Water conditioning

[Shane28462]

Hi, I just bought my wife a 46 gallon bowed front aquarium about 3 weeks ago along with a marineland "Penguin 330 w/Bio Wheels" , marineland 200 watt heater. We live on the coast of NC. and the water in this area is hard and rusty (After sitting for a few days it turns light - medium brown). We have a water conditioner which treats the water coming into our home with salt. We had ask a sales person at our local Pets + store if it was ok if we used the treated water and she said that it did not really matter so we decided to go with the untreated water from our garden hose. The water was really clear when we filled the tank and we treated the water with Jungle labs "Start Right" conditioner and allowed our filter and heater to to operate like normal for about 3 days when we started to notice that the water was starting to turn a light brown color, we dont know if thats just a stage the water has to go through. day 4 i realize that the "Start Right" isnt going to bring the pH level down so i go and buy Seacham "Discus Buffer 250g" which was recomended by the lasy at pets + , she said that since we had a 46 gallon tank we should start off with 4 tea spoons of the powder and the keep increasing until we got it to 7.0. which is bringing the pH down. My question is: Does it seem like this is normal, We are into week 2 still trying to get this pH level stable. Also pets + only sold us a pH test kit, is there other test kits which we should have? we are new to this and getting frustrated. Any help , advice would be god sent......

PS. We arent using pumps as the sales person at pets + told us that we didnt need it because our water filter had 2 bio wheels. does this sound correct?

We also bought this red looking liquid from walmart which was supposed to clear up dirt water and make all the impurities stick together and get caught in the filter, This has left our water with a blueish tent, Im asuming this is normal and will clear up?

 

[Madi's Platy]

Hi Shane, I don't know how much help I can offer, but from everything that I have read you shouldn't be trying to change your ph. The stores try to sell you all sorts of stuff, but the least amount of products you put in is better. For test kits, you will need to test for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.
Do you have any fish in the tank or are you waiting to get it stable? There is lots of great advice in the pinned topics at the top of each section. Try doing searches too. There is also a book called 'a simple guide to freshwater aquariums' by David Boruchowitz that I found really helpful and I've seen others here mention it as well.
Good luck with your new tank.

 

[heresmike]

With hard water it's difficult to lower the pH and keep it down.

What pH is your tap water? And what is the hardness level? And what type of fish do you plan on keeping? With that info, we can make some more educated recommendations.

 

[Bol]

Heresmike asked some good questions. Also, there are two types of "hardness" -- GH (general hardness) and KH (carbonate hardness, sometimes called 'total alkalinity'). It would be helpful to know the KH in particular.

Another question to add: does the tank get hit with any direct sunlight?


In your P.S. you mention not using pumps because of the biowheels. If you mean air pumps driving a submerged air stone (or air wall), then I agree with your fish store lady -- you most likely do not need one.

Also, in my opinion, the "brown water" is probably not caused by high hardness, per se. It's more likely something like excess iron in the water.