Brand New & Looking For Advice With Ph Levels

Hello everyone. I have been exploring this site over the last couple weeks and finally decided to sign up, as I'm always having a never ending list of questions it seems, and I have no one to ask. Lol. I apologize in advance for any ignorance, lack of proper lingo/words, and all around nonsensical gibbersish that I may babble about. I am new to this whole fish keeping idea and though it is a terribly long story, over the last month I now have freshwater 3 tanks. I have a few different issues right now, but my current question to start everything off is how can I lower my Ph? It's coming out of my tap is at least 8.0.

I currently have a 12 inch Pleco in a 50 gallon that was just set up. I don't know what Ph he was in before, but he came with the 50 gallon that we just finished setting up yesterday. I kept him and the old media filter/cartridges in a bucket with an air stone while everything was being set up. I also washed most of the gravel that came with the tank, but kept about a third of the dirty gravel and mixed it in with the clean gravel during setup. I conditioned the water with Prime, added Tetra safe start bacteria, and put him in about 20 minutes later because I wasn't sure how long he could be in the bucket and I felt horrible. Now because I got a used tank and was able to keep the old media, and some of the dirty gravel am I still going to go through a nitrogen cycle like normal, or will it be different because it's not necessarily "brand new"?

I'm hoping to move 2 goldfish (1 Black Moor, 1 Oranda) into this tank as soon as I know it's safe, because they are currently in a 10 gallon with an electric yellow cichlid (I know! They don't even go together!!! ugh...) and they are suffering from fin rot(possible, though it could be a few different things with the bad water) I believe from being overpopulated in this tiny minuscule 10 gallon tank that I've been trying to get them out of since they were in it, about 3.5 weeks now. I originally had 3 goldfish in there, but lost 1 today. I'm heartbroken. The whole reason I got this 50 gallon setup was to get them in there to give them the room they deserve and need. I was doing 50% water changes every 5 days because my nitrates, nitrites, and ammonia levels were always on the rise constantly with them dirtying the tiny tank so fast, but now I'm doing 50% water changes every 3 days. I also did a fishmox treatment for 5 days, though that didn't seem to improve anything. After the 5 days I did a water change and changed the carbon in my cartridges, but left the old media stuff in, not knowing whether or not I killed off my good bacteria with the amoxicillin, but I wanted to get the last of the fishmox out. Ugh.

I know it was all a horrible set up to begin with, but when my husband went to Petsmart initially to get a 10 gallon tank setup for our son's birthday, the employee there sold him anything he looked at and asked about saying "Yes, they will all do great in there!" He came home with 4 tiny glowing fish for the glow type tanks, 5 tetras, a Black Moor, and 2 Orandas. All in this tiny 10 gallon tank. My first thought was wow, overcrowded. So after the first 4 days we lost all of the little tiny fish. I began looking for another tank so that I could separate the tetras from the goldfish since they don't even belong together in the first place, and I needed to give everyone some space. We ended up getting shortchanged on a tank on offer up and my husband came home with a 5 gallon tank setup, and brought a cichlid with it. It was supposed to be a 10 gallon and I didn't want a Cichlid! (Oh my lord...) So I went ahead and moved the Tetras over into that, though I would prefer them to be in something bigger, for now it will have to do because the Goldfish needed the 10 gallon, though that needed to be changed as well. Now during this whole process my goldfish were obviously contaminating the 10 gallon faster than I could change the water out, so I continued to look for another tank. The signs of fin rot or whatever it is have just gotten worse, and now I'm down 1 fish. I don't even know if I can save them now that I've lost 1. They look like zombie fish. Fins are fraying, scales are missing on their sides, gills are turning red and peeling away it seems, and my black moor has cloudy eye in 1 eye as well. I'm going to be doing another water change today, though all of my numbers seem better than they were before. I'm trying so hard to save these little guys, but it seems I can't keep up with all of the issues. My current numbers for my 10 gallon goldfish tank are as follows:

Nitrate-40/safe
Nitrite-1.0/Stress
Hardness-300/Very hard
Chlorine-0
Alkalinity-80-120/moderate to ideal
Ph-7.8/Alkaline
Ammonia-.5/safe

Any recommendations, opinions, information, name calling, and all the like are welcome. I know it's a terrible terrible situation, I'm just looking for some advice, and more than willing to do what needs to be done to make things right. I also have detailed pictures of each goldfish if anyone here knows anything about what different sicknesses look like. I won't post them yet, as they are of course a bit graphic with the zombie fish closeups, but I do have them if someone can help. Thank you for taking the time to read my life story, and I thank anyone is advance who can shed some light on any of this. What a horrible way to have to introduce oneself on a fish forum.... Lol.

