Tropical Fish Forums

[krt]

okee dokee... I got my rams (1 of each - male and female blue longfin), have the temp up to 84 (was told that @ my lfs), put another peice of driftwood in the tank (cave style). their tankmates are 2 hillstream loaches and 1 small rtb shark.

it's been 2 days and the rtb seems to chase the rams a lot, I think I'll take him out.

my plan is to raise the rams in this 10 gallon tank until they grow some, then transfer them into a 29 gallon (I have angels in the 29 and will move them into my 46)

has anyone ever placed pine needles in their water to up the acidity? is there a "natural" way to do this?

any suggestions?

[kralster]

To increase the acidity of the water use peat moss. If you cannot get a hold of peat moss I strongly suggest something from seachem. If your water has high amounts of phosphate use seachem acid buffer and alkaline buffer because they are a non-phosphate buffering system. These work best in RO/DI water however I have been using half RO half Tap and I have gotten the appropriate pH level. If you do not have a phosphate problem. Use Seachem Neutral regulator. Do not waste your money and get the liquid forms of these! The powder is much more effective.

Your Red-Tailed Shark is going to get to large for any of your tank sizes. I have seen RTB sharks as large as 6-8 inches in pet stores. Rams are generally sensitive to stress and water conditions so it would be wise to either move your shark to your 46 gallon so he can have his own territories or finding him another home.

[krt]

peat moss like the stuff you mix w/ soil and put into potted plants?

-cool

everyone keeps telling me my rtb sharks are gonna b huge... I've never seen one any bigger than 3 inches. I've got 3. two in the 46, the other I just transfered to my 29 (he was the runt) they range from 2 to 3 inches I've had them for about 2 years

[Cathy G]

Hi, peat moss will add some nice tannins, if will soften and acidify the water a little bit too. When you buy some, make sure it has NO additives or fertilizers in it. Place a handful in a sock of pantyhose and put it in your filter box. You'll need to change it every month.

Kent makes a better product for lowering pH. It is NOT phosphate based like the Seachem products. (You can go to the Seachem site to see what is in their acid buffers - Discus Buffer).

WHat is your hardness and your pH? Perhaps you won't need to mess with changing anything. I raise my rams in soft water with a pH of 7.4 or so...

Cathy

[krt]

to b honest cathy, I've been keeping fish since I was a kid and I've never done a pH test, when I lived in philthadelphia, I knew the water was hard and from talking to others I knew that the tap water (when de-chlorinated) would be safe. now that I've moved to beautiful virginia I know the water is soft, but not much else.... guess it's time to make that step and get a test kit...

it may sound uncaring to not test the water but I've always relied on physical signs (coloration, activity and fins) to see how my fish are doing.

I heard a pH of 6.5 is ideal for rams but that sortof means nothing to me since I don't test. I will try the peat moss in a small dose first and see if the rams react. right now they are still getting accustomed to the tank and the male seems a touch scared. the female is happy. removing the rtb shark seems to have made a big dif though.

[Cinder]

Cathy did a good job addressing your question so I'm just going to add my two cents worth regarding the RTBS.
kralster is correct that your tanks are too small for them. Also they are very territorial and should never be kept with others of their own kind. Thus - only one to a tank.
By the way, mine got to almost six inches in less than six months!
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135 gln. freshwater tank
29 gln. freshwater tank

[Cathy G]

Krt - do a KH test before you add the peat. If you are now in water with a low KH, and you add the peat you could cause a pH crash and that would not be good. Just do a quick test - if you KH is at least 2-3 degrees, or 50ppm, you should be OK. But, be careful...

Cathy
P.S I added Fluval Peat at one point and dropped my pH from 7.4 to 6.8 in a few hours. This was not good for my fishes...

[fishlover888]

You want to be careful with anything that could change your pH level in the tank. Too much pH swing will kill your fish for sure. It is a good idea to try out in water without the fish in there to get the right pH reading before going to the actual fish tank. The accepted rule is no more than .3 pH change per day. More than that, you are strss out your fish, maybe killing them in the process.

.3 may not sound a lot. Remeber that pH of 6 is 10 times more acidic than 7, and pH of 5 is 100 times acidic than 7.
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125 g discus tank 13 discus, 5 Sterbai cory, 3 clown loaches, 1 Albino BN pH 6.3 50% WC x2/wk
2 g nano tank 3 Danio, pH 7.6 80% WC/ 2 days

[krt]

thanks everyone. I've got a house now, so the rtb sharks will get a bigger home someday (the 3 of them were doing well in my 46 together oddly enough). I'll do the tests and maybe add the peat moss when I can get to my lfs... right now the rams seem happy, so I'm not stressing it too much.

any food suggestions for the rams? right now I'm giving them granulated (tetra) food, shrimp pellets and discus granules (all sera) I was thing about trying freeze dried tubifex worms...

right now they are sharing the tank w/ 2 hillstream loaches so I've been putting in live black worms... I could also add brine shrimp if warranted..

thanks again

[Cathy G]

I stopped feeding my rams live worms - they can bring in too many pathogens and mine were getting sick... you may not have this trouble though.

I feed them frozen brine shrimp, blood worms, mysis shrimp and some frozen discus food concotion - something like Jack Wardley...

Their dry food is New Life Cichlid pellets and once in a while chopped up spirolina algae wafers...


Cathy