Quote Originally Posted by Mentat View Post
Your tap water must be very "hard." It's a term used to describe the mineral content of water. Most prevalent is calcium carbonate and one of it's effects is to raise pH and buffer it there no matter what you do. So the first thing to do is to soften the water a bit until the pH lowers some; at least to neutral territory. For that, you use a product like this one in your tank until the desired pH is reached: Water Softener Pillow. Once you get there, can store the resin pillow in aquarium salt solution and it recharges until next use. There are also test kits where you can monitor the water hardness: Aquarium Water Testing: Aquarium Pharmaceuticals GH/KH Test Kit; but you can monitor indirectly by measuring pH. API is widely available in US so you can get those products locally or order through the net.

Couple more things I forgot, that plant damage could be caused by a hungry Pleco. Have you seen him "vigorously" cleaning leaves in the Amazon plants? Try adding a veggie disk to tank in evening and see if it helps. In reality a full grown Albino is a heavy load for your tank.

And in regards to Nitrates; would take a clean water sample to local pet shop and ask them for a complimentary Nitrate test; because your test kit might be bad. Also, if using test strips, those are very inaccurate. Good luck !
My water is very hard, it's a battle on all fronts, not just with the aquarium. I had the well water tested, and the calcium and magnesium were very high. I was unaware of the water softener pillow, I'm definitely going to try that out, thank you!

The pleco is fed algae/veggie disks regularly, and I have never personally witnessed him on the plants, but he is more active at night so that's not to say he doesn't ever graze on the plants.... he's a big guy for sure (about 4"), but it seems like he's stopped growing. I do like him... so who knows what I'll do. It seems that the fish forum also agrees that he's a big load on the small tank. Maybe I should get a gigger tank?

I was also thinking of getting a complimentary water test done at the fish shop. I do use the API freshwater master test kit, but have read the nitrate readings can be off a lot of the time.

Thanks for your help! I'll keep you all posted.