Agree. Bacterial bloom. Quite normal.Probably a bacterial bloom. These will clear on their own as the biological system establishes.
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Agree. Bacterial bloom. Quite normal.Probably a bacterial bloom. These will clear on their own as the biological system establishes.
ok good lolAgree. Bacterial bloom. Quite normal.
unfortunately wasn’t able to test the ph today. got very busy with exams and work. hoping for tomorrow. cichlids seem to be doing good still. aren’t breathing fast anymore and are swimming around. still think they got ich tho cuz only like 2 days ago they were rubbing their side against the sand. well 2 of them were.ok good lol
okayWe need the GH as well as pH as GH is the more important of the two.
okay i got it tested and on this picture the gh was 150 and the ph was 8.4. i live in wisconsin so the water is hard here.okay
so yea she said it was very alkalineokay i got it tested and on this picture the gh was 150 and the ph was 8.4. i live in wisconsin so the water is hard here.
online it says 7.8 to 8.5 for phshe said i should get this ph down stuff.
this
No worries i didn’t buy that garbage.No, please do not add this into the tank. You do not need it for rift lake cichlids, and it will not work anyway. I will explain.
The pH is connected to the GH and KH and also affected by CO2. The KH in particular acts as a pH buffer to prevent the pH from shifting. Only be reducing the GH and KH will the pH lower. It is "buffered" so it will stay where it is in the tap water. The higher the GH and KH, the stronger the buffering capability. This even resists any effect the CO2 might have, up to the point where the buffering ends; more on this below.
When you add these chemical products, they will (in this case) lower the pH immediately. Then over the next several hours, the buffering of the GH/KH will restore the pH to where it was. At this point, many make the mistake of adding more pH down, and the fluctuating up and down of the pH continues. This is frankly deadly for fish, as it is too large a change to rapidly. But, if it is continued, at some point, the buffering capacity of the GH/KH will be reached and the chemical could then be enough to crash the pH, and this will kill fish.
It is clear you cannot trust any advice the store employees give you. Please, for the sake of your fish, do not trust them.
okay i got it tested and on this picture the gh was 150 and the ph was 8.4. i live in wisconsin so the water is hard here.
what can i do to raise it then? the lady there said i needed to LOWER the gh lol i’m not listening to store employeesThe colours on the left column all show as black in the photo so I cannot see any of the values.
If the GH is only 150 ppm, it is pushing things for rift lake cichlids. GH at 150 ppm is equivalent to 8 dGH, for those of us who prefer this unit. It is moderately soft/hard, to use a very subjective term; it most certainly is not hard. You want a GH above this; Colin earlier suggested 300 ppm, and the lowest I have ever seen suggested is 160 (the cichlid site has 160-320 ppm for the range).
what can i do to raise it then? the lady there said i needed to LOWER the gh lol i’m not listening to store employees