with 20ish% weekly water changes... but a good rule of thumb is not to really let your nitrate get 20 ppm above your tap water.

Also, since you have a planted tank, your plants are going to use Ammonia and Nitrate as a source of nutrients. So I would bet your nitrate will never get too high.

-FHM