 

Welcome to fish lore!! Don't bear yourself up.. you realize you made a mistake and are now trying to fix it and that is a great step in the right direction!!! I can't help you with your fish as I don't know a whole lot about fish disease and such but... Here is a bit of advice!! Don't try to lower your pH! A fish will acclimate to a higher pH and be healthier than trying to deal with pH swings. Also.. do you have any prime water conditioner? That would help greatly with your ammonia problem! It detoxifies ammonia and nitrite up to 1 ppm.! Again.. welcome to fishlore!

 

Ok, I'm gonna cut right to the chase. 8.0 is fine. Don't go fiddling around with your pH if it is already stable and consistent. Unless you want to keep wild discus or Taiwan bee shrimp your water is fine for pretty much any application. Goldfish in particular seem to do better in harder water.

 

I would go ahead and move the goldfish to the bigger tank since its a lot more water to dilute their waist. Then just monitor and change water accordingly.

 

Welcome to fish lore!! Don't bear yourself up.. you realize you made a mistake and are now trying to fix it and that is a great step in the right direction!!! I can't help you with your fish as I don't know a whole lot about fish disease and such but... Here is a bit of advice!! Don't try to lower your pH! A fish will acclimate to a higher pH and be healthier than trying to deal with pH swings. Also.. do you have any prime water conditioner? That would help greatly with your ammonia problem! It detoxifies ammonia and nitrite up to 1 ppm.! Again.. welcome to fishlore!

Thank you Smalltown, I appreciate that. I am using the Prime water conditioner, and I will take your advice with the Ph.

 

First question: You shouldn't really try to mess with your ph, as long as it's stable the fish will adapt to it.
Second question: If the old filter media was cycled and you didn't wash it in tap water, then you would still have a cycle. But just to be sure, test the water. Ammonia and nitrites should be at 0 and nitrates should have a number.
Third question: Fish Mox is a gram positive and negative medication (mostly a gram positive) and most gram positive medication could kill beneficial bacteria. Just keep testing to see if you still have it.
Last question: Wow, not sure how to deal with that. But maybe someone else could help.
Always test using a liquid test kit! They're the most accurate.

 

Ok, I'm gonna cut right to the chase. 8.0 is fine. Don't go fiddling around with your pH if it is already stable and consistent. Unless you want to keep wild discus or Taiwan bee shrimp your water is fine for pretty much any application. Goldfish in particular seem to do better in harder water.

Thank you Fahn, that's good to know. So I shouldn't be concerned at all then with the hardness? That's one less thing to worry about, and hopefully the ph truly isn't a problem, because that would be another thing not to worry about, which would make me feel a little better after all of this. lol. Thank you.

First question: You shouldn't really try to mess with your ph, as long as it's stable the fish will adapt to it.
Second question: If the old filter media was cycled and you didn't wash it in tap water, then you would still have a cycle. But just to be sure, test the water. Ammonia and nitrites should be at 0 and nitrates should have a number.
Third question: Fish Mox is a gram negative and positive medication and most gram positive medication could kill beneficial bacteria. Just keep testing to see if you still have it.
Last question: Wow, not sure how to deal with that. But maybe someone else could help.
Always test using a liquid test kit! They're the most accurate.

Thank you Repolie for all of that info. It was previously cycled, and no, I did not wash it in any tap water, I plopped it right in the bucket with the Pleco, and he was in his original tank water in there, so I was trying to save all of that. I will do a test today in the big tank and see where it is sitting. Also, do you have a liquid test that you would recommend? I just grabbed the tetra paper strips because I needed something asap when things started going downhill. Thanks!

 

Sheena-Phx get the API Freshwater Master Kit.

 

Thank you Repolie for all of that info. It was previously cycled, and no, I did not wash it in any tap water, I plopped it right in the bucket with the Pleco, and he was in his original tank water in there, so I was trying to save all of that. I will do a test today in the big tank and see where it is sitting. Also, do you have a liquid test that you would recommend? I just grabbed the tetra paper strips because I needed something asap when things started going downhill. Thanks!

Yeah I recommend the API freshwater master test kit. Could be a bit pricey depending on where you are.

 

I would go ahead and move the goldfish to the bigger tank since its a lot more water to dilute their waist. Then just monitor and change water accordingly.

