Crazy Ph ?

[Supared]

Hi can anyone help me with a PH problem I have plz.

I have a four foot 200lr tank with a few golden barbs , a couple of angels and a plec in. It is a mature set up of six years. Recently I purchased some tiger barbs and noticed that two immidiatly keeled over on releasing. On further investigation via a water check at the local aquarium it was assesed that the PH is low. They sold me a test kit(JBL) and a Bottle of PH plus to raise the PH I initially added in increments the 50ml they suggested.

Nothing happened , the minimum on the chart is 6.0 and Its not increased to this yet ! I have now added 100ml in stages and still its not increasing ? I dont know what to do next as the shop now seem to have no idea ? They suggested putting a small piece of coral rock in and monitoring , which I have done. The fish seem to be a lot happier though. I have some well established bog wood in could this be hindering ? Also I checked the tap water here (manchester) and it reads at 6.4. Nitrite and nitrate tested o.k according to the shop.

Any comments welcomed regards Steve

 

[Uriel]

Hi can anyone help me with a PH problem I have plz.

I have a four foot 200lr tank with a few golden barbs , a couple of angels and a plec in. It is a mature set up of six years. Recently I purchased some tiger barbs and noticed that two immidiatly keeled over on releasing. On further investigation via a water check at the local aquarium it was assesed that the PH is low. They sold me a test kit(JBL) and a Bottle of PH plus to raise the PH I initially added in increments the 50ml they suggested.

Nothing happened , the minimum on the chart is 6.0 and Its not increased to this yet ! I have now added 100ml in stages and still its not increasing ? I dont know what to do next as the shop now seem to have no idea ? They suggested putting a small piece of coral rock in and monitoring , which I have done. The fish seem to be a lot happier though. I have some well established bog wood in could this be hindering ? Also I checked the tap water here (manchester) and it reads at 6.4. Nitrite and nitrate tested o.k according to the shop.

Any comments welcomed regards Steve

Bogwood leeches tannic acid into the water which can lower the ph but it generally only does it by 0.1-0.3. Have you been keeping up with your water changes a combination of the tannic acid from the bogwood + the nitric acid from the nitrate cycle could push your ph down but i could only see this happening over a long period.

Also I've been advised against messing with my PH/KH since it's quite a complex proposition for the even the more sagaly fish keepers.

 

[Skins]

I would be inclined to do small gradual water changes to bring your tank water inline with your tap water ph(6.4), i'm suggesting small gradual to avoid pH shock.
New Bogwood would lower your pH but i think mature bogwood won't. I have read that crushed coral will raise pH.
Is your tap water always 6.4?

 

[Supared]

I would be inclined to do small gradual water changes to bring your tank water inline with your tap water ph(6.4), i'm suggesting small gradual to avoid pH shock.
New Bogwood would lower your pH but i think mature bogwood won't. I have read that crushed coral will raise pH.
Is your tap water always 6.4?

 

[Supared]

Hi, According to the test chart 6.4 is still too low. It has a safe zone which is between 7.2 and 7.5 if I remember correctly ( will check when I get home) The fish are definitely acting normal. I guess that I just got used to them acting odd. To be brutaly honest I have not been keeping a close eye on things for a while , however I am determined to get things right. I dont like to keep any animal incorrectly. Any tips greatly apreciated. Advances have been made and are apparant since I started with fish many moons ago lol

Regards to all

 

[the biffster]

Hi can anyone help me with a PH problem I have plz.

I have a four foot 200lr tank with a few golden barbs , a couple of angels and a plec in. It is a mature set up of six years. Recently I purchased some tiger barbs and noticed that two immidiatly keeled over on releasing. On further investigation via a water check at the local aquarium it was assesed that the PH is low. They sold me a test kit(JBL) and a Bottle of PH plus to raise the PH I initially added in increments the 50ml they suggested.

Nothing happened , the minimum on the chart is 6.0 and Its not increased to this yet ! I have now added 100ml in stages and still its not increasing ? I dont know what to do next as the shop now seem to have no idea ? They suggested putting a small piece of coral rock in and monitoring , which I have done. The fish seem to be a lot happier though. I have some well established bog wood in could this be hindering ? Also I checked the tap water here (manchester) and it reads at 6.4. Nitrite and nitrate tested o.k according to the shop.

