Need Help With My Water Ph

[stuhyde]

Evening folks

Recently upgraded from a 3ft to a 5ft, but having a few issues with PH.

Here is a pic

Now these are all new stones, apart from the triangle type one with the 4 holes (bought from an aquarium shop and they had it in their tank - also ran this for 2 years in previous tank with no probs).

The 3 white stones about 3/4 of the way across we got from the beach, and since testing them properly, they fizzed. So we did a 75% water change with these removed, and got the PH to about 7.4 (about right for the amount of water changed)

This was 2 days ago, checked it again tonight, and its back up to PH 8!

Tested the substrate, is it possible it will take a while for it to stop going up after removing the offending rocks? Tested the others with a vinegar test and they dont fizz (I know this isnt the be all and end all of tests).

Any help appreciated...

Cheers

Stu

 

[craig855s]

Caronate hardness gassing off? Test a cup of 2 day old tapwater for its PH and see what that is. Id slap a piece or two of bogwood in there

 

[stuhyde]

just filled a jug, will check in a few days ...

Anyone else any suggestions? Do all the other rocks look OK?

 

[stuhyde]

BTTT

 

[OldMan47]

You might want to set up a small container of tap water with each stone that you suspect might affect tap water and a control container of just tap water. After a couple of days test each container for pH and see what you get. If any of the rocks are affecting the pH, they will be revealed by comparing their effect to the plain tap water sample that is the same age. A rock needs to very reactive to show up in the vinegar test. Much less reactive rocks can have an effect over longer time periods and never show a sign of fizzing with vinegar.

 

[stuhyde]

Thanks for your reply

I tested the tap water I had left for a few days, and that is nearly 8 pH now


Ive got some bogwood i used in the previous tank and now that is soaking

See what that brings...........



Patience....

I waited over a month for my levels to stabilise with no fish...

 

[OldMan47]

It sounds like the water itself is heavily buffered. The only way that I know to overcome that is to mix it with rain water or RO water. That will dilute the buffering in the tap water.
Are any of the fish you have showing a problem with the high pH? If not, I would leave well enough alone. Using extreme chemical measures to move around the water and then having it rebound is very hard on the fish.

 

[matchstickman47]

i would go with the bog wood

i took some out of my tank once n the ph stayed at 7 for a wekk . now its back up to 8 so my chiclids r happy

 

[stuhyde]

i would go with the bog wood

i took some out of my tank once n the ph stayed at 7 for a wekk . now its back up to 8 so my chiclids r happy

Thanks for replies, I'm adding the bogwood tonight .. Tested some 3 day old tap water and its bang on 8 PH.

Hopefully the bogwood will bring it back down to around 7 .

Fish are 100% fine so definitely wouldnt add additives anyway..