Modifiing Ph Levels

[rockerBOO]

I recently got some plants for my aquarium, and my ph is not so much dropping to drastically, but i am afraid it will lower to much. I want to level it out to 7.0. My tap ph is 6.8. My current reading is 6.4-6.6. I read that if you add some baking soda, that it will increase the PH back to 7.0 with the correct dosage. This seems like a temporary fix, and not something longterm which i need.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

 

[InaneCathode]

Why is your pH dropping? Do you have some bog wood in the tank or something? I can't think of a reason other than bogwood or way too much co2 in a soft tank that would make it go that low. Short answer, yes baking soda would raise your pH, and add some hardness, but you really dont want to be messing with monkeying around with your pH with chemicals, you could very easily kill everything in your tank if the pH swings too much. I may be corrected on this, but 6.6 doesnt sound /too/ bad, as long as it's stable at 6.6.

Find out the pH of your tap water (dechlorinated, or aged) let it sit in a bucket for a day, then test it. If it's quite different than your tank, then something in your tank is messing with your pH.

 

[TheRedDarren]

It's really not that hard to change your PH slowly and safely provided you've got a little cash to to it and some patience.
Two safest ways to lower PH are c02 injection or adding peat to the filter medium.
Two safest ways to raise PH are 02 injection (airstone etc) or adding limestone to filter medium.
You'll need to experiment to find what you need to do to YOUR tank in YOUR water area etc, but try it, it's not hard, just make sure you make the changes slowly, over a few days so the fish dont get PH shock. To give you an idea, my tap PH is 7.8, i got this down to 7 24hrs after introducing c02, then down to 6.4 after adding about 500g worth of peat to my filter.

Besides, 6.6 is not a bad level to have, especially if your cories are going in there.

 

[rockerBOO]

The PH is dropping slightly from the plants I added to the tank. And the PH is stable at 6.6. None of the fish seem to be bothered by this as they are all breeding.

I just have been told 7.0 was best. And since my PH is normally lower than 7.0 I was curious how to naturally change the PH levels. I will be adding in CO2 soon, so if i am understanding this, it will lower my PH, and then I just have to add in limestone into the filter? Where would I get limestone to add? Or how much? I just do not want to add CO2 and have it drop the PH levels down, or anything, and want to learn about what exactly affects the PH and how to maintain it without using chemicals.

Thanks for the help so far, learned a bit so far .

 

[George Farmer]

Attempting to keep a pH stable via chemicals etc. is not worth the trouble/expense. Only if you have extremely soft water do you need to worry about buffering pH i.e. boosting KH.

Fish and plants in most instances will readily adapt to pH. Better to concentrate your efforts on water changes, filter maintenance, growing plants etc. Your fish will appreciate this this more than a constant pH 7, that is very hard to create (unless you using phosphate loaded buffers etc.)

If you did want to boost pH (and by default KH) then approx 1 teaspoon of bi-carbonate of soda per 100 l. (30G) will increase KH by 1 degree (17.9ppm CaCO3). Your pH level is also dictated by CO2 and other acidifying substances in the water.

You plants will have little infulence on pH BTW, until they consume lots of CO2 thus driving up pH, or bi-carbonate, thus reducing pH. These only happen in very heavily planted tanks in specific circumstances.

 

[rockerBOO]

Thanks for this advice GF.

Now I did a PH test today, on the tank and found that the PH was 7.6. I was about it, and went to check my tap to see if I did a water change i could even out the higher PH and found it was the same. Must be from the wierd weather we are having here in New England. This seems to be doing a lot to my danio's which are having with gills becoming red. Added some aloe to the tank and see how it goes, but how can i get the PH down until i can get my co2 system setup? I do not have peat, or know where to get it.