Thanks David, I will test that water here shortly and if all seems well I will put them on over and hope for the best.

Alright, RepolI and Fahn, I will definitely look into that specific test, looks like it's $21 on Amazon, and everywhere else. lol. Anyone know of someone on here who is good with identifying sickeness/dissease types?

 

Goldiemom is usually on later but pics will really help.

 

Oh, alright perfect. Hopefully she sees this then when she is on here. I will post pics after I hear from someone who knows what to look for. Thank you so much for the help, I feel a little better now after getting some insight from the pros. : )

Alright, I just ran my numbers in the 50 gallon tank and all seems well with those. I'm thinking I can put my poor sick Black Moor and Oranda in there. Last concern would be, will my giant 12 inch Pleco bother anyone?

 

Alright, I just ran my numbers in the 50 gallon tank and all seems well with those. I'm thinking I can put my poor sick Black Moor and Oranda in there. Last concern would be, will my giant 12 inch Pleco bother anyone?

Plecos can be aggressive and territorial, but generally keep to themselves. They do, however, create a ton of waste.

 

HI and welcome! So sorry for the late response. For some reason, I didn’t see this post. Thanks for contacting me. It looks like everyone is giving you great advice! PH is fine! Mine is the same. The poor Goldie’s more than likely got picked on by the Cichlid and is probably what caused the fin rot. If you can post a pic, I’ll be happy to take a look. Also pic of the cloudy eye. For now, good clean water will help. A lot of people don’t like Melafix but I actually do for a first line of defense. It helps cloudy eye and fin rot. I’d try that first to help the Goldie’s heal. If that doesn’t help and they get worse, we can go to stronger meds like Furan-2. Keep them away from the Cichlid. He can kill them and most likely did kill the one. We grow from our mistakes. Again, some pics will help but start with the clean water and Melafix. Watch the cloudy eye closely. If it worsens, we may have to treat for Popeye with more aggressive meds and Epsom salt baths. I’m getting ahead of myself though. Let’s start with the Melafix. Keep me posted and again, welcome to the forum!

 

Thank you so much Goldie, I appreciate the info, and will definitely be getting Melafix after your recommendation. I posted pictures from a few days ago in another thread in the sickness/disease area. I will post more recent ones here since there seems to be more traffic here. I just took these today for you.
Since my last post here in this thread I have moved my 2 remaining goldfish to the big 50 gallon tank. The huge Pleco isn't even paying attention to them, so that's good. They have been there since Monday night and are doing well so far. They are much more active, though my Black Moor seems to still be out of sorts, obviously suffering from the ailments that he has. The Oranda though is a brand new fish in the new tank and I can already see improvements in his behavior. I tried to get some good photos to show the detail for you. The Oranda used to be a solid gold color. No white or black anywhere except white on his chin and underside. Thank you in advance for taking a look, I sincerely appreciate it!

 

God love them. Especially the Moore. He really got it. This is why we don’t put goldies in with tropicals. The white on the orange one may stay white. That’s ok as long as he is healthy. The Moore will probably grow his scales back in time. Sometimes they don’t but more than likely he will. I’m really worried about him though. I didn’t realize how chewed up he is. I think we better move to the big guns for him to fight infection. You will need to get Kanaplex and Furan-2. You can order them both on Amazon. If you have Amazon Prime it will get here by tomorrow or Friday. You will need to move him into a Quarantine tank. If you have some of cycled filter media move it with him to cycle the tank. Otherwise, use Prime daily. Follow the instructions on the packages of the Kanaplex and Furan-2. The Kanaplex will say to do this for up to 6 days or 3 treatments. I would do both for 10 days and no more. The Kanaplex is every other day and Furan-2 is a pack for 2 days. Then change 75% if water and repeat. Let’s see how he is then. These meds will treat both the cloudy eye and fin rot. They did not hurt my cycle. The Kanaplex can affect their kidneys if used too much but 10 days is fine. Do not use salt as his wounds are too raw and it will burn, making it worse. Please let me know if you have any questions. You can message me through inbox. Just type my name in conversation.

 

Alright, thank you for the info. I will see if I can get the Kanaplex and Furan-2, I do have Amazon prime. As far as moving him into a quarantine tank goes, I assume I should simply medicate the water in that tank, and not worry about medicating the Oranda? What do you think the black spots are, and do you think the finrot, or whatever it is that he has will go away on it's own since he is in better water and doing alright so far? Do you think his fins will regrow by themselves over time, or should I treat him with something now? Thank you.

