Driftwood And Ph
- Thread starter jcabs100
- Start date
Better is Betta
Fishaholic
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2011
- Messages
- 488
- Reaction score
- 0
Good question...I assumed it does contribute to keeping your water soft. But I do have 3 tanks that have wood in them and the ph is always high....no matter how much I try to bring it down, within days it shoots straight back up again. I'm putting it down to the type of gravel I have in my tanks. Most of my tanks have a sand substrate but these other 3 have quarts and rocks in them......so it may be that, thats keeping the ph up so high. It would be interesting to know what other people on the forum may have to say about this. 
The tannins released by the wood will lower the pH in the form of tannic acid.
pH can be affected by many factors, and one of the many factors is driftwood. It isn't a huge deal usually, and routine maintenance water changes will keep it from building up too much.
pH can be affected by many factors, and one of the many factors is driftwood. It isn't a huge deal usually, and routine maintenance water changes will keep it from building up too much.
sylros
Fish Fanatic
I also have driftwood in both of my tanks and to be honest, it makes less of a difference that I thought. I got it at first to bring down my PH because I wanted to use a sand substrate which tends to hike the PH a bit. Our water here is already at the top of the range so it couldn't go much higher. With everything, my tanks stay at about 7.4-7.8. The PH is at the same level in my tank at work and it doesn't have wood.
There are so many factors that could affect the PH levels, it makes it difficult to know the total effect. Also, there's the proportion of the wood against the tank size. It needs to be big enough to make a difference. The fish like it and you can grow plants on it.
If you want to avoid the PH to go down, you might want to put a few sea shells, or crushed corals.
But before messing around with the PH, be sure you really need it as most fish will do well without interference. It's better to have a stable PH than an unstable one. Can I ask why you want to raise the PH? Is your tank setup yet...if not, you could use a coral sand substrate.
There are so many factors that could affect the PH levels, it makes it difficult to know the total effect. Also, there's the proportion of the wood against the tank size. It needs to be big enough to make a difference. The fish like it and you can grow plants on it.
If you want to avoid the PH to go down, you might want to put a few sea shells, or crushed corals.
But before messing around with the PH, be sure you really need it as most fish will do well without interference. It's better to have a stable PH than an unstable one. Can I ask why you want to raise the PH? Is your tank setup yet...if not, you could use a coral sand substrate.
my tanks been set up for 7 months now i'm asking because i have 2 Malaysian driftwood and a piece of bog wood that i picked up from my back yard that looked amazing and i don't really check my ph.. i check my ph every month honestly..i check mostly for ammonia nitrite and nitrate more then ph and well i checked my ph and its around 6.5-7.5 its always between those numbers and honestly it was a question that popped into mind cause iv'e heard driftwood does this so i guess it was just curiosity just incase this happens to me
The effect will diminish with time as well. Once all the tannins are released by the wood, the tannic acid can no longer be produced and the pH will stabilize. Chances are that it won't happen to you, since you've had the two pieces of wood in the tank for so long. It might take a small dip, but a routine maintenance water change will keep it within bounds. It won't get out of whack because of driftwood.
All fish do best in stable water conditions. They can tolerate some level of change, and at times with some rapidity, but overall, the key is to try to maintain all your water parameters as best you can. The best and easiest way to do this is with regularly scheduled partial water changes as part of your maintenance schedule. If you are changing 20-30% of the water weekly or so, and occasionally do a larger (& slower) water change (50-75%), you shouldn't have to worry about too much variance in your water parameters.
All fish do best in stable water conditions. They can tolerate some level of change, and at times with some rapidity, but overall, the key is to try to maintain all your water parameters as best you can. The best and easiest way to do this is with regularly scheduled partial water changes as part of your maintenance schedule. If you are changing 20-30% of the water weekly or so, and occasionally do a larger (& slower) water change (50-75%), you shouldn't have to worry about too much variance in your water parameters.
Good question...I assumed it does contribute to keeping your water soft. But I do have 3 tanks that have wood in them and the ph is always high....no matter how much I try to bring it down, within days it shoots straight back up again. I'm putting it down to the type of gravel I have in my tanks. Most of my tanks have a sand substrate but these other 3 have quarts and rocks in them......so it may be that, thats keeping the ph up so high. It would be interesting to know what other people on the forum may have to say about this.
Do I read correctly that you have other tanks, where the pH is lower? If so, then it sounds like the rocks that are the problem. I would suggest, though, that you don't try to alter the pH (I'm assuming your using a chemical additive for this). Wild pH swings are much more detrimental to your fish than living in a stable high pH which isn't their natural lower pH. So long as you acclimatise the fish fully, they will be fine.
N0body Of The Goat
Oddball and African riverine fish keeper
I was a little shocked to discover that the bogwood in one of my smaller tanks had released enough tannins to lower the pH to ~7.8 from 8.2, but this did have a new piece added and these do seem to make the water more tea stained for a couple of months or so.
Smaller volume to have more fluctuations than bigger tanks. How big was the bogwood?
N0body Of The Goat
Oddball and African riverine fish keeper
The new piece was ~12x6x6 inches in a 100l tank, which went alongside two other bits of similar size.
That's a nice size bit of wood. I assume it had a fairly large surface area of pores to release the tannins... and the tank is only moderately sized, so that makes sense. I bet that wood looks amazing in that tank though!
Better is Betta
Fishaholic
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2011
- Messages
- 488
- Reaction score
- 0
Yes the ph is lower in some and the ones with white quarts gravel is right off the scale. I do regular water changes and I tried bringing the ph down gradually over a couple of days.....but as soon as I stop its back up again. My tap water is pretty high also so that doesn't help. I even let the tap water stand for a day or 2 before adding it to my tanks....hoping that will alleviate the problem.Good question...I assumed it does contribute to keeping your water soft. But I do have 3 tanks that have wood in them and the ph is always high....no matter how much I try to bring it down, within days it shoots straight back up again. I'm putting it down to the type of gravel I have in my tanks. Most of my tanks have a sand substrate but these other 3 have quarts and rocks in them......so it may be that, thats keeping the ph up so high. It would be interesting to know what other people on the forum may have to say about this.
Do I read correctly that you have other tanks, where the pH is lower? If so, then it sounds like the rocks that are the problem. I would suggest, though, that you don't try to alter the pH (I'm assuming your using a chemical additive for this). Wild pH swings are much more detrimental to your fish than living in a stable high pH which isn't their natural lower pH. So long as you acclimatise the fish fully, they will be fine.
Similar threads
Most reactions
-
269 -
191 -
158 -
126 -
109 -
103 -
101 -
89 -
88 -
85 -
84 -
61 -
61 -
60 -
51