Any comments welcomed regards Steve

whats your tap water ph
and how often do you do water changes

 

[waterdrop]

Hi supared and Welcome to our beginners section!

Your last post quotes me a fallacy! pH is not the sort of thing that has a "safe zone" that you are trying to keep your water chemistry within! In fact, pH is a secondary, reactive sort of measurement and one that should not rule your tank, although it is very good to gain the understanding that when it is -stable-, that's a good thing (it just doesn't matter as much as you might think what number it happens to stablize -at-. So lets step back and talk about some other things.

First of all, now that you have a liquid based test kit (the JBL is not one we see as often but should be ok) it would be a good idea to post up the result sets (all tests: ammonia, nitrite(NO2), nitrate(NO3) and pH) for the members and to mention at what frequency and amount you've been performing gravel-clean-water-changes and what your filter maintenance habits are. All those things may have a bearing on how people help you.

The reason I called pH "secondary" is that often the pH value is dragged along by the mineral content of the water (the hardness, both permanent and temporary as measured by GH and KH scales.) Mineral content is a bigger deal to fish than pH because all living systems must mechanisms to maintain a correct mineral content within their cell walls and if the mineral content outside their cell walls changes such that it is too far away form what their "maintaining machinery" can handle, they are in trouble.

[A cell wall is a semipermeable membrane and the pressure of the fluid within that withstands the force of the pressure outside is called the osmotic pressure. Living cells of various species have evolved to handle the variations (or lack of variation) of the mineral content around them, but not necessarily a mineral content that is out of range for what their species has ever handled evolutionarily. (For instance, if too much water flows in to a cell from an imbalance, the cell wall can explode.) obviously I'm straying too far afield here, so my member friends will have to come and actually give you some practical advice in a minute, lol. But I hope that gave some background that makes sense?]

Anyway, keeping our *mineral content* quite stable is our real goal with fishkeeping, much more so than pH. The confusion comes because pH often, but not always, will follow changes in mineral content (various hardness factors.) So here comes the important baseline lesson: our tap water hardness is our safety net for our tank! When we are in trouble (say, we've found too much poison (ammonia or nitrite) in our tank for some reason and we need to quickly dilute it, we need to perform water changes and ultimately that comes back to our own tap water. There are cases where experienced aquarists choose to "go against" their tap water, but in general, the guideline for beginners is to first learn how powerful it is to "stay with" your tap water chemistry. That way you always have a large safety net in the form of lots of fresh fish-saving water that is already at the correct hardness and pH levels that your fish have stayed used to (because you keep your tank chemistry close to your tap chemistry!)

OK, so why did I recommend that you work on posting up all those stats for the members? Because in your situation, you first want to eliminate the possibility that you really just have what we call a "mini-cycling" problem because of becoming complacent in your weekly gravel-clean-water-change maintenance or your filter media maintenance (which the members may also need to talk to you about, so discuss that before taking actions, perhaps!) It may be that Skins is on to the right advice - you may need to begin performing some small percentage (but relatively frequently, perhaps every couple of days) gravel-clean-water-changes in order to lower some built-up excessive heavy metals or you may even have some ammonia or nitrite or nitrate levels that need to come down. Those sorts of things should be dealt with first, before deciding whether any sorts of hardness changes should be done with things like crushed coral.

~~waterdrop~~
(apologies for getting off to such a verbose start there )

 

[Supared]

Although i may have to read this a few times to sink in lol, it looks like sound experience based advise to me and I will act accordingly, so thanks for that.

What would you recommend I do ? Take out the piece of coral rock maybe ? and do water changes ( with tapsafe for example) How often and how much would you recommend for now ? I have already messed about with the PH so should I leave adding anymore PH plus and just water change untill the water is consistent with my tap water ? I believe that our tap water (Manchester) is on the safe side and have been told ( shop ) that basically its safe to use from a hardness point of view. However Having read up on here all is not what it seems and the shop seem to just tell you to throw in whatever whenever and this messes with the chemistry.
To be honest ,I have been a little lapse with water changes and need to get back to basics.
Under normal circumstances what would be a normal amount of water to change and over what period of time ? Also how often should I clean out the filter. I have a fluval 400 internal filter. Sorry for bending your ears guys and gals, but I want to improve this situation for the good of the fish. If I have to I will start from scratch. Once again many thanks to all.

