New User From McKenna!

Hi,

My Name is Kevin. I'm 28 and currently living in McKenna, but originally grew up in Spanaway. I was told that I needed to check out WFB by Gosu. I recently got back into fish keeping about a year ago after visiting my friends house. After checking out his tank, and remembered how cool/fun it was when I had a 20gal as a teenager, I had to have one again. I went right out and bought an All-Glass 55gal tank with a stand. It came with a 30-60gal Aqua-Tech HOB filter, All-Glass 200W heater, and two 24" All-Glass florescent light strips. I then went out and bought an additional HOB filter to finish the set up.

My first venture back into fish keeping was a total disaster. I was housing two small Oscars for about 5 months, until I epically failed. I was only doing a 25% water change each month and not properly vacuuming my gravel. I then knew I needed help. I did some research and found a book that quite a few fish keepers recommended. The book was called "The Simple Guide to Freshwater Aquariums" by David E. Boruchowitz. The book helped me immensely, and got me started on the right path to say the least.

Currently I have a peacefully community set up with 5 Platies, 8 Zebra Danios, 3 Serpae Tetras, and 5 Cory cats. I recently tried to finish my stocking scheme with 3 more Serpae's Tetras and 6 tiny Lemon Tetras... that didn’t work out well. Sadly after my fish died I took a water sample to my LFS, and that’s when I got the news. My pH was at 7.8 and it took less than a week to kill my Lemon's and Serpae's. I thought I was doing everything right. I had been doing large weekly water changes when I vacuumed, and testing my water for ammonia, nitrate, and nitrites. Everything was at 0 or in the safe range for several months. The only test that I wasn’t performing was on my pH.

Currently I'm still trying to find out why my pH is high. My well water pH is coming out at about 6.6 to 6.8. I then let it sit for a week because it’s high in iron. I then test it a week later, and it reads around 7.0 to 7.2 because of the dissipated CO2. I also add Tetra Aqua Safe to the water before I add it to my tank. I did some research, and with the help of TFK.com I found out that the "river rock" I bought at Wal-Mart may be marble. Also I found out that marble raises your pH over time. I have since removed it and I'm still waiting to see if it lowers my pH. I'm currently not adding any more fish until I get this thing figured out.

Also this week I'm purchasing an All-Glass 48" twin-tube florescent strip light for my 55gal. I really want to have a planted tank and have been doing research for months now. I have purchased some 1-2 millimeter aquarium gravel as my substrate. This was recommend by a few experts on TFK.com. Next of course is the lighting, then the driftwood and a plant package from Sweet Aquatics.

I know I need to learn a lot more about fish keeping and hope that I can learn from the experts on this forum.

Hey there Kevin, welcome to the forum and welcome back to the hobby. After 17 years of keeping fish it has come to my attention that you are always learning something new in our hobby. Once you have the basics down, wich it sounds like you do its all research on whatever it is you are currently looking in too at the time. I swear I have read and reread all the books I have several times (around 20), and I find myself rereading the same articals on the same fish as well. We spend a lot of time reading and learning in this hobby as I'm sure you now know since you are researching planted aqauria. This part of the hobby is a close second to cichlid behavior for me and I am really inspired by the work of Takashi Amano. If you get the chance to pick up any of his nature world aquarium books I would do so. They are great coffe table books with a lot of stories that explain diffrent trials and errors when keeping plants was not so easy, and how he learned a lot of what is used today to keep plants. If you have been doing a good deal of research then I'm sure the name is familiar to you. Good luck with your ph issue. If you can't figure it out I would just filter through peat moss and ad a few big hunks of drift wood. That wil lower your ph a good amount. Another option is to get fish according to your ph. There are some really nice africans that would love to call a 55 gallon tank there home.

Thanks for all the advice fish_n_vw. I have read a few books on the basics for fishing keeping and planted aquaria. But most of my research has been the "free kind" on the wonderful world wide web! I have ran across Takashi Amano name in my search for information on planted aquaria, but will now dig further into his work. It seems that all the "good" information is leading me to a "low tech" approach, with nature doing all the work. No CO2, minimal light, minimal nutrients, and just providing good fertilizer and all the basic elements plants need. As for the driftwood, I will be ordering two pieces from Sweet Aquatics this week with my plant order. Also if I can not lower my pH for some reason, I have not ruled out other tropical fish that thrive in a higher pH like African Cichlids.

careful with them africans... bastards dig glad you joined the forum man, so many helpful people!

where the hell is mckenna?

aaronfeeney wrote:where the hell is mckenna?

LOL@Aaron.... Seriously though where the hell is Mckenna? Im too lazy to look it up...

aaronfeeney wrote:where the hell is mckenna?

Right next to the middle of nowhere! I don’t know if this will help but its between Yelm and Roy.

welcome to WFB! i hope you find all the answers you need right here.

Ok you are out there aren't ya

yeah welcome dude

Hey, thats a heck of a story for an introduction!!! Might want to think of a biography, lol... kiddding..... welcome to WFB, and glad to see people with experience still make mistakes... I just did, check out my post on disaster under dieses topic.... big woooops. lol
If you have any questions, please dont hesitate to ask, lots of knowledgable people here will help!

Welcome to the WFB! Nice intro

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome!

Welcome to the site!