Hello

[Danilo_Thann69]

Well have had the tank up for a week. Having an issue I've never experienced before. I tested the PH in my tank, and it was at 8.2, which is high. I tried some API's PH Down, and got it down to 7.0/7.1 last night. This morning I get up, and it's back up to 7.9 again. No water add's, no fish in it yet.

Here's a pic (not my best) of the tank currently, and what's in it currently.

Functional Items
55 Gallon Tank
White LED lights
Penn Plex Cascade 1000 Canister filter
Undergravel filter, with powerhead on each end.
2-in-1 PH & Temp Continuous Monitor
200 Watt Heater
Hydrofarm 3W Air Pump (7.8 L/min)

Decorations/etc
Custom Stargate Atlantis background
14" Airstone
StarGate with bubblestone
Groot with bubblestone
Hollow Log
Driftwood
Bonsai Tree

Coming soon
Have a friend who's bringing some live plants from her 5 year tank
Have an AT-AT (Star Wars) that should be here in the next week. (yea Sci-Fi theme)

 

[Essjay]

The chances are you have hard water. High GH often goes with high KH, which is a buffer which stops the pH changing. You are experiencing why it is not a good idea to use chemicals to alter pH - if the KH is high, the chemical will drop the pH initially then it will bounce back to where it was.

You need to find the hardness of your tap water. It may be on your water provider's website. If not you could call them, you need a number and the unit of measurement not vague words. If that fails, take a sample of your tap water to an LFS and ask them to test for GH - again you need a number.

If you do have hard water, that would go with high pH. Fish that need hard water also prefer high pH so you do not need to lower it. And if you do have hard water, you need to choose fish which need hard water; you should not choose soft water fish.

 

[Danilo_Thann69]

The chances are you have hard water. High GH often goes with high KH, which is a buffer which stops the pH changing. You are experiencing why it is not a good idea to use chemicals to alter pH - if the KH is high, the chemical will drop the pH initially then it will bounce back to where it was.

You need to find the hardness of your tap water. It may be on your water provider's website. If not you could call them, you need a number and the unit of measurement not vague words. If that fails, take a sample of your tap water to an LFS and ask them to test for GH - again you need a number.

If you do have hard water, that would go with high pH. Fish that need hard water also prefer high pH so you do not need to lower it. And if you do have hard water, you need to choose fish which need hard water; you should not choose soft water fish.

I don't have a water provider, as I'm on a well. So I'll have to see about getting the hardness of my water.

Thanks for the info though.

 

[Essjay]

If you have the well water tested the info might be in the report, otherwise you'll need to take a trip to the LFS.