 

Alright, thank you for the info. I will see if I can get the Kanaplex and Furan-2, I do have Amazon prime. As far as moving him into a quarantine tank goes, I assume I should simply medicate the water in that tank, and not worry about medicating the Oranda? What do you think the black spots are, and do you think the finrot, or whatever it is that he has will go away on it's own since he is in better water and doing alright so far? Do you think his fins will regrow by themselves over time, or should I treat him with something now? Thank you.

Looking at the Oranda, treat them both! It’s easier to fight infection before it takes off. A QT tank will just save you money on meds since it is smaller.

 

Alright, thank you for all of the help. I sincerely appreciate your time and input. I will go ahead a treat them both.

 

Alright, thank you for all of the help. I sincerely appreciate your time and input. I will go ahead a treat them both.

That’s what we’re here for.

 

Hello everyone. I have been exploring this site over the last couple weeks and finally decided to sign up, as I'm always having a never ending list of questions it seems, and I have no one to ask. Lol. I apologize in advance for any ignorance, lack of proper lingo/words, and all around nonsensical gibbersish that I may babble about. I am new to this whole fish keeping idea and though it is a terribly long story, over the last month I now have freshwater 3 tanks. I have a few different issues right now, but my current question to start everything off is how can I lower my Ph? It's coming out of my tap is at least 8.0.

I currently have a 12 inch Pleco in a 50 gallon that was just set up. I don't know what Ph he was in before, but he came with the 50 gallon that we just finished setting up yesterday. I kept him and the old media filter/cartridges in a bucket with an air stone while everything was being set up. I also washed most of the gravel that came with the tank, but kept about a third of the dirty gravel and mixed it in with the clean gravel during setup. I conditioned the water with Prime, added Tetra safe start bacteria, and put him in about 20 minutes later because I wasn't sure how long he could be in the bucket and I felt horrible. Now because I got a used tank and was able to keep the old media, and some of the dirty gravel am I still going to go through a nitrogen cycle like normal, or will it be different because it's not necessarily "brand new"?

I'm hoping to move 2 goldfish (1 Black Moor, 1 Oranda) into this tank as soon as I know it's safe, because they are currently in a 10 gallon with an electric yellow cichlid (I know! They don't even go together!!! ugh...) and they are suffering from fin rot(possible, though it could be a few different things with the bad water) I believe from being overpopulated in this tiny minuscule 10 gallon tank that I've been trying to get them out of since they were in it, about 3.5 weeks now. I originally had 3 goldfish in there, but lost 1 today. I'm heartbroken. The whole reason I got this 50 gallon setup was to get them in there to give them the room they deserve and need. I was doing 50% water changes every 5 days because my nitrates, nitrites, and ammonia levels were always on the rise constantly with them dirtying the tiny tank so fast, but now I'm doing 50% water changes every 3 days. I also did a fishmox treatment for 5 days, though that didn't seem to improve anything. After the 5 days I did a water change and changed the carbon in my cartridges, but left the old media stuff in, not knowing whether or not I killed off my good bacteria with the amoxicillin, but I wanted to get the last of the fishmox out. Ugh.

I know it was all a horrible set up to begin with, but when my husband went to Petsmart initially to get a 10 gallon tank setup for our son's birthday, the employee there sold him anything he looked at and asked about saying "Yes, they will all do great in there!" He came home with 4 tiny glowing fish for the glow type tanks, 5 tetras, a Black Moor, and 2 Orandas. All in this tiny 10 gallon tank. My first thought was wow, overcrowded. So after the first 4 days we lost all of the little tiny fish. I began looking for another tank so that I could separate the tetras from the goldfish since they don't even belong together in the first place, and I needed to give everyone some space. We ended up getting shortchanged on a tank on offer up and my husband came home with a 5 gallon tank setup, and brought a cichlid with it. It was supposed to be a 10 gallon and I didn't want a Cichlid! (Oh my lord...) So I went ahead and moved the Tetras over into that, though I would prefer them to be in something bigger, for now it will have to do because the Goldfish needed the 10 gallon, though that needed to be changed as well. Now during this whole process my goldfish were obviously contaminating the 10 gallon faster than I could change the water out, so I continued to look for another tank. The signs of fin rot or whatever it is have just gotten worse, and now I'm down 1 fish. I don't even know if I can save them now that I've lost 1. They look like zombie fish. Fins are fraying, scales are missing on their sides, gills are turning red and peeling away it seems, and my black moor has cloudy eye in 1 eye as well. I'm going to be doing another water change today, though all of my numbers seem better than they were before. I'm trying so hard to save these little guys, but it seems I can't keep up with all of the issues. My current numbers for my 10 gallon goldfish tank are as follows:

Nitrate-40/safe
Nitrite-1.0/Stress
Hardness-300/Very hard
Chlorine-0
Alkalinity-80-120/moderate to ideal
Ph-7.8/Alkaline
Ammonia-.5/safe

Any recommendations, opinions, information, name calling, and all the like are welcome. I know it's a terrible terrible situation, I'm just looking for some advice, and more than willing to do what needs to be done to make things right. I also have detailed pictures of each goldfish if anyone here knows anything about what different sicknesses look like. I won't post them yet, as they are of course a bit graphic with the zombie fish closeups, but I do have them if someone can help. Thank you for taking the time to read my life story, and I thank anyone is advance who can shed some light on any of this. What a horrible way to have to introduce oneself on a fish forum.... Lol.

Oh my, there’s too much advice you can use that I’ll leave most too others. Incase no one has said this though the most important advice might be no more letting your husband do thebuying for your guys fish hobby at least not until he has gotten more knowledgeable. Hehe it s kinda cute how typical he’s been.

God bless you for how much you care for these fish and the work you are putting into their care and the research you are doing.
You are definitely on the right track and picking up good knowledge foundation. It will be a lot less work soon. I promise. You are almost there with your tanks being were they need to be

Thank you so much Goldie, I appreciate the info, and will definitely be getting Melafix after your recommendation. I posted pictures from a few days ago in another thread in the sickness/disease area. I will post more recent ones here since there seems to be more traffic here. I just took these today for you.
Since my last post here in this thread I have moved my 2 remaining goldfish to the big 50 gallon tank. The huge Pleco isn't even paying attention to them, so that's good. They have been there since Monday night and are doing well so far. They are much more active, though my Black Moor seems to still be out of sorts, obviously suffering from the ailments that he has. The Oranda though is a brand new fish in the new tank and I can already see improvements in his behavior. I tried to get some good photos to show the detail for you. The Oranda used to be a solid gold color. No white or black anywhere except white on his chin and underside. Thank you in advance for taking a look, I sincerely appreciate it!

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Gosh that’s heartbreaking! I’m so sorry for you and the fish. Thank you for doing your best for them. Unfortunately, most maybe all of us have been in the same boat in various degree at the beginning of the hobby. Keep learning all you can!

Maybe one bit of advice for ph since I saw someone giving the good advice of no worries about lowering ph nd remembered this.

If you find you get a major drop in ph for Goldie’s tank- and it’s slowly progressively getting lower.

The reason for that is the stocking density producing too much waste and nitric acid being a biproduct of the nitrogen cycle.
Normally our, most people’s, water has a buffering capacity that prevents the drop in ph.
I believe that buffering capacity is your kh. Which is gradually being lowered until replenished with water change. Might as well add-gh (other side of kh&ph) stays constant And really doesn’t affect ph like kh-it’s your measure of magnesium and calcium(super vital to fish health FYI hehe)
Once your buffering capacity is maxed then a small bit of acid will cause a major swing in ph going down.

Hopefully this was useful

 

Hello Gabe, and thank you so much for all of the input, I'll take all I can get! I really do want to do the best that I can and make sure that I am prepared for any future problems that may arise. I never knew this whole fish keeping experience was so in depth, it's insane. But I love learning new things and am up for the challenge.

Also, Goldiemom, I am in the midst of the quarantine tank setup, and waiting for the medication to arrive in a couple of days. I hadn't gotten around to setting up a spare hospital tank yet because I never expected this, and just starting out I thought I had some time to worry about it later of course. But that never seems to be the case. My only concern is that I only have a 5 gallon to use as a quarantine tank. Should I still put both goldies in there, or maybe treat the Black Moor first by himself, and then the Oranda afterwards, since he is in better shape? I don't want to cause more problems by putting them back in an undersized tank, but that's all I have right now. What do you think? Also, should I use a substrate, or leave it bare bottom? I know different people have different opinions on this, but without any experience myself, I wanted to know what you think is more beneficial. Please let me know any advice you have for quarantine tanks, and if I should do the Black Moor by himself first, or go ahead and put both of them in there. Thank you so much!