 

[the biffster]

Hi supared and Welcome to our beginners section!

Your last post quotes me a fallacy! pH is not the sort of thing that has a "safe zone" that you are trying to keep your water chemistry within! In fact, pH is a secondary, reactive sort of measurement and one that should not rule your tank, although it is very good to gain the understanding that when it is -stable-, that's a good thing (it just doesn't matter as much as you might think what number it happens to stablize -at-. So lets step back and talk about some other things.

First of all, now that you have a liquid based test kit (the JBL is not one we see as often but should be ok) it would be a good idea to post up the result sets (all tests: ammonia, nitrite(NO2), nitrate(NO3) and pH) for the members and to mention at what frequency and amount you've been performing gravel-clean-water-changes and what your filter maintenance habits are. All those things may have a bearing on how people help you.

The reason I called pH "secondary" is that often the pH value is dragged along by the mineral content of the water (the hardness, both permanent and temporary as measured by GH and KH scales.) Mineral content is a bigger deal to fish than pH because all living systems must mechanisms to maintain a correct mineral content within their cell walls and if the mineral content outside their cell walls changes such that it is too far away form what their "maintaining machinery" can handle, they are in trouble.

[A cell wall is a semipermeable membrane and the pressure of the fluid within that withstands the force of the pressure outside is called the osmotic pressure. Living cells of various species have evolved to handle the variations (or lack of variation) of the mineral content around them, but not necessarily a mineral content that is out of range for what their species has ever handled evolutionarily. (For instance, if too much water flows in to a cell from an imbalance, the cell wall can explode.) obviously I'm straying too far afield here, so my member friends will have to come and actually give you some practical advice in a minute, lol. But I hope that gave some background that makes sense?]

Anyway, keeping our *mineral content* quite stable is our real goal with fishkeeping, much more so than pH. The confusion comes because pH often, but not always, will follow changes in mineral content (various hardness factors.) So here comes the important baseline lesson: our tap water hardness is our safety net for our tank! When we are in trouble (say, we've found too much poison (ammonia or nitrite) in our tank for some reason and we need to quickly dilute it, we need to perform water changes and ultimately that comes back to our own tap water. There are cases where experienced aquarists choose to "go against" their tap water, but in general, the guideline for beginners is to first learn how powerful it is to "stay with" your tap water chemistry. That way you always have a large safety net in the form of lots of fresh fish-saving water that is already at the correct hardness and pH levels that your fish have stayed used to (because you keep your tank chemistry close to your tap chemistry!)

OK, so why did I recommend that you work on posting up all those stats for the members? Because in your situation, you first want to eliminate the possibility that you really just have what we call a "mini-cycling" problem because of becoming complacent in your weekly gravel-clean-water-change maintenance or your filter media maintenance (which the members may also need to talk to you about, so discuss that before taking actions, perhaps!) It may be that Skins is on to the right advice - you may need to begin performing some small percentage (but relatively frequently, perhaps every couple of days) gravel-clean-water-changes in order to lower some built-up excessive heavy metals or you may even have some ammonia or nitrite or nitrate levels that need to come down. Those sorts of things should be dealt with first, before deciding whether any sorts of hardness changes should be done with things like crushed coral.

~~waterdrop~~
(apologies for getting off to such a verbose start there )

yet an other cracking post from WD

 

[waterdrop]

OK, Supared, IF you were back to a normal tank situation (which we won't assume you are yet) HERE is what you'd want to be doing:

With a normal healthy "biofilter" (sponges, ceramic gravel/rings, etc., with established beneficial bacteria) running, you should be measuring zero ppm ammonia and zero ppm nitrite(NO2) anytime you measure (except perhaps right after you've disturbed the substrate or filter.) Nitrate(NO3) is tricky to measure, even with liquid test kits, so you have to take any single test with skepticism and always make records of it in your aquarium notebook diary (so that when you look back over time it may make more sense.) When you -are- getting good numbers, we like to try and keep our nitrate level at about 15 to 20ppm -above- what our tap water nitrate(NO3) measures as, as a rough maximum. Somewhere roughly around that maximum or anything less, all the way down to zero ppm NO3, is the range I'm suggesting and even more important than any absolute number is just to be aware and following the "trend" your tank takes over time (getting to know the water chemistry of your tank.) If nitrate stays steady or wanders slowly around within this rough range, things are probably fine. If nitrate keeps wanting to rise on you, then there may be a systematic problem. Usually the problem is not enough substrate water change maintenance and/or filter maintenance.

