Is Flourish Comprehensive Loach-safe?

Hi! I’m a bit worried about Flourish comprehensive, and I’m wondering if anyone else has used it with Kuhlis/YoYos and to what effect?

For background info, I have a 29 gallon with a kuhlI and a YoYo and I’m looking to improve its habitat so I can restock with more of their kind. The tank already had one Java Fern, and today I added a butterfly Anubias and a Water Wisteria. I also picked up a bottle of Flourish, as I do water changes with nutrient-poor RO and while the java fern has been fine, I figured more plants would mean more nutrient competition. After adding the new plants, I dosed with a 20 gallon amount of Flourish Comprehensive (to be very clear: the micronutrient one and not Excel). The only other change is that I pulled the 10 gallon HOB filter I’d been running tandem with my canister out to begin cycling my QT tank.

Now, having fed the loaches, I’ve noticed the kuhlI is happy dancing, which is weird because I didn’t change any water? When he does the dance, he always goes through the bubble froth that the canister output makes, and I’m wondering if that’s him getting extra oxygen because something is damaging his gills. Ammonia levels are fine, and presumably nitrites and nitrates too, though I haven’t checked yet. Anyway, I got worried the Flourish might have irritated him, and looking it up I became surrounded by horror stories of people who added Flourish and lost all of their fish to deoxygenation-like symptoms. I’m especially concerned about Comprehensive’s copper content - I know loaches aren’t safe with copper. Seachem says the product is safe with loaches, and I’m inclined to believe them, but I also want to make sure my loaches are as safe as possible. I might do a small water change to remove it, or maybe add the HOB back in?

What do you think? Has anyone else got experience with loaches, especially Kuhlis, and ferts? Any help appreciated!

 

Looking at it, I think the copper- which is about 0.0001 percent or something- is unlikely to be the culprit for any odd behavior. Most likely, he’s probably just excited about having bloodworms tonight and decided to tool around a bit to show it. He also might be reacting to the HOB being gone, which affected the overall GPH. I don’t know if I’ll kick myself for this tomorrow, and I hope I won’t, but I think I may just leave things be till morning and avoid stressing him.

 

I use Flourish comprehensive with my Botia dario and have no issues.
You said you are using RO water? Are you re-mineralizing? Not having enough minerals can definitely cause issues.

 

I'm not remineralizing - I'm well aware this is wrong, but my tank water has just high enough of a GH and KH that I'm not messing with it for fear of causing the pH to rise too quickly. I have some supplements (Alkaline Buffer, Equilibrium, etc.) that I'd like to experiment with on some water that isn't yet in the tank, though, so I should begin buffering it more soon.

Do you have any recommendations on remineralizing products?

 

I use RO/DI water in my tanks and remineralize with Seachem Equilibrium, alkaline buffer, and acid buffer. But my numbers don’t exactly come out perfect as in my water change water and tank water are both GH of 6, KH of 2, and ph in that nebulous apI test region between 7.6 and 7.4. I keep reading that with the higher ph, the KH should be higher. But it’s staying steady so I’m not changing it.
I’m new at playing with water chemistry but it seems that if you keep adding RO (is it also deionized or DI?) than the GH/KH will eventually drop causing a ph crash. Or are you mixing it with tap water?
But your GH, KH, and ph are staying steady?

 

That would make sense about a pH crash, but somehow that hasn’t happened yet and my tank has been running for years. The RO is pH 6.6 and KH (and presumably GH) 0: my tank water is pH 7.4, KH 2, GH 4, and I’ve been changing with straight RO since a drought a few years back made it unsafe to change with tap. I have neutral sand I added recently, a little bit of gravel, and an inert aquascaping rock, so far as possible culprits go. I honestly have no idea why my chemistry is okay right now, so I’m afraid to change much. I used to have a limestone rock which kept things harder, but now I can’t find any source of ions.

I’m thinking of adding some Equilibrium for GH next time around, and maybe some baking soda for KH (though I tested this today and it’s way, way stronger than I feel comfortable with). If it weren’t for my awful tap quality, I’d just mix RO and tap.

