Ph Differences!

[JackoUK]

As some of you may have read I have been having problems with Ph for a while now, my tap water being between 5 and 5.5. Well I was cleaning out my 65L DP tank the other day and I haven't done water tests on it since I moved mt tanks about a month ago. So I cleaned it out and sat down to do all mt tests. By the way my larger tank tests are always Ph 5.5, Kh 10ml, Gh <20ml, so not too good as you can see. So when I tested my Ph and got a reading of 7.0 I was pretty stunned. I tested it several times to be sure and it is definatly neutral water. The Gh reading was still <20ml but the Kh reading has risen to 50ml.

Now from the little I understand on water chemistry i'm guessing this means the water has more buffering qualitites and if so is it because of the only decoration I have in the tank, a large piece of rock. I'm not sure what kind of rock it is, i'm pretty sure it's not Lava. It looks like a piece of swiss cheese with many tunnels and holes going through it. I'll try and get a picture of it today sometime, in the meantime I was wondering if anyone knew what it might be? Because this could be my solution for my larger tank.

 

[rdd1952]

Hard to tell what it is