My Ph Is Sooooo Low

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I tested the water today in my 55g tank, as I recently switched 1/2 of the filter media with another tank..

The ph was at about 4.5... I could not believe it.. I've never seen a color so red out of my ph test kit before..

Haven't had a fish die in so long.. I'm not positive what's happening.. maybe a mini cycle is going on, and making the ph drop ..

Tap water ph is about 6.6 it seems..

I'm slowly now going to try to get the ph back to around 6.6 if I can.. I added a tiny bit of ph up.. about enough to raise the ph .1 .... ammonia and nitrites at 0.. don't have a nitrate test kit..

Hopefully none of the fish will die while I raise the ph.. was shocked to see it so low.

Was going to move 1 fish, but thought I'd check ph to make sure it wasn't different from the tank I was going to move it to... thankfully I did check it, cause the shock would have probably killed it.


Does anyone use any ph neutralizer type stuff? I'm considering trying something like that
 
Be careful, it's not extreme ph's that are likely to kill fish but extreme ph shifts. I'd try to stay away from ph altering chemicals. Have you tested your local tap water? Better to use that to adjust your ph, that way when you do weekly water changes, it's not such a drastic swing for your fish. Just try daily 10 -15 % water changes until it levels out. (that's just my 2 cents). But, best of luck to you and your fish.
 
holy sh** that is not good 4.5 is worse than lemon juice

im taking chem right now and 4.0 is 1000x more acidic than 7.0

and 5.0 is 100x more acidic than 7.0

if you put that water in your eye it will burn
 
Yea I've never seen such a red color when testing ph before.. it was definitely lower then 5.0, and that's the lowest my ph test kit goes.

The tap water is at about 6.6... so I'm going to try small water changes everyday and hope for the best.

I think it might be a mini cycle doing it.. the fish looked a little different today, so I wondered..

and the out-take of the filter has white bubbles coming out of it, instead of clear, so I thought something was up..

not sure if that means theres a cycle going on, or what it means exactly..

but the ph in another tank of mine dropped while i was cycling it.
 
I would check to make sure your test kit wasn't malfunctioning, going bad, etc. Borrow one from a fellow aquariast to see what that one reads.

What is the Carbonate Hardness (buffering capacity) of the water? It may be very low 1-3 degrees and that can lead to severe PH drops (just food for thought). If it is low you can add some baking powder or any other commercial buffering agent from your LFS to avoid any more PH drops if that is the root cause of the problem.
 
This may seem like a really obvious question, but I'll ask anyways. Have you added anything that would buffer your ph lately, ie wood, substrate any decor or things of such nature? Just checking. :/
 
Haven't added anything new lately... just switched the filter pad.. I don't think a filter pad would mess anything up... BUT.. I switched pads from 75g to 55g... the 55g is the one with the low ph right now. Weird thing is, the 75g I originally had the filter pad in, was having severe ph drops also.
I don't see how a filter pad could alter the ph... the ph in the 75g is dropping again too though..

I will have to get a hardness test.. I've never tested for that before.

55g - I just did a 15% water change about 10 minutes ago.. fish still acting normal.. another thing that made me wonder was the fish keep jumping and hitting the lid.. I thought they might be trying to get out of the tank for some reason.. could just be they're hungry.. they want my attention all the time, and they can see me on the computer from their tank..

The 75g is at about 6.0 today.. was closed to 6.6 2 days ago when I did my last water change.. I'm really wondering what's going on.
 

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