I have just completed my second water change with the objective of
changing my extremely hard alkaline aquarium water into soft neutral
water.

Not to mention that these water changes will also lower the Nitrate
level ever closer to 50 mg/l, which keeps the algae from spreading.

My aquarium used to be...

pH = 7.8
KH = 15
GH = 20.5
NO2 = 0.01 mg/l
NO3 = 100 mg/l

After this second water change this has now changed to...

pH = 7.4
KH = 8
GH = 10
NO2 = 0
NO3 = 70 mg/l

So today my aquarium has just moved from alkaline based water to
neutral based water, even if in the end I can get the pH down to very
close to 7.0.

Not that this aspect matters too much, when it is the General Hardness
that is the important aspect here, where this aspect has now gone from
the start of extremely hard, straight through hard, into medium, where
now we are on the lower end of medium hardness.

And so one more water change should have the pH at around 7.2 and the
GH at either the bottom of Medium or the very top of Soft.

My fish are doing just fine, as I expected they would, even if the
White Mollies prefer things more how they were.

Today I decided to get more lighting for my aquarium, which should
increase the range of plants that I can support. Since I will soon
have three aquariums up and running, then it would be a bit much to go
past two main tubes per tank.

I have found out a lot of information on the lighting subject now,
which means that I am very close to buying.

Also during my lighting search I came across a couple of devices known
as Nitrate Filters, which does just what I need in removing Nitrate
from my local water supply. Kind of on the costly side though, but
that would solve my algae problem once and for all.

In the end you are always left in wonder at how much it costs to
support a few cheap fish. I of course won't run through the price list
of items that you should know well, but getting these two new (or
correctly second hand) aquariums up and running makes for an expensive
shopping list.

At least all this is a one time only expense, excluding items that
fail of course, when apart from the food these fish only need your
attention in keeping their living conditions fine.

Using all that expensive and numerous equipment...

Sometimes I think that I should buy expensive fish to match my
expensive equipment, but in the case of my local fish shop, then it is
more a case of not having the new fish dying of one disease of
another.

Like that my last purchase came with two diseases.

First of all there was the common White Spot. And the problem here was
that the fish that came with this White Spot were my new Mollies. And
the thing about White Spot disease is that it is White, where the
thing about my Mollies is that they are also White.

And so to begin with I was only suspicious that they may have it,
where it was only when my Angel Fish (who was black) caught it, then
did I know for sure.

The problem there was that I spotted this late on Friday and placed an
on-line order minutes later, where the White Spot cure arrived on
Tuesday. By then one of my original three White Mollies had died, one
Golden Tiger Barb as well (three is now down to one), where the Angel
Fish having a large amount of surface area died rather quickly.

I was not too upset about that Angel Fish death, when he was a fish
murdering fish. As when I was making this aquarium into a peaceful
fish community, then so did my brother go out and buy this Angel Fish.

Lets just say that my 20 neon tetras were obliterated. And as this
Angel Fish slowly picked them off one by one, then it was only when
their numbers halved did I notice the problem.

That Angel Fish was like Jack the Ripper, where it would certainly go
for just about anything that got too close. So most fish learned to
stay out of it's way, where for years my care in keeping all these
fish alive also limited my fish choice due to this one Angel Fish.

So I was not too unhappy when White Spot quickly took out that mass
murdering Angel Fish, when I certainly won't allow any Angel Fish in
my aquariums again.

The second disease that my pet shop supplied was Tuberculosis, which
came with my very short lived Starlight Bristolnose Plecos. As they
died one by one, where it was only when all of them had died did I
discover the cause.

Normally when a fish dies I remove it from the aquarium as quickly as
possible, when I do not wish my other fish to catch what it died of,
but unfortunately the last Pleco died in a very inconvenient and hard
to spot location.

I soon had it located, but not before one of my catfish was feasting
upon it, where sure enough the bacterium that causes Tuberculosis
(Mycobacterium Piscium) spread and this catfish fell ill. I separated
it from the other fish, where this one displayed much better signs of
what it had.

Since there is no cure, then so did it soon die of a horrible death,
which is maybe one reason why the fish book recommends fish
termination. Even if they say it is to stop this disease spreading.

So I was not too happy with my local fish store, when 5 of these new
fish and 2 of my existing fish died. I lost my second Golden Tiger
Barb not long following for some unknown reason, where the final one
has been doing just fine for the months following all alone.

Tiger Barbs I find are those fish that will die before all others when
anything is going on the extremely bad side, but they look so nice and
so worth the risk. And so now I have to get more Golden Tiger Barbs,
when I always hate single species fish.

My second and last catfish also died following this time, but I would
put that one down to old age, when it had lived many years. Then again
it could have just been lonely, when it outlived two catfish friends
in that time.

No more deaths since then, when my aquarium works well enough even
with the hard water and higher Nitrate levels. One day soon I may even
risk a trip to my local fish shop again, where this time I will have a
separate aquarium to let them die in.

Think I may get me some loaches this time, when I always wanted to
master this creature of the darkness. Not to mention that I really had
to pity those loaches in the fish store, which were under a bright
light with no shelter at all.

I am sure that such stores should not be allowed to keep these fish so
badly, but then that is often due to ignorance. As I have certainly
learned the hard way how not to kill fish, where if you think about
it, then letting the inexperienced public own fish is really cruel to
these fish.

Many of these fish simply die due to their lack of understanding of
why they are dying. Not to mention their belief that all it takes to
keep them alive is to feed them.

Anyway, I guess any fish would be lucky to have me as their owner,
when I am slowly inching towards perfection. So fish are safe with me
as long as they don't catch anything from new fish, which is what one
of these two extra aquariums will solve.

I would also like to get a Fighting Fish as well along with a few
females, when these fish are safe enough. Sure they will go at
anything that gets too close, but they are just too slow to ever pose
a real problem.

And knowing me I would also buy any fish that is in any way unusual,
but currently the fish I have are rather boring. At this time I am
just planning to move my White Mollies to the larger tank, when these
two breeding to seven is coming close to maximum capacity.

Anyway, time to go and sort out my lighting, then to add yet more
costly items needed to get these other two aquariums active.

Cardman.
http://www.cardman.com
http://www.cardman.co.uk