Hello, a few freshwater questions, please help!

[poxyluxe]

Hi, I have a 10 gallon freshwater tank with one molly, 2 guppies (one male one female) and an algae eater. The tank is stable and running for 6 months. I recently added a blue platy and a sailfin platy. For some reason my PH level went WAY up in the past day. The ph has always been generally low since having the tank (6. alkalinity (80) and now all of a sudden it's skyrocketed. What should I do? I know sudden changes are bad for the fish, so I'm worried if I do a water change, will it harm them?

Also, I know that platys have an aggressive tendency, but they seem to be doing well with guppies and molly. When I was at Petco, I picked 2 Platy's from the same tank but the blue platy is attacking the sailfin platy. I figured they would be good tank mates since I chose from the same tank but apparently not. Should I return him? If so, I can't get up to petco to return him until next week so could I keep the Blue in a breeder net until then?

And yet ANOTHER question. I think my female guppy is pregnant, her gravid spot is dark but I can see some (what I believe to be eggs) are pink, she's is way fatter than the male and he's constantly chasing her around. Is she preg? and how long do I have before she has the babies?

I've been putting salt in the water to prevent this sort of thing since I don't have room for babies, nor do I have a LFS that will take them (Ive had exp with this) What else can I do to prevent breeding?

Any and all help would be appreciated!!

[t_chelle16]

I really don't know about your pH. What are your readings for ammonia, nitrIte, and nitrAte? Exactly how high is your pH now?

If the fish are doing quite a bit of damage to eachother, then yes, it would be a good idea to separate them.

It does sound like your guppy is pregnant. My guess you can expect fry anywhere from a day to 2 weeks. It's difficult to tell exactly since I don't know how long she's been pregnant, but the normal gestation for guppies is 3 weeks. I've never heard anything about salt preventing guppies from breeding. You can just leave the fry with the adults and most of them should get eaten, but you'll probably still have a few from each batch survive. Just about the only way to keep guppies from breeding is to only keep one sex. But keep in mind that females can store sperm for several batches so there's still a chance that if you have all females, they'll still have a few batches of fry if the've ever been kept with males.

-Chelle

[Aqueous]

I don't think salt in the water will prevent your fish from breeding. The only thing I think you can do to prevent them from breeding is to seperate the males and females.

Also what you might consider attacking might be the blue molly's attempt to mate with the sailfin molly.

[tina1]

Guppies actually like a little salt in their water. It tends to make them more active if anything. My females have had babies a couple times and I've only saved one of her drops. The other times the babies would all be eaten. They usually have them at night and when I feed them in the morning I'd just have slender guppies but not a fry in sight.

[poxyluxe]

ph is around 8.4 (mb higher!)
alkalinity is 160
Nitrite is zero
Nitrate 50

For some reason, my ammonia test strips are MIA (cats are to blame Im sure.) but I'm sure the ammonia levels are ok since I just did a water change the saturday when the new fish moved in.

Could the raise in ph be because I cleaned the tank? I scrubbed the sides of the tank and all the plastic plants. I usually dont do that too often (once a month) but I do 10% water changes weekly.

[t_chelle16]

If you just did a water change Saturday and your nitrAtes are already up to 50, there's something wrong. You should try to keep your nitrAtes below 20, and normally it takes about a week to get to 20; yours is over twice that after just 3 days. You might want to test your tap water for nitrAtes. And I also suggest doing larger water changes (at least 25%).

-Chelle

[poxyluxe]

It actually is my tap water. I was out of spring water the other day when I did the change so that could be to blame for the imbalance. I appreciate the help though