 

I’ve tried the baking soda before and found the same thing. Even using the recommended amount, it shot the ph up to above 8!
I’ve done a ton of experimenting with 5 g buckets of RO/DI to figure out what works best. And I also have a small amount of broken, dry coral in my filters. Not the crushed coral but I bought a hunk of coral and broke it up. I was finding that the KH would drop if I went longer than a week between WC. And if I’m away, it can be longer than a week. So the coral seems to keep the KH at 2.
Hmm, something must be adding minerals to tour tank; maybe the ferts?
If it’s working, I wouldn’t be in a huge hurry to change anything either!!

 

Thanks for the words of encouragement! I still have no idea where the KH is coming from...if it was the gravel, I’ll need to be careful, seeing as I just removed 2/3 of it.

And yeah...that baking soda, just a fraction of a gram of it, brought my test cup of RO to 8.2 pH and from 0 to 19 dKH! It’s scary stuff, I just don’t have a lot of other options right now: I’ll still probably leave it alone regardless.

I figure I’m going to need to supplement with macronutrients at least a bit, because there’s a widening hole on my new Anubias that I heard is due to K deficiency. I’ve been using Osmocote pellets for the water wisteria, and the Java is incredibly hardy on its own, but the Anubias’s free-floating nature makes it harder to give nutrients to. My LFS just only sells Seachem macro ferts, which feel like such a scam to me, and a good all-around fertilizer that only comes in huge, expensive bottles, so I have to get a little creative. Maybe I’ll crush up an Osmocote and release it into the water column?

 

And the KH of 2 was pre-ferts, so it’s not them either. I have yet to test KH post-ferts, today is my water change day so I’ll know soon enough.

 

Well...the news is not great. The KH has slid to 0-1 (indistinguishable on the test), and the GH has slipped a degree too. The pH is sliding downwards towards the upper sixes: not a proper crash, but still worrying. It’s still within a safe range, but I’d like to bring it up. I added a bit of Equilibrium and baking soda, but it definitely wasn’t enough to treat the whole tank. The lower pH at least gives me more freedom to raise the KH. I’m just afraid of moving anything too drastically. If the pH slips much further, then I’ll use alkaline regulator to bring it up, because it’s fairly predictable.

My wisteria is also looking rather bright green, and the Anubias has a flimsy degrading spot on one leaf. I’m guessing these are NPK deficiencies, but I don’t have an easy way to add macros to the water column. Will equilibrium add K because of the potash?

 

Ok, I used baking soda to buff the KH back to two. The pH only increased slightly, which is good. I’m still worried my plants might be NPK deficient, though.

 

I'm having a stress-filled day: I got too nervous about raising my pH, so I did another 15% water change with RO. Now the pH is about the same as it was originally, on the upper sixes end of things, but the KH has remained two (yay!). I'm still worried about how all that pH fluctuation affected them, so I'm just going to leave things alone for a while. Next time I go to the LFS, I'll pick up crushed coral!

 

I'm having a stress-filled day: I got too nervous about raising my pH, so I did another 15% water change with RO. Now the pH is about the same as it was originally, on the upper sixes end of things, but the KH has remained two (yay!). I'm still worried about how all that pH fluctuation affected them, so I'm just going to leave things alone for a while. Next time I go to the LFS, I'll pick up crushed coral!

Believe me, I feel ya!
Since you are purchasing RO, maybe start adding minerals? The ph in my RO water is low just like the well water it is made from so that is why I add the alkaline and acid buffers.
But if what you are getting has a decent ph than maybe all you would need to add is something like Seachem Equilibrium?
And I’m no expert but I only use Seachem root tabs and Flourish comprehensive for my plants. Are they picture perfect? nope but they are doing well.

 

I absolutely would like to start adding minerals, I just don't know which brand to use. As for the weirdness of yesterday, the fish are doing alright this morning: they seemed to be moving and sifting somewhat frantically when I first turned the light on and fed them, but they're looking much more normal now. I think the osmotic changes and ostensible TDS increase probably stressed them, so I'll be extra careful with them for the next few days.

As for plant care, we sound very much in the same school of thinking here

 

I use the Equilibrium as it states that it is good for planted tanks.
My one LFS uses Kent RO right.
I mix my water on the soft side at 6 dGH but I’m keeping loaches, barbs, and rasboras so no hard water fish.
And I’ve discovered that I can get to 6 GH by using slightly less than the directions on the bottle.
I did a lot of experimenting lol!
I also discovered that if I add my chemicals, mix and test, the ph is about 6.6.
If I aerate overnight, the ph jumps to 7.4-7.6.
It took me a couple water changes to realize that! Oops.