Emergency, My Fish Are Dying

[wilts newbie]

All my own fault. I had a ph of 8.5 and was advised to use a product called ph down the ph is down to 5. I have used 20 ml when I think I should have used 10. I had just completed a 30% water change. Now my fish are dying or dead. Please any advice I receive  would be greatly appreciated.it is a 100 litre tropical tank. I have another tropical tank is it worth moving them or putting them in a bucket with that water in.
 

 

[the_lock_man]

No. Leave them in there. Do a 5% water change once an hour with fresh tap water that has been treated with your usual dechlorinator, until your water is back to its natural pH.
 
And hope for the best.
 
If you move them directly to water with a different pH again, you'll shock them again, and that will definitely finish them off.

 

[wilts newbie]

Thanks very much I will give it a try.

 

[lukyjay]

Best of luck to you, please update the thread

 

[cpwebsite]

Slow water changes, since a sudden pH change will kill them to get it back to normal. Don't use pH products in the future.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Fish can handle larger rapid changes in pH than most think. My personal experience has been to drop the pH in a tank from 6.0 to 5.0 in about 5 minutes using muriatic acid with no ill effect. However your drop is enormous and clearly at fault. I would try and get the pH up a bit faster than 5% water changes every hour. Leaving fish that were happy at 8.5 in water under 6.5 for any amount of time will likely not have a good result. "Like the Richter scale used to measure earthquakes, the pH scale is logarithmic. A pH of 5.5 is 10 times more acidic than water at a pH of 6.5. Thus, changing the pH by a small amount (suddenly) is more of a chemical change (and more stressful to fish!) than might first appear."
 
The other thing to pay very close attention to now are your bacteria. A sudden drop to the pH levels you experienced may have killed a lot of them. So I would advise you to test for ammonia regularly over the next few days to a week.

 

[DrRob]

Aye, that's a big drop. If they've not been at that level for very long then I'm with TTA on getting it back to normal pretty quickly.
 
I'll also second a watch on those filter bacteria. They're hardy folk, but they're not vastly keen on pH's that low so may have taken a hit.
 
If they've been in the lower pH for quite a while then gentler changes are probably in order so as not to shock them again.

 

[wilts newbie]

Thanks very much lukyjay the ph has dropped to 7. I lost 2 fish but the rest who were struggling seem much better today. Thanks again for the good and prompt advice.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Please remember to monitor the ammonia levels over the next week or so.