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Hi. My wife and I are moving from a house with city water to a house with well water that's surrounded by a lot of sandstone rock. Our current city water is hard with a PH above 8. Our new house reads about a 5.5 and has 3 degrees of hardness. NitrAtes about 12ppm out of the well.

We got Mbunas in our current 55g because of our hard, high ph water. I don't like to add a lot of things to my incoming water on a water change because I'm afraid I won't have it exactly the same each time. I'd rather adjust my fish selection to my water to help ensure happier, healthier fish.

My wife enjoys the colors of the africans, but doesn't like having only about 8 or 9 fish in a tank. Even though they're active fish with a lot of personality, she enjoys a tank that looks 'fuller' and has more visible fish, not hiding in their own caves.

Can anybody suggest a basic family of fish that we might try to keep with these water parameters? Ammonia was 0 out of the tap, nitrItes 0, phosphate 0.

We have a 55g 48" long. I run a Fluval 404 and an AquaClear 300. I have dual heaters and a submersed powerhead. Obviously my current setup is a light smithering of sand with a ton of rock and 2 or 3 plastic plants.

Should I go with a few small schools of fish? What can thrive in the highly acidic water? Should I throw some peat in there? Aside from simple water changes and vacs, once I get something up and running I like as little maintenance as possible. Thanks much!

Your going to get rid of all your fish just for that? Most tanks setup for cichlids that like hardwater are aquascaped using limestone rock because it buffers the ph up near 8.0. Those tanks often also use crushed coral or argonite sand like that used in marine tanks. There are even special cichlid substrates to buffer the ph correctly. It's not hard at all to raise ph. I'd so prefer to have your water and have to increase it than have my well water. To keep anything but african cichlids I had to dilute it. Eventually I just switched to ro water which I mix the buffers and minerals back into to make the exact water I want. Even that isn't as hard as it sounds. It takes about 5mins to make the new water exactly the same as the last water change and that's for water changes on a 90g tank. I even use 2 seperate powders for gh and kh when I could just use one. I like having control of all the water parameters. It's much better than relying on whatever is in the tapwater and there's always the chance the city will change it's filtration method or water source without telling me.

Your water parameters are perfect for South American cichlids. Think of a school of neon tetras with a couple of butterfly rams (mikrogeophagus ramirezi) or cockatoo apistos (apistogramma cacutoides) but keep discus as your centerpiece fish! A group of 5 discus in bright blue or orange would probably make your bride smile and everyone knows that a happy wife means a happy life!

http://www.diskuszucht-stendker.de/pages/about_us.html

Last edited by Bob Wesolowski at 03-Jan-2006 18:56

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

Come to the dark side....

Bob Wesolowski attached this image:


__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I knew someone was going to say Discus. I'll just have to look into that. I know my wife likes neon tetras and I like Rams.

Regardless of what fish I keep, am I going to have a significantly harder time keeping anything alive if I'm ever lax with my tank? I've had no disasters in my current setup, even when a heater was accidentally left unplugged, or when I've let the water go too long without changing it. I'm usually quite good, but hey it happens.

Here's why I ask:

The bacterial recycling (biological filtering) is less efficient in especially aquariums with low pH levels.

The percentage of toxic ammonia (NH3) with respect to non-toxic ammonium (NH4) increases as the pH levels increase.

Nitrite is more toxic at low pH levels because a higher proportion of nitrite (NO2-) is converted to toxic nitrous acid (HNO2).

Thanks.

From another site:

Solution: Keep pH levels low and the fish population less dense than usual which means more water volume for unit weight of fish. Either larger filter volumes or making better use of emerse and submerse plants for water purification.

For the time being, because I'll be extremely busy fixing this house up, should I just keep a few schools of very small fish, such as Neon Tetras, to appease my wife's like of high numbers of fish in an effort to keep fish waste to water ratio low? I already have a large filtration volume, and have a few spare tanks. Perhaps I can rig a refuge tank up and plant that? I don't care for a planted main tank because it's too hard to maintain and keep clean looking. Dead plants, floating plants, etc.

Since I am envious of your water and I keep round fish, I had to try to lure you to the dark side!

Given your preference for a minimum maintenance tank, I would consider 3 schools of tetras. From TFH 02/05:
10 Black Neons hyphessobrycon herbertaxelrodi for cycling
10 Bloodfin Tetra aphyocarax anisitsi
10 Glowlight Tetra hemigrammus erythrozonas
10 Callistus Tetra hyphessobrycon eques

Add the bloodfins after the tank is cycled. Wait a week or two then add the glowlights. Wait a week or two then add the callistus.

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright