After getting my setup all built and running, I'm almost ready to give up ...... the past couple of weeks, I've lost three or four fish, but today, I lost 5, one of which was my prize large Goldie .... about 4 1/2 inches long ...... he was the strongest of all, the "Bully of the Bayou", as Doug Kershaw would say ...... needless to say, I'm depressed ....not at the thought of losing valuable fish, but that I can't seem to keep them alive

I don't know if it's the water or not, I have no way to test it other than the master test kit and for chlorine. I've been putting water conditioner in it lately in case it's the metals from the copper and brass in the water lines, whenever I add 5 gallons of water, and I'm feeding them Goldfish Disks food from HBH, and Koi and Goldfish Floating Pellets from Kaytee. All of my readings for ph, ammonia, nitrates, nitrites, and chlorine are good .... the ph is a little high 8.0, but it seems that whatever I do to lower the ph, it stays right at the 8.0 anyways. That's what the ph is when it comes out of the tap and sits over night, so I don't try adding lemon juice or anything else to bring it down ..... I'm under the impression that the ph is more for the plants than the fish ....... btw, the plants are doing fine.

Oh, and I did find something weird .... on one of the granite stones I keep in the bottom (to hold down the suction hose of the filter), there was a small dime-sized ball of slime or gel ..... clear and soft, but didn't break apart when I tried to smear it. I've taken out all of the granite, in case itwas some kind of fish disease that shouldn't be there. I don't know what Malachite Green will do to the groceries I've planted, so I can't treat the fish with that unless I quit pumping water to the plants ...... catch 22, I'd say ........

Sorry about the rant, I just needed to vent!