OP
OP
I really appreciate the explanations and patient help from you guys! Thank you 
I was always strong in biology, but have to admit that chemistry has never come naturally to me. I have to work much harder to try to wrap my brain around it, and admit that even after slowly reading through your posts, @Naughts and @Byron , that I know I'm still going to get confused about how the pH, ammonium, KH etc interact!
I do think I understand though, at least for now, why the old tank syndrome isn't dangerous because of the high nitrAtes and reducing them to fast; it's the other knock on effects because of the drifted water parameters, ammonium converting to ammonia that risks killing the fish in a big water change with OTS. But not a problem here because my tanks don't have OTS, and they'll be in just clean fresh water. That's the important part I didn't get before and why I was afraid to just plop them in clean water, but I'll know for any other time this situation might crop up!
Tanks are dark at the moment but Sharky is in her stone hide thing (I asked if he had a hidey piece of decor that he liked, if they could bring it to help him settle) and they did, it's three pieces of slate balanced to make a hide that he's too big for really, but I have slate leftover from dad's tank so can make more hides for him. But what I can see of him, a weaving tail, looks healthy enough! The QT tank with the gourami/cories/oto in they all look okay too - I'd used Prime as the water conditioner when filling the QT, so I imagine that helped if the water they came in did swing to ammonia, and I put an established filter and a load of hornwort and other stem plants in there. Hopefully I can get some better photos tomorrow. Poor little guys. I haven't seen nitrAte test results like that since I first got into the hobby and took over maintaining dad's tank, and the nitrAtes were off the scale. Took several water changes just to get those to a readable level. These guys were also so pale and stressed when they arrived, feel bad for them! I hope I can improve things for them and QT goes smoothly.
Never had a blue gourami before either, need to do some reading up on them. I remember dad's tank having some honey gourami, and at one point a pair of gold gourami, but the gold female killed the gold male and terrorised the tank so he returned her to the store. This blue is much larger than I'm used to, but I still love the elegant way they move around, and I remember the golds being excellent hunters when fed live foods. Need to figure out if it's a male or female and think of a name too.
I was always strong in biology, but have to admit that chemistry has never come naturally to me. I have to work much harder to try to wrap my brain around it, and admit that even after slowly reading through your posts, @Naughts and @Byron , that I know I'm still going to get confused about how the pH, ammonium, KH etc interact!
I do think I understand though, at least for now, why the old tank syndrome isn't dangerous because of the high nitrAtes and reducing them to fast; it's the other knock on effects because of the drifted water parameters, ammonium converting to ammonia that risks killing the fish in a big water change with OTS. But not a problem here because my tanks don't have OTS, and they'll be in just clean fresh water.
That's the important part I didn't get before and why I was afraid to just plop them in clean water, but I'll know for any other time this situation might crop up! Tanks are dark at the moment but Sharky is in her stone hide thing (I asked if he had a hidey piece of decor that he liked, if they could bring it to help him settle) and they did, it's three pieces of slate balanced to make a hide that he's too big for really, but I have slate leftover from dad's tank so can make more hides for him. But what I can see of him, a weaving tail, looks healthy enough! The QT tank with the gourami/cories/oto in they all look okay too - I'd used Prime as the water conditioner when filling the QT, so I imagine that helped if the water they came in did swing to ammonia, and I put an established filter and a load of hornwort and other stem plants in there. Hopefully I can get some better photos tomorrow.
Poor little guys. I haven't seen nitrAte test results like that since I first got into the hobby and took over maintaining dad's tank, and the nitrAtes were off the scale. Took several water changes just to get those to a readable level. These guys were also so pale and stressed when they arrived, feel bad for them! I hope I can improve things for them and QT goes smoothly.Never had a blue gourami before either, need to do some reading up on them. I remember dad's tank having some honey gourami, and at one point a pair of gold gourami, but the gold female killed the gold male and terrorised the tank so he returned her to the store. This blue is much larger than I'm used to, but I still love the elegant way they move around, and I remember the golds being excellent hunters when fed live foods. Need to figure out if it's a male or female and think of a name too.
