Bi-carb And Fish

[JenCliBee]

Hi all, not my strongest point so please any help is apprieciated

Couple of questions for you all.

1. is bicarb dangerous to fish or shrimp and in any quantities?, i mean as in very high amounts added aswell?

2. my tank water drops from PH of 7.4 ish to 6 within hours, it's stalled my cycle however my cycle seems to be complete since ive buffered the water with bicarb, question is though if my cycle slows down if not stops completely when i was cycling it, and the reason been the ph, how does it continue to cycle or the bacteria work when/afetr i add fish or shrimp and my ph drops again below 6 ... i dont want to have to add the amount of bicarb i did add to keep the ph at around 7.4.


Hope that made sense lol, thanks for the help

jen

 

[JenCliBee]

I knew that i wouldnt get many replies lol, hopefully bignose or BTT comes along at some point

 

[aaronnorth]

it is safe as long as you change it slowly. sudden changes is dangerous, so when you do a water change make sure the KH/ pH is roughly the same.

Although the drop in pH may just be because of the cycle, it might stop once completed, which i think it will if your last tank was fine aswell, as clearly your water has enough buffering capacity to sustain the pH, long term.

 

[JenCliBee]

it is safe as long as you change it slowly. sudden changes is dangerous, so when you do a water change make sure the KH/ pH is roughly the same.

Although the drop in pH may just be because of the cycle, it might stop once completed, which i think it will if your last tank was fine aswell, as clearly your water has enough buffering capacity to sustain the pH, long term.

I dont want to use bi- carb on a permanant basis, i had to use 3/4's of a tub to get the PH back from the drop to around 7.4.

All my tanks drop the ph as mentioned above from tap 7.5 - below 6 within hours, i have no buffereing compasity at all.

What i do need to know is if the bi- carb it self is dangerous at any level including very high amounts?

Also the original question about the bacteria and PH dropping which i mentioned in the original post.

Thanks for the reply though Aaronn

 

[aaronnorth]

it is safe as long as you change it slowly. sudden changes is dangerous, so when you do a water change make sure the KH/ pH is roughly the same.

Although the drop in pH may just be because of the cycle, it might stop once completed, which i think it will if your last tank was fine aswell, as clearly your water has enough buffering capacity to sustain the pH, long term.

I dont want to use bi- carb on a permanant basis, i had to use 3/4's of a tub to get the PH back from the drop to around 7.4.

All my tanks drop the ph as mentioned above from tap 7.5 - below 6 within hours, i have no buffereing compasity at all.

What i do need to know is if the bi- carb it self is dangerous at any level including very high amounts?

Also the original question about the bacteria and PH dropping which i mentioned in the original post.

Thanks for the reply though Aaronn

what i meant was in your previous tanks, they were all holding their pH well, weren't they? so for this tank to be dropping like it is then it must be just the side affects of cycling, so the bi-carb addition will be only short term, because once the cycle has finished, the acids produced will stop (well, at least slow) meaning the pH will stabilise, sitting close to the tap water's pH.
Basically, the addition of the bi-carb will be only necessary while you are cycling, so it wont be of any affect to your fauna.

to answer your original questions though,

1) i found this:
http/pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2006/3092/pdf/FS2006-3092.pdf

which shows that fish can withstand quite high concentrations of alkalinity, do you know the KH before and after adding the bi-carb?

2) if you do add fauna and the pH continues to drop then you will have to add bi-carb, or add something such as crushed coral in your filter which will be a more consistent and easier/ safer fix rather than the KH & pH fuctuating constantly

not sure if that helps you anymore!
thanks

 

[JenCliBee]

what i meant was in your previous tanks, they were all holding their pH well, weren't they? so for this tank to be dropping like it is then it must be just the side affects of cycling, so the bi-carb addition will be only short term, because once the cycle has finished, the acids produced will stop (well, at least slow) meaning the pH will stabilise, sitting close to the tap water's pH.
Basically, the addition of the bi-carb will be only necessary while you are cycling, so it wont be of any affect to your fauna.

Unfortunatley no, all my tanks drop as a normal thing i can do a full water change on an already mature cycled tank and my ph drops to below 6, not just the cycling tank ... my PH is 7.5 within hours and it doesnt matter weather tank is cycled or cycling the PH still drops below 6 either way, birminghams water is renowned to be very soft and it doesnt buffer well at all.

Will check out the link you gave m8 and see what it says, the PH doesnt bother me as such, however adding fish or shrimp is always a concern becasue of the PH been so low, water changes in general dont and doesnt make much difference to the PH once it has dropped but when i fully strip a tank and fully fill my fish have always been subjected to a completely differnt PH to what there actually used to long term (around 6 roughly) in a sense.

The thing that i dont quite understand is when you cycle a tank and the PH drops like this it stalls the cycle and it stops breaking down/processing the ammonia, but all my tanks even with a PH as low as it would be to casue a stall... are ammonia and nitrite free so it still is processing ammonia even at PH 6..... so why if my tank still processes ammonia at PH of 6... does a cycle stall if the PH lowers to the same level?

 

[aaronnorth]

oh right, i always thought the water was fine.
That last question, i cannot answer, and i am not a firm believer of it if i am totally honest!
here is where i express my views, and WD said it might just be new/ establishing colonies that are affected

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...287217&st=0

 

[JenCliBee]

oh right, i always thought the water was fine.
That last question, i cannot answer, and i am not a firm believer of it if i am totally honest!
here is where i express my views, and WD said it might just be new/ establishing colonies that are affected

[URL="http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...287217&st=0"]http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...287217&st=0[/URL]

Cheers for all the help m8 and the links

 

[OldMan47]

If you continue to have pH problems after your tank has cycled, I would try using some calcium carbonate in the form of crushed shells or crushed coral to help raise the KH and the pH in a more gentle fashion than the baking soda. Although the baking soda will also raise both KH and pH, it reacts too quickly with the existing tank water for me to be comfortable using it with fish. From the time you add baking soda until it has fully dissolved is only a few minutes. The calcium carbonate dissolves very slowly in neutral pH water and will have more of a buffering type response than an alkali dose response in the water. As the pH of the tank water tries to drop, the calcium carbonate will dissolve faster and help hold the pH up. As the pH in the tank water rises, the calcium carbonate will dissolve slower and affect the pH less. A very large mass of calcium carbonate will cause the tank water to tend to settle out around a pH of 7.6 to 7.8. The usual approach to using crushed shell is to place some into the filter flow so that it is exposed to the tank water and any dissolved material is mixed well with the tank water by the filter flow. You would need to clean the surface of the calcium carbonate periodically since a biofilm will develop on it as it does on any surface in your tank.

 

[JenCliBee]

If you continue to have pH problems after your tank has cycled, I would try using some calcium carbonate in the form of crushed shells or crushed coral to help raise the KH and the pH in a more gentle fashion than the baking soda. Although the baking soda will also raise both KH and pH, it reacts too quickly with the existing tank water for me to be comfortable using it with fish. From the time you add baking soda until it has fully dissolved is only a few minutes. The calcium carbonate dissolves very slowly in neutral pH water and will have more of a buffering type response than an alkali dose response in the water. As the pH of the tank water tries to drop, the calcium carbonate will dissolve faster and help hold the pH up. As the pH in the tank water rises, the calcium carbonate will dissolve slower and affect the pH less. A very large mass of calcium carbonate will cause the tank water to tend to settle out around a pH of 7.6 to 7.8. The usual approach to using crushed shell is to place some into the filter flow so that it is exposed to the tank water and any dissolved material is mixed well with the tank water by the filter flow. You would need to clean the surface of the calcium carbonate periodically since a biofilm will develop on it as it does on any surface in your tank.