The baseline habit we suggest here in the beginners section is to use a gravel-cleaning siphon (use should be outlined somewhere in the BRC-Beginners Resource Center) to change out some amount of water (we'll talk about how much later) and then replace it with conditioned (yes, tap safe etc.), roughly temperature matched (your hand is good enough for this) tap water each week (most people do this on the weekend.) Baseline means this is a starting point and you can modify it based on what you see with your longer term nitrate tests. You might get by with a little less or you might need more (unlikely.)

Our baseline habit for filter cleaning is once a month (for larger cannisters, smaller internals or HOBs may need every 3 or 2 weeks) and what you do is gently squeeze out the main sponge or two, and/or dunk the tray or mesh bag of ceramic rings or gravel in TANK WATER (never tap water!) The idea is that you use a catch bucket during the gravel clean and then use that old tank water for the filter cleaning. Then you keep the media submerged or wet while you finish other filter maintenance. The impeller assembly should always be gently and carefully cleaned (little brushes are good for this) and all silicone seals and parts must be recoated with a silicone grease product to prevent premature oxidation. Again, this is a baseline which can be modified eventually based on your own experience, which will be better understood if you have an aquarium notebook to look back at.

OK, back to your individual situation. Since you've been doctoring the water, I suggest you start will very small gravel-clean-water-changes (20% or less) but perhaps try to do one mid-week and then another on the weekend. Meanwhile give the members a couple of days of prior test results (in ppm numbers) prior to the first change and then each time you change, post a set of test results from an hour or two later. (NH3, NO2, NO3, pH) My thought is to slowly get you back in line with your tap water, but as always that should be subject to the members seeing any other problems I've missed.

Once you are back to normal and running fairly close to your tap water, I suspect it will be better for your weekly water changes to be more like 50% since your water is so soft and acid. This will better refresh what few minerals do come in during your water changes. Over a longer period you may have to go back to considering a slight raising of your hardness and pH (drobbyb and I have an article with some possibilities for this) but its better to be really pushed in to doing this. And yes, I'd go ahead and take the coral out at the start of this. Hopefully the hardness and pH won't start dropping back too quickly as a result of this action.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Supared]

Many thanks for the info. I only have a PH test kit at the moment. Can you recommend a kit to check all the others NH3, N02/3 etc ?

 

[the biffster]

Many thanks for the info. I only have a PH test kit at the moment. Can you recommend a kit to check all the others NH3, N02/3 etc ?

API freshwater master test kit
you can pick them up on eBay
pretty cheap now if you look
about

 

[Supared]

Thanks e-baying as we post !

 

[Geoff-]

As already mentioned, pH is secondary to all the other parameters in your tank and stability in your pH (rather than an absolute number) is desirable because it means all the other levels of chemicals are not changing dramatically. You don't want to ever change the pH dramatically though, as this indicates a big change in many other parameters like hardness.

The problem with products like pH Up and pH Down is that you are initiating a chemical reaction in your tank, and the reaction happens with the buffering agents that actually serve to reduce shifts in pH. Only when you have "used up" all of the buffering minerals in your tank water does the pH change much. Once you've done this, you have no buffering in the tank and wild pH swings are likely. This is why you should only mess with the pH if you're an expert fishkeeper. It's generally better to leave it alone, and unless your tap water is pH < 6 or pH > 8 the closer you stay to your tap water the better.

Bogwood reduces pH slightly and crushed coral increases pH and adds buffering/hardness to the water (which is good for reducing pH swings). If you do need to raise pH at all then use crushed coral rather than pH Up.

 

[drobbyb]

You should read the article that I wrote a while back. It pertains to more than just measuring, but has steps in one approach to help manage low pH problems. All of the information might not apply directly to you, but there is also some good info there about low pH problems too. Terry (waterdrop) has provided some excellent advice and a spot on explanation, and I would advise that you listen to him. The article can be found in my signature.