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Gourami Gloaming #4

Today I put in a couple of peat balls, from an ebay seller, and ordered a strip of tmc aquablue leds. Going to stagger the lighting coming on and off and have the moonlighting on before and after daylight period. This should soften lights on/off transition. Fish are ordered from Colin at the fish hut. He is only a 45 min drive away.

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The tmc moonlight arrived and I've fitted it into an mms rail so it stays where I put it but is easy to move if I want to.

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The water has taken on a real tea stain colour. Want to take out the lilaeopsis b and sagittaria p and put in a mini crypt.
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Hi Lindy, just read your journal from start to finish. Great read and lovely looking tank. Can't wait to see some livestock especially the chocs as I am a big fan of them!
Keep up the good work
Andyh
 
Thanks andyh, hoping I can keep the fish happy. Can't wait to get the fish in!

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Thanks Alastair, a lot is down to your tanks and your help :)
A bit annoyed that I have really dark stained water but both ph testers are saying ph is still at 6.4?

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Tap. Comes out tds 45, gh3, kh 0-1, ph7

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Thanks Iain, I quite like it but it has rendered the moonlight led useless as it can't penetrate the dark water!

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After struggling to get my ph below 6 to give the liquorice gourami optimum conditions I've decided to only get the chocolate gourami as Alistair has proven they will breed successfully in higher ph/tds. I had boiled up 10 catappa leaves for a couple of hours and added the water from this to the tank. Got a negligible drop of ph but the tank water was so dark I couldn't see in! I would just feel bad about ordering such an 'at risk' fish knowing they probably wouldn't breed.
On the up side, this means I can keep my remaining crs/cbs in the big tank as I can let the tds come up a bit. I didn't really want to sell them....
It is taking a hell of a lot of water changes to get the water back to the nice tea colour though. I've changed 30l yesterday and today and it still looks like coffee :meh:[DOUBLEPOST=1399137023][/DOUBLEPOST]Fish won't be arriving until next month anyway.
 
That's a real shame lindy, would have loved to see another successful park breeding project on here. Glad you get to keep your baby's though. And chocos are bloody beautiful fish so you won't go without the eye candy. What have you tried to lower the pH?

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Catappa, oak and beech leaves. Alder cones. Peat balls. Then boiled up 10 catappa leaves for 2 hrs. It looked like strong coffee. Added it to tank bit by bit and ended up pouring the lot in! Maybe one day I'll do a liquorice breeding tank but this one is for the choccos. Of course if I happen to be in p@h and I see liquorice gourami I would buy them to give them a better chance.

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They'll still happily live in your current parameters lindy.
How you should see it is where would they do best in? Someone's tank who knows nothing of them and tries to feed dried food etc and them slowly dwindle or be in a tank that has a nice ph a nice temp, plenty of tannins and acidic water with a lovely environment......
 
I know what you're saying Alastair but I don't want the fish shipped into the country on my account. If I see some being sold already in the uk I might get some.

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My understanding is that the low TDS makes the ph unstable. My tank is softwater, I use RO and a couple of catappa leaves and my TDS is about 175. But my PH is high (it swings between 7.6 and 8.2 depending on lights off/on). If I take a cup of tank water and add it to a bucket of RO (ph 6.5 ish) the bucket swings to match the tank. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable would know how much effect the ph has when everything else is spot on.

Ps Lovely tank :)
 
Thanks tam. I have shrimp tanks with tds 130 - 160 and have never had swings in ph. The big tank was 68 and ph remained stubbornly at 6.4! And I had tested throughout the day for around 4 days. Using bee shrimp mineral to bring up to 130 so I can add my shrimp.

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