Can you please help an old guy read this

[Tyler777]

Please someone with better eyesight than me can you tell me if my water parameters are good ? Specially ammonia.
I lost 2 Blue Rams . One yesterday I checked the parameters n there was a tiny ammonia so I made a water change n just now I found the second blue ram dead.
Just checked the water parameters again but I'm not sure if there is a tiny ammonia or my eyes r failing me.
Maybe the Blue Ram died of sadness from losing its friend ? Or something with the water killed it.

In that tank I have 4 female bettas, 5 or 6 neons, 3 corys n 3 yoyo loaches

 

[connorlindeman]

Please someone with better eyesight than me can you tell me if my water parameters are good ? Specially ammonia.
I lost 2 Blue Rams . One yesterday I checked the parameters n there was a tiny ammonia so I made a water change n just now I found the second blue ram dead.
Just checked the water parameters again but I'm not sure if there is a tiny ammonia or my eyes r failing me.
Maybe the Blue Ram died of sadness from losing its friend ? Or something with the water killed it.

In that tank I have 4 female bettas, 5 or 6 neons, 3 corys n 3 yoyo loaches

Your Ph appears to be off the charts.
Ammonia is present. Between .25-.50. Do a 80% water change.

 

[GaryE]

The pH is fine for blue rams. A little high, but acceptable.

How long did you have the rams for? They are very prone to dying in the first few weeks after arrival, in the quarantine period. They aren't an easy or hardy little fish.

 

[connorlindeman]

When the Ph shows its at the highest on the chart, its time to use the High range PH test.

 

[GaryE]

When the test kit measures 7.2, and then skips 7.4 to 7.6, it's time for a better test kit.

My eyes are old too - I don't see it as the highest. Spotting that may be eyes that have been used less! It's looks under pH 7.6 to me.

pH is a fairly useless measure though. GH and KH matter much more. I could breed wild caught fish from pH 5.5 at 6.8, but if I passed a GH of 40ppm, forget it. We like it because it's easy to read, but I barely ever measure it anymore.

 

[Tyler777]

The pH is fine for blue rams. A little high, but acceptable.

How long did you have the rams for? They are very prone to dying in the first few weeks after arrival, in the quarantine period. They aren't an easy or hardy little fish.

In the tank they been for 2 werks

 

[Tyler777]

When the test kit measures 7.2, and then skips 7.4 to 7.6, it's time for a better test kit.

My eyes are old too - I don't see it as the highest. Spotting that may be eyes that have been used less! It's looks under pH 7.6 to me.

pH is a fairly useless measure though. GH and KH matter much more. I could breed wild caught fish from pH 5.5 at 6.8, but if I passed a GH of 40ppm, forget it. We like it because it's easy to read, but I barely ever measure it anymore.

Ph is the highest in the chart

 

[Tyler777]

Your Ph appears to be off the charts.
Ammonia is present. Between .25-.50. Do a 80% water change.

Ok

 

[Tyler777]

Ok

The PH is the highest in the chart n its been that way since the very beggining in all the tanks

 

[Tyler777]

The PH is the highest in the chart n its been that way since the very beggining in all the tanks

If I have to lower the PH what do I fo ?

 

[Tyler777]

Your Ph appears to be off the charts.
Ammonia is present. Between .25-.50. Do a 80% water change.

I did a 50% water change yesterday how come ammonia is still in the tank ?

 

[Essjay]

You do not need to lower the pH. Check your hardness (GH) as that is more important than pH. Look on your water provider's website for hardness of you are on mains water; if you are on a well, take some tap water to an LFS and ask them to test for GH. Whichever you do make sure you have a number and the unit of measurement rather than some vague words.

The API master test kit provides 2 pH bottles - 'ordinary' and high range. If the ordinary (lower range) one read the highest colour, you should also test using the high range bottle as the lower range one will read the highest colour no matter how high the pH really is. If pH is low but only the high range tester is used, that will will show the lowest colour no matter how low it is, so in the this case the lower range tester should be used.




If there's still ammonia after a water change, either you didn't change enough water to get it to zero or something is causing it to go up; either something decomposing in the tank or something has harmed the bacteria colony, though in this case the nitrite eaters would have been harmed as well and there would be a reading above zero for nitrite as well as ammonia.

 

[MattW]

Is this the tank that had soil introduced for plants?

 

[Tyler777]

You do not need to lower the pH. Check your hardness (GH) as that is more important than pH. Look on your water provider's website for hardness of you are on mains water; if you are on a well, take some tap water to an LFS and ask them to test for GH. Whichever you do make sure you have a number and the unit of measurement rather than some vague words.

The API master test kit provides 2 pH bottles - 'ordinary' and high range. If the ordinary (lower range) one read the highest colour, you should also test using the high range bottle as the lower range one will read the highest colour no matter how high the pH really is. If pH is low but only the high range tester is used, that will will show the lowest colour no matter how low it is, so in the this case the lower range tester should be used.




If there's still ammonia after a water change, either you didn't change enough water to get it to zero or something is causing it to go up; either something decomposing in the tank or something has harmed the bacteria colony, though in this case the nitrite eaters would have been harmed as well and there would be a reading above zero for nitrite as well as ammonia.

I tested the high ph with the Api test kit and it shows 8.0. How do I lower the PH ?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I am assuming that you cycled this tank before getting the fish. If this is not the case then your issue is a lot more complex than thought.

How you shot the picture makes it difficult to tell the exact levels especially for ammonia. The filled part of the tubed needs to be next to the color bars to which it appears closest.

From what I can see reliably from your pic what I concluded from your pic was as follows.

pH- I would have suggested you do the high range test and you did but there is no pic. So, I will trust your 8.0 reading was accurate.

Ammonia- this was hard to read for sure do do the vial being out of position and not near the top bars where it should have been placed. That said whether or not a water change is the correct thing to do requires that we know how much of that reading is in the form of NH3 (ammonia) most of it will be NH$ (ammonium) which is nowhere near as dangerous.
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Determining these two numbers requires knowing the pH and the temperature of the water- the higher these are, the more of the ammonia will be in the toxic form. I did not see any ibfo on temp. from you so I ran the calcs at a few different temp. levels and using the 8.) you reported on the high range test
At 76 F, the NH3 = 0.0131 ppm- This not dangerous and you should do nothing, do not change water. The bacteria will fix this fast.
At 78 F, the NH3 = 0.0143 ppm- This not dangerous and you should do nothing, do not change water. The bacteria will fix this fast.
At 80 F, the NH3 = 0.0155 ppm- This not dangerous and you should do nothing, do not change water. The bacteria will fix this fast.
If your pH is actually higher, then the numbers above would be higher.
Ammonia tests can give false readings which cause such a low level to read as ammonia but which is actually something else. Foir exampple, iron in the water can interfere with test accuracy.. So it is possible you actually have no ammonia at all.

Nitrite- is at 0 and not a worry. And this reinforces my belief that the ammonia reading could be a false one. This especially assumes that you had cycled the tank. If you did not then this should be be rising either now or soon.

Nitrate- is also 0. This would normally bother me in terms of is the tank cycled, but the water change you did would be enough to lower a small level of nitrate to 0.

Because of the other fish in the tank, ammonia should be much higher than .25 ppm if the tank had not been cycled. So, despite what others have suggested I would tell you to ignore it and keep testing. If the ammonia level increases or if nitrite shows up, then you now there is an issue. If so read here, https://www.fishforums.net/threads/rescuing-a-fish-in-cycle-gone-wild-part-il.433778/

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