Can Dechlorinator Cause Ph To Drop?

[KAISER]

Hello, I will try and give a brief description of events so far regarding my tanks ph. This is a fish in cycle with three platies. The tank is 125 litres.

First, my tap water...

ph 6.6
ammonia 0.25 ppm
nitrite 0 ppm
nitrate 0 ppm

My tank held a stable ph around 6.6 for the first 12 days or so. Around this time I switched dechlorinator to API stresscoat plus, to help deal with the ammonia in my tap water, as it breaks the chloramine/ammonia bond in a similar way to prime I believe. A couple of days (or rather water changes) later the ph crashed to 6.0 or below and stayed there for a few days. Water changes were carried out everyday during this time to try and bring the ph back up. After realising the crash coincided with the declorinator change, I switched back to using the Nutrafin Aquasafe which came with the tank. Aquasafe does not break the chloramine/ammonia bond. Since then for the last four or five days the tank has had a ph of 6.4.

I dont know if stresscoat plus was to blame, but my daughters tank had the exact same ph crash and it too only stabilised when I stopped using it. What do you guys think?

I know that cycling and other factors drive ph downward, but my concern is when the tank is eventually fully stocked I may end up with a ph of 6.0 or under, what do you think? Or will the ph remain at 6.4 no matter what the bioload? Also, would it be a good idea to raise the ph just while the tank is cycling? I read another members fish in cycle diary in the pinned topics and by the end of his cycle the ph had dropped 0.6 which would put my tank below 6.0. I know all tanks/cycles are different but reading it was enough to make me think I should maybe take action now, to safeguard against possible ph drops in the future. Not to mention the slow bacteria growth in such low ph, I have not had any nitrite spikes yet either, 21 days into the cycle.

So, is this a case for raising ph, or shall I leave it be?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and comments!

 

[RadaR]

Hello, I will try and give a brief description of events so far regarding my tanks ph. This is a fish in cycle with three platies. The tank is 125 litres.

First, my tap water...

ph 6.6
ammonia 0.25 ppm
nitrite 0 ppm
nitrate 0 ppm

Don't know about the pH dropping but......if you have 3 platies in there then the ammonia should read "0" on your test kit. Otherwise it's really not fair on them

 

[KAISER]

Thats my tap water results, the tank is reading less than that, infact its 0 ppm tonight

 

[Bignose]

I would at least ask your water company what they can do about the ammonia, unless it is just a small/seasonal spike (like from rains in the area, etc.) Humans can process small amounts of ammonia, but we really shouldn't unless we have to.

I have heard of pH fluctuations from dechlorinator, though I've never bothered to measure right after. Fish are actually highly adaptable to changing pH, so long as the hardness isn't also changing. I would suspect that the pH change is rather temporary, really, and wouldn't cause any harm to the fish at all.

 

[KAISER]

Ok, cool, but what about the cycle?