PH Hardness Tds

Maybe the problem isn't the water but the multiple forums!

That's the one! The problem with t'interweb thingy is it's full of people who don't know what they're talking about - like wannabe famous Ichthyologists. People will buy fish, put them in their water, wait a few hours to see if they're OK, and then post up how happy said fish are in their water....... four weeks later....... etc etc. If you search hard enough (not too hard at times) you can always find someone to agree with what you want and then use that to justify the decision you want to take.

So, having said all that, I have neon tetras in ph7.5 and GH8º water since the 18th March. One died on the 5th July, but he was always a bit iffy from the day I got them. So that's basically 5 months now and the six of them are feeding and shoaling around.

Hope that helps.

I have:
Green neon tetras purchased 9 in Oct 2010, 5 still alive
Ember tetras purchased Feb and June 2013 - lost a couple
Microdevario kubotai purchased Sept and Dec 2013 - lost a few within a few days, the rest have been fine.
Sundadanio axelrodi purchased Sept 2013 and Feb 2014. Lost a couple but the rest are fine.

The fish of all species that died never looked quite right, except the green neons which have died one by one over the last 4 years.
My water is - pH ~7.5, GH 6, KH 3.

My hardness is fine for the green neons but my pH is way too high. My pH is a bit high for the embers and microdevario. As for the Sundadanios, they should have died instantly in my water as they need pH 4.0 to 6.5 and GH up to 5 max.
But even experts can vary in their opinions. Those figures for the Sundadanios are from Seriously Fish. If you look at the profile on here (called Alexrod's rasbora) that says pH 6 to 7.5 and very soft to soft water.

As you can see, a lot of my fish shouldn't survive in my tanks. But it's the pH that's wrong, the hardness is fine. And I've always said that hardness is more important than pH.

And before anyone asks why I got most of these fish in two batches - I decided I wanted more ember tetras, and the Microdevario and Sundadanios were very hard to find. In both cases I bought the shops' entire stock with the first batch and had to wait to find more.

Puffin, you say you want neon green rasboras, are they the Microdevario that I have? I've seen Danio erythromicron described as green rasboras too

Ok, thanks for the reassurances guys.
Yes Sue, the ones you keep are the ones I fancy. Lovely green almost yellow colour. Like a heavily planted tank and need a mature tank, is what I've read. I think you mentioned they are jumpers though! 

What I'm a little confused about is how hard is my tank water?
I thought 3-6 was at the lower end of the scale, but have been told it's too hard for ember tetra.
My test strip measures up to 20degrees

Ditto the general hardness, 7 is low ish isn't it?
My test goes up to >21

I'm certain when I did my original research all my parameters were fine according to the sources I used mostly seriously fish, also think fish.

What does your water company say for your hardness? I would go with their figure rather than the strip testers. If they give a choice of units, you want ppm and/or German degrees. Ignore degrees Clarke and French.

They don't Sue, the website just directs you to a blank page, maybe I need to phone them. It's Cardiff btw, incase anyone has had any better luck.

The green neon rasboras aren't really jumpers, it's just when they get really really stressed. I sucked one up during a water change (the problem with small fish  ) and it objected to being netted out of the bucket after it's roller coaster ride and jumped out of the net. I think I'd have been stressed after that 

Ah, phew, cos I think my fish have demonstrated it's not a great tank for habitual jumpers!

....and then I found this....


Generally all the water supplied from one reservoir or treatment plant will be the same but a single reservoir is often not big enough to supply all the buildings in one water companies area. If you lived in Cardiff for example the water coming out of your taps may come from the chalky grounds in the East and thus be very hard or it may come from the solid rock beds to the north.
Occasionally the reservoir that supplies a house will change, especially in times of water shortage. This can have bad consequences for fish keepers if they don't keep an eye on PH levels and do a large water change.

...so that's muddied the waters, then!

Thanks for doing that Colin!

Cathays park, right in the centre, by the welsh assembly and bute park. Oh and the music school.
What website did you put your postcode into? Maybe they've fixed the problem!

Thanks Sue,
That looks almost exactly like the website I found, except mine didn't work!

So would that be Safari?