I don't understand whats going on

[partobe]

Hi Everyone!
I set up my tank a ccpl of weeks ago a 36 gallon bowfront. I have live plants and drift wood in the tank and 3 zebras. My tap waters ph is off the charts as high as it can go. When I bought the tank the salesperson said I needed ph 7.0 so I used it to set up the tank and the ph dropped to 6.3-6.4. After hearing from several of you I stopped using the ph 7.0 so I only used it once. Since then I have done several water changes to get the yellow from the drift wood out of my water and my tank is still at 6.3- 6.4. I want to star putting fish in next week and Im worried my ph is too low? I have tested different times of day and its always pretty much the same.

 

[twistedteq]

the tannin being leached by the driftwood will lower your PH. You would usually use driftwood if you plan on keeping fish that need soft water and a lower PH

 

[partobe]

thanks twistedteq
well the ph start to rise when the yellow leaves? Its pretty well gone now? So now I have to figure out what fish I can keep with shrimp that likes low ph? The list of fish choices keep getting smaller.

 

[twistedteq]

you can always boil the driftwood to help get rid of the tannin. Also carbon helps to clean it up. What kind of fish did you want to keep? You can have a nice blackwater tank with discus, angels, barbs ...

 

[budddman]

+1 twisted knows what he's talkin about I was just going to tell you the same thing.

Most fish from the amazon will thrive even with the tannins in the water...they actually like it. Look into ram chiclids and my favorite apistogrammas (might be off on the spelling)

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[partobe]

thanks Twisted and budddman
I LOVE rams but from my reserch they are diffacult and like lots of water changes. Same goes for Discus plus they would need a bigger tnak. I did research on angels and also like them but they would kill my shrimp( i think rams would as well) I will check out the apistorammas. I also like dewarf gramies(sp) but I guess they are diffacult as well.

 

[budddman]

Water changes are very simple, maybe one a month for fw. Apistogrammas are small enough that they won't eat your shrimp. Angels most definatly will. Rams are not very difficult at all. I don't know what kind of filtration your running but one product that helped me a lot was seachems purigen. Made the need for water changes drastically decline.

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[partobe]

thanks budddman I can def pick up purigen I have two hob filters will rams kill shrimp?

 

[budddman]

Depends on the size of the shrimp compared to the rams

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[howze01]

If you ask me, with low pH you're choices are easier. Any of the small Tetras would work well. There are tons to choose from and IMO nothing looks better than a big school of Cardinal Tetras. I would think that with Crystal Shrimp Rams or Apistogrammas would eat them up. Ghost Shrimp or the Amanos would be safe though. You'd still be OK with Rasboras too.

 

[partobe]

Thanks Howze.
my concern is that this low ph is temporary and will start to climb back up and if Ive bought fish loving low ph they will die. I had thought of a school of the rummie nose(not sure if thats correct name with guppy's I dont know why I dont like guppy's but I dont. I love the neon tetras but back yrs ago when I had fw tanks I never had any luck with them they would always die.