My appologise oldman, i didnt relise you had replied ..... so you think high doses of baking soda could give me issues then?... at the moment the tank stays and is staying stable at 7.6.... however going by what youve just said baking soda will eventually disolve to nothink? and then as it a ppears my PH will continue to drop once more... or am i just not getting it?... not very technically minded when it comes to the science part lol.... i need slightly more teaching


Ive asked this before, where can i get crushed coral? and How much would i need for a 180 ltre tank to keep stable?


As i said the PH drop hasnt affected any of my fish and doing 30% weekly doesnt affect the ph anyways (as in rise it again once it's dropped) so as long as my PH stays low as it is doing i can sort of get the fish to be comfortable.

But still the question of the cycle part still isnt been answered ..... ie.... why does ammonia stop been processed on low PH while cycling but once a tank is cycled the ammonia keeps on processing at the Stall level(6 or below) PH

I know the link Aaron gave me is there but i really wanted accurate scientific reasons.

Edited: just to say i read the link Aaron gave and it pretty much answered the Cycling and PH levels lol... so its still now the effects of baking soda and fish for you to explain to me oldman

 

[OldMan47]

No problems Jen. The bicarb gets added and dissolved in the water. Once it is there it is just a part of the water and gradually gets used up by acting as a buffer to the acids that you are constantly producing in small quantities. If you are comfortable using it, you could monitor the KH of the water and just add some more bicarb as the KH drops to about 4 or 5 degrees. That way you would avoid the pH crash as the KH is finally exhausted. The alternative of calcium carbonate is better to my way of thinking because as the KH of the water tries to go lower, more of the calcium carbonate will dissolve into the water. That means you won't need to dose regularly in order to maintain a decent buffering of the tank because the calcium carbonate will more or less dose itself as needed. The only thing to be cautious about is that the biofilm will gradually reduce the ability of the calcium carbonate to be dissolved. A quick scrub to remove the surface film will put it back into action until it is finally all dissolved years later after the filter is first set up. Then you would just put a few ounces back into the filter and be ready for a few more years.

 

[JenCliBee]

No problems Jen. The bicarb gets added and dissolved in the water. Once it is there it is just a part of the water and gradually gets used up by acting as a buffer to the acids that you are constantly producing in small quantities. If you are comfortable using it, you could monitor the KH of the water and just add some more bicarb as the KH drops to about 4 or 5 degrees. That way you would avoid the pH crash as the KH is finally exhausted. The alternative of calcium carbonate is better to my way of thinking because as the KH of the water tries to go lower, more of the calcium carbonate will dissolve into the water. That means you won't need to dose regularly in order to maintain a decent buffering of the tank because the calcium carbonate will more or less dose itself as needed. The only thing to be cautious about is that the biofilm will gradually reduce the ability of the calcium carbonate to be dissolved. A quick scrub to remove the surface film will put it back into action until it is finally all dissolved years later after the filter is first set up. Then you would just put a few ounces back into the filter and be ready for a few more years.

Perfect m8, sounds far more managable that way...... right one last question is where do i get this stuff from? and does it matter how much?... or is it the more added the longer it would last?


thanks again oldman and Aaron for the help once again

 

[aaronnorth]

AE sell Potassium Bicarbonate

 

[JenCliBee]

AE sell Potassium Bicarbonate

From what i can make out m8 they are still powders?, to use them i might aswell just use bi carb and keep an eye on it that way.... i would rather do as oldman suggested and use

crushed shells or crushed coral

going from his explanation it sounds a much easier feasable suggestion rather than having to manage powders... well unless the crushed coral and shells etc... are crushed to the point of a powder anyways?

 

[aaronnorth]

AE sell Potassium Bicarbonate

From what i can make out m8 they are still powders?, to use them i might aswell just use bi carb and keep an eye on it that way.... i would rather do as oldman suggested and use

crushed shells or crushed coral

going from his explanation it sounds a much easier feasable suggestion rather than having to manage powders... well unless the crushed coral and shells etc... are crushed to the point of a powder anyways?

i was reading the post you quoted above, and OM47 only mentioned Calcium carbonate so i thought you wanted powders... anyway:

http/www.charterhouse-aquatics.co.uk/cat...b66768f86350f9e