Betta fish water hardness levels

[Surgy77]

Hi,

New to fish keeping and from reading some of the guides/post we have done lots of wrong but trying to recover the situation without loss of fishes.

Eldest daughter (18) wanted a Betta fish and based on her research she settled on a 37l tank, aqua one platform, brought it home and set it up. The next day she went back to the fish shop picked her betta (they kept it for her for a week) and 6 ember tetras. The tank was dosed with filter boost (just p@h version) every day and liquid fertiliser for the plants in the tank. She got some of the water test strips to test the levels and they seemed OK the first week. I was trying to let her be responsible for her own pets but suggested getting the api liquid test kit to get more accurate results.

By the end of the first week the ammonia levels were low but the nitrite levels were sat fairly steady at 2mg/l regardless water changes. She went to collect the betta and mentioned to them about the nitrite and they suggested to add more filter boost. Ordered up the fluval version of the filter boost and she got one of the ea pure balls to see if that's helped. The only problem was that as well as the betta she came home with another 4 tetras.

Ammonia levels stayed at zero but nitrite levels stayed high (2mg/l), so got some seachem prime to detoxify the nitrite while the system settled down. But the betta was not a happy bunny, suspect that while the tank was ok in p@h points it was overstocked.

So decided to get myself a superfish home 85 to rehome the tetras in. I managed to get some of the filter media from the shop I got my tank at (maidenhead aquatics in Coatbridge) and split the media between my and the daughters tank.

Now I am aware that fish in cycling is not the best route but figured that it was better than leaving everything in a small uncycled tank. So over the weekend I managed to get the tetras moved into my tank and left the betta in the daughters tank. The tetras seem happier with the extra space and have not caused an ammonia spike yet in the tank but will keep monitoring it and dosing with prime to hopefully minimise the risk to the fish. 24 hours following the move the ammonia levels are just about 0.25mg/l with no nitrites.

The betta fish is 1000% happier, he has stopped glass surfing and actually uses some of the plants to rest on, water levels ammonia 0, nitrite 0.5mg/l, nitrate 5mg/l.

Yesterday I put her tank information in aqadvisor and they suggested a water hardness for bettas of 5-15, but being where we are, based on the 2022 data, are around 1.5. I have ordered up at test kit but it won't be here for a day or two and wanted to try and figure out if I need to do something to raise the levels?

I am assuming that I will need something to condition the water so what do you recommend?

While the tetras seem OK down to about 1 (as stated on aqadvisor) my tank has quite a bit of aquarium soil so suspect it could be softened further, so wanting to avoid putting them under any more stress. Is it recommended to increase both tanks up to about 5 as suspect I will want to add some shrimp in the tank once its cycled. I am assuming it wouldn't be that good to get the dGH straight up to 5 in one hit or would it be better to increase it over a few days?

Finally with regards the dKH how do you go about raising that without increasing the overall pH of the water or am I worrying about nothing with the pH impact from such a small increase?

Thanks

David

[fr499y]

To raise hardness safely, you can use coral gravel in a bag and plonk it in your filter or straight into the tank. Some rocks also buffer the water ( Siryu stone, ocean rock etc ) so could be used for decorating the tank.

[plankton]

Welcome to the forum.
Whereabouts are you? A dGH of 1.5 seems pretty low, it's certainly usually above 4dGH in most of the UK. That would be fine for bettas as they do much better (no pun intended) in soft water.
They are strange beings, sometimes small fish can spook them, sometimes they'll eat them and sometimes they don't bother - it sounds like your daughter's doesn't like tankmates to me.
I wrote this to try to help prevent problems with bettas (and other labyrinth fish)...
https://www.aquariumforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=224

[Martinspuddle]

Greetings & welcome to

Whereabouts are you? A dGH of 1.5 seems pretty low, it's certainly usually above 4dGH in most of the UK.

At a guess @plankton he mentions Maidenhead Aquatics in Coatbridge, which via the magic of Google tells me, North Lanarkshire, Scotland.

[Surgy77]

Whereabouts are you? A dGH of 1.5 seems pretty low, it's certainly usually above 4dGH in most of the UK. That would be fine for bettas as they do much better (no pun intended) in soft water.

We are in South Lanarkshire, Scotland. Based on the published results we have a Ca of 11.57 mg/l a Mg of 1.5 mg/l and a CaCO3 of 35.04 mg/l, so KH would be just under 2 and GH just under 1, did a bit more reading last night on the two. The test kit should come by Wednesday so can get real figures.

They are strange beings, sometimes small fish can spook them, sometimes they'll eat them and sometimes they don't bother - it sounds like your daughter's doesn't like tankmates to me.
I wrote this to try to help prevent problems with bettas (and other labyrinth fish)...
https://www.aquariumforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=224

Yeah he seems to be happier with just himself for company, also suspect the slightly improved water conditions from removing the tetras might be a contributing factor. Never knew about feeding them peas but will pass on the info to the daughter.

[Surgy77]

To raise hardness safely, you can use coral gravel in a bag and plonk it in your filter or straight into the tank. Some rocks also buffer the water ( Siryu stone, ocean rock etc ) so could be used for decorating the tank.

Would love to be able to get some into her filter but it's such a weird design. I had to use the internal space for a heater to fit in the cycled material. Would love to replace it but it doubles as stand for the tank light so would need to keep it and the tank doesn't have a lot of spare space.

As for coral gravel how much would you recommend, are we talking sticking a 50g/100g bag in there and seeing how it improves?

[fr499y]

wait until you have done your test to be 100% sure, but yeah a small bit in the filter will help.

You could even go the route of mineral stones designed for shrimp tanks as they raise the hardness slightly and the PH to help shrimp molt.

[Martinspuddle]

At a guess @plankton he mentions Maidenhead Aquatics in Coatbridge, which via the magic of Google tells me, North Lanarkshire, Scotland.

We are in South Lanarkshire, Scotland.

Well, I wasn't far out.