Low Kh (0-0.5)

[jonnyf84]

what is your ph now?

me or dave?

it comes out the tap at just over neutral, it crashes to below 6 within 3-4 days so i add 4 teaspoons of Bicarb which boosts it to 8 for roughly 3 and a half days then it starts dropping again. This is in my 100 litre with no CO2, its cycled with substrate and heater+aeration but no fish or plants yet as i am waiting for the co2 unit - its been cycled for over 2 and a half months and i do a 50-70% water change every 2-3 weeks to lower nitrates. My other more established tanks hold there PH until the next weekly water change - strange.

 

[jonnyf84]

..... i'm stocking it with Nezzies that do prefer a ph of 7+...

They may have this pH as a perfect/natural condition, but by trying to achieve this you may create more stress on the fish. As you have already said, a slow pH change wont harm the fish. Just make sure it doesnt get excessively below 6 or above 9 unless the fish are suited.

First off it would be good to ask the people where you bought them, what pH they had them in. If they have been bread locally, or housed locally for a while then they may well be more suited to your water than you think. They may have been living in a pH 6 since popping out of their eggs even though they are supposed to have a pH of 7.

You may find that the pH your tank when the CO2 is sorted and stabilised will actually be perfect for the fish.

its not the co2 ph change that worries me so much, its the instant change when adding bicarb. The original 5 were wild caught - there natural habitat in mexican mountain streams has a PH of 7.5, the other 9 were bred in one of my tanks which holds it PH of 7.2 until the next weekly water change, i will be moving them to the tank in question (the one described above in the reply to aaron).

 

[Dave Spencer]

what is your KH and PH?

kH is around 1 dkH. We use the same water source where I work, where the hardness is constantly monitored.
pH I have never tested for. Why bother with happy fish and shrimps? I suspect it is around 6, as I used to test pH before I wondered why I was bothering.

Do you use bicarbonate of soda to buffer your PH and KH?

Nope.

How many hours of CO2 and light do you use each day?

CO2 comes on two hours before lights on to build the levels back up, and goes off two hours before lights out. Lights are ten hours of two T8s, with a four hour period in the middle where a third T8 comes on.

Dave.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

a pH crash is mostly an issue during cycling, once the bacteria colonies are established they are much more resilient and would cope much better, then add in that it's going to be a heavily planted tank (assume it is if you're adding CO2 anyway!), the favourite food for plants is ammonia so you can get what is called a 'silent cycle' in heavily planted tanks where the plants absorb enough of the ammonia to effectively do most of the filtration in place of the filter so you don't get the harmful ammonia or nitrite spikes that you would with a normal fish-in cycle.

i don't know how this would interefere with the planted tank side of things but in general terms buffering with something like crushed coral would be much more effective long term than using bicarb every day. it's like slow release so you just pop some in your filter and leave it be!

 

[jonnyf84]

kH is around 1 dkH. We use the same water source where I work, where the hardness is constantly monitored.
pH I have never tested for. Why bother with happy fish and shrimps? I suspect it is around 6, as I used to test pH before I wondered why I was bothering.

oh i dream of 1dKH!!! so you probably won't know if your PH reduces after a week or so?

 

[jonnyf84]

a pH crash is mostly an issue during cycling, once the bacteria colonies are established they are much more resilient and would cope much better, then add in that it's going to be a heavily planted tank (assume it is if you're adding CO2 anyway!), the favourite food for plants is ammonia so you can get what is called a 'silent cycle' in heavily planted tanks where the plants absorb enough of the ammonia to effectively do most of the filtration in place of the filter so you don't get the harmful ammonia or nitrite spikes that you would with a normal fish-in cycle.

i don't know how this would interefere with the planted tank side of things but in general terms buffering with something like crushed coral would be much more effective long term than using bicarb every day. it's like slow release so you just pop some in your filter and leave it be!

so you think that when i've added the fish, the plants and got the co2 up and running the ph should become more stable like with my other tanks? (as explained in the reply to aaron)

If so it just baffles me that this isn't really a new tank, its been cycled for a decent amount of time now, i am obviousl still dosing ammonia until i get the fish in - copious amounts of ammonia - it is now quite literally a ammonia converting machine!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

which is probably why your KH is so low, is that what you get out of the tap?

 

[jonnyf84]

which is probably why your KH is so low, is that what you get out of the tap?

ammonia lowers KH??

yes it comes out the tap at 0-0.5 (hard to be precise)

your in leeds, what is your KH and PH, i'm in moortown LS17 - not sure if different sides of the city have different water parameters, i can't imagine so as it all comes from the Yorkshire Water plant in sturton.

 

[jonnyf84]

bumpety bump.

could do with confirmation of that last reply.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

can't remember my KH but pH is rock solid at 7.4

Ian's tested the KH before and although I can't remember the exact reading I'm sure it wasn't that low or I'd remember him telling me about it!

ammonia doesn't lower pH, however nitrite and nitrate do, because you're feeding so much ammonia you'll be getting a lot of nitrite hitting the system at one time and then a lot of nitrate building up afterwards which will drive the pH down.

this is why people often have pH crashes and need to buffer when fishless cycling but don't have problems with fish in because it's a steady trickle rather than a big lump of nitrite at once.

try some crushed coral for a mroe stable buffer than adding bicarb every couple of days

 

[jonnyf84]

nice one, i could add the crushed coral into a empty filter tray yes? Its a 100 litre tank, any guidlines on how much i should use?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yes put it into the filter tray, people often wrap it in a mesh bag (or the foot of a pair of your girlfriends tights if your feeling brave!!) to , you need to tread carefully and just build up gradually, start out with a little pile in the middle of your hand, maybe the size of a 50p or something like that. leave that a few days and measure the KH, it'll take maybe 3/4 days before it's working properly. then just keep adjusting it over a few weeks to get teh KH where you want

 

[jonnyf84]

brilliant thanks.