"Amateur Cichlids" wrote in message
. com...

So there's another option for
you. There's always the option of adding filters with biowheels, etc too.
It
all boils down to how much you want to spend. Again, this should all be
balanced against tank size and fish load.
Tim
www.fishaholics.org


Hi. I got a new water tesk kit today and checked some things. It is a
color strip, so the numbers aren't very precise:

pH 7.3 or 7.4 (was closer to 7.0 before the last two water changes)
nitrate 30 ppm
nitrite 0 ppm
ammonia 0 ppm
total hardness between 150 and 300 ppm (hard)
total alkalinity between 80 and 120 ppm

The water is a lot clearer now than it was a day or two ago. The 25% water
change was done last Sunday. The whiteness didn't show up for about a day,
maxed out on Thursday, and as of Friday eve is almost gone. Could white
floating bacteria have taken advantage of a nitrite spike that came from
stirring up some muck and/or removing too much beneficial bacteria from the
gravel through suckage while changing water? Then after it is under control
the white bacteria then die off??

thanks,
dwhite