Newbie Here With A Low Ph Level Question

[Tim80002]

Hello everyone...
I am a newbie to the world of aquariums & to Tropical Fish Forums. I Just bought my first aquariums about a week ago and set it up 3 days ago...

My tank a 33 gallon tank, running a Power filter & Heater... (canopy with two lights, 1 is a sun light and the other is one that makes the fish glow)
(added cycle stuff)(temps are at 26C)

I have 4 live plants and 3 fake ones, with a piece of drift wood & good sized rock... (will inclose a picture.. still not done moving things around yet)

I bought a test kit (nutrafin master mini) and my PH levels are around 5.5 - 6.0... I bought nutrafin PH UP today and added 1 drop per gallon...

my question is, how long does it take for the PH level to come up after adding the drops? Also, since there are no fish can I up the dosage to get the PH level higher? or is that a no no / might kill the plants?

The water is still some what cloudy is that normal? there is also a snail living in there that must have come from one of the plants.. should i take him out or is ok to leave him in there?

Thanks in advance for any advice
Tim

One last thing, I had a background that I put on the outside of the tank... but it almost looked black it was so dark, so I took it off... You just tape it on there right? could I put it in the inside to make it brighter? Also, does the Sun Bulb go in the back or front? I have it in the back right now...

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Tim and welcome to TFF!

We don't normally like to use chemicals like pH-up in our freshwater aquariums because of some of the buildup of unwanted extras they can leave behind. Since you've just bought the chemical however, I'd wait to see if some of our other members can query you about the individual ingredients of pH-up and perhaps declare it to be ok for now...

What we normally use to raise carbonate hardness (KH), which in turn raises pH, is simple kitchen baking soda (not baking powder but baking soda.) We use this as the chemical of choice during fishless cycling (which is what you'll need to be doing to prepare for fish) to try and get the pH up close to the ideal range for growing the beneficial bacteria in the filter. We would dose it at about 1 tablespoon per 50L (you could find the gallons with our calculator up top.)

The ideal "bacterial growing soup" is dechlorinated/dechloraminated tap water at a pH of 8.0 to 8.4 held at a steady temperature of 84F/29C with a little bit of mineral content and a trace of iron (the baking soda will get the minerals there, the tap water will have the iron.) It takes between 3 weeks and 2 months to grow the two specific species of autotrophic bacteria we need and the members here can help you all the way through it. The end result is what we call a working "biofilter." It processes the ammonia and nitrite(NO2) that the fish will give off.

Its great that you already have a good liquid-reagent based test kit. That's the most important beginner tool. You'll use it just about every day and often twice a day during the fishless cycling weeks.

Your live plants are going to need some attention. You need to add up the wattage of your two bulbs and tell us. We need to determine whether you are above or below the 2 watts per US gallon line in overall lighting. Prior to us knowing I'm going to recommend that you not run the lights more than 4 hours per day (probably in the evening when you want to see the tank, even if it is empty, lol.) A new tank is a very sterile place and will kill plants rather quickly, so we may need to decide on what plant nutrients to supplement in there. It wouldn't take much, but we can talk about that.

The main fishless cycling article is in the Beginners Resource Center. Read that and the Nitrogen Cycle and Fish-In cycle articles. A fish-in cycle is what happens to people when they don't yet understand the principles of biofilters yet and have perhaps listened to their local fish shop (LFS.) Let us know what questions you have!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Tim80002]

Hello Waterdrop and thank you for the warm welcome...

I would rather do the process right and not use the PH-up if that is the proper way of doing this.

I bought a fishtank kit that was half off... it's from Nutrafin, they are "rebranding" their products, so they're trying to get rid of the old label styles in the stores...
I got 3 473mL bottles of the Nutrafin Cycle, a 500ML bottle of Nutrafin Auq Plus and 3 big bottles of the Nutrafin waste control for a dollar each. (they all expire in 2012)

for the lights, The box says the wattage is 20 x 2...

also, i am currently running the lights 12 hours aday, is that bad?

I will have a look at the Beginners Resource Center

thanks again.

 

[drobbyb]

Also, check out the link in my signature. If you do in fact have a low pH out of the tap, there are a few things we can do abut this. Basically a low pH slows down your good bacteria, and if left dormant for long enugh, ammonia and nitrite will build up in the tank causing all kinds of mayhem.

Check out that link and think about what you plan to do if this is going to be a long term situation.

 

[Tim80002]

So when you use that crushed coral, you buy it once and it lasts for years? You just have to clean it? Are all those chemicals I bought a waste of money? I didn't really pay too much since they were on sale...(only about 25 bucks all together)

My tap water PH level is around 5.5-6.0

I added some baking soda, it raised it to around 8.0

 

[drobbyb]

The crushed coral is a natural way to buffer your water in a slow predictable manner and lasts for years. Baking soda is just fine as long as there are no fish in the tank. Those chemicals are a bit dodgy as they don't do anything to buffer your water. No buffer translates into a wildly swinging pH which isn't healthy for your tank at all.

 

[OldMan47]

The action of the pH raising chemicals is almost instant. They will move the pH as much as they are going to as soon as they are thoroughly mixed into the water. The biggest problem with using something like that, when you do have fish, is that immediate response of the tank water. Although much of what is called pH shock is really a question of mineral concentration change, I still try to take a cautious approach to my tank's water chemistry. Fast changes in anything should usually be avoided when you have fish. If you are fishless right now, go ahead and use as much as you need to in order to get the pH over 7.0. Meanwhile, while your tank is cycling, you can get some crushed shell or crushed coral for future use.
The only chemical that we do not try to avoid using in a tank is the dechlorinator / water conditioner. That gets used every time you do a partial water change. It is the only chemical that I keep on the shelf ready to use. I do get a sample of the pH adjusters every time I buy a test kit for pH though. If you want some, we can figure out the postage and you can have all of mine.

 

[Tim80002]

Could I use the PH UP in the bucket I use to do water changes and get it exactly what the PH level is in the tank before I put it? Wouldn't that make sure there is no big swing in PH levels for the fish?

Also, my plants look like they are dying pretty fast lol... what should I do/get it save them? one of them is almost brown this morning...

I appreciate the help from you guys, the people at pets unlimited are mostly teenagers who have no idea what they are saying/doing.

 

[Tim80002]

I just tested the bottled water I have on my water cooler... The PH levels in it are prefect, it's between 7.0-7.5... Should I be using that instead? or is that a bad idea? It costs around 3 bucks to exchange it for a new one and at 5 gallons I calulated it would take around two @ a cost of 6 bucks to do a 1/3 water change on my 32 gallon tank. That's not bad if I only had to do it once a month... What do you guys think?

 

[drobbyb]

Just use baking soda while you are fishless cycling. The pH up is not good for your tank.

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with Robby. Just use baking soda during the fishless cycle. Bottled water is not what you want. Just use your tap water.

Let's start over a bit. There are two separate "worlds" to worry about: during fishless cycling and after you have fish. They are not the same worlds and don't mix. During fishless cycling you want to start with tap water and add baking soda (if necessary, as in your case) to achieve a pH between 8.0 and 8.4 ideally (if possible, or headed up towards that.) You can roughly monitor what the baking soda is achieving via multiple pH measurements or, ideally, you can use a KH test kit to monitor it in a much smoother manner. At the end of fishless cycling, all the sodium and bicarbonate that came with the baking soda will be thrown out "with the bathwater." You will not re-use baking soda after that.

Life with fish, after fishless cycling, should be planned out and it takes a bit more thinking if your tap water is pH 5 to 6. A principle of good beginner fishkeeping is to start with a determination to try very hard to base your tank on the water parameters you've been given based on where you live, rather than try to artificially go against it. Please read the article Robby and I wrote (he's got a link.) Its a momentous decision to decide on altered water. You can have good intentions for a pretty long time and then one day something will distract you and it may kill your fish when the water lacks alteration and returns to its base state.

In your case, if you -did- decide to live with altered water, you'd go with crushed coral, which is the "best practice" method of altering in the upward pH direction with fish in the tank. Its best because it is so slow. But its -still- altered water and so, as such, carries the burden forever forward that it could kill your fish. Since your tank (and you, we assume) are new to tropical fish, you still need to spend more time testing and discussing to be sure you would really need this more drastic pathway. I have pretty low pH water too, but I handle it via larger weekly water changes currently and having a selection of south american species that like more acid water.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[drobbyb]

Exactly. Waterdrop has eloquently hit the nail on the head It's a big decision to run crushed coral. If you keep up with the waterchanges though it's cake.

 

[Tim80002]

The PH in my tap water is only 5.5 to 6.0(don't think I will be drinking it anymore lol), wouldn't using the bottled water which is at 7.0 to 7.5 be best to use from here on out? Wouldn't that solve my problem of the PH level being too low without having to use crushed coral, PH-up or limit the type of fish I can get?

I just read that distilled water is bad because it doesn't have minerals in it... Would Neon Tetras, Cherry barbs and Clown barbs survive in conditions of 5.5 to 6.0? I'm pretty sure tetras would, and so would Cherry barbs.

 

[drobbyb]

It would be very expensive, but in theory you could do it. A bag of crushed coral is less than 10 bucks but lasts for years.

 

[OldMan47]

If you are tempted to use the bottled water, you need to know more about it than just the pH. Try testing the water for hardness, GH. My own experience testing bottled water showed me that it was almost the same as distilled water. I am sure different bottlers put different water into the bottles but it is well worth testing. The bottler may even have a web site that tells you how many minerals are in the water in ppm, which would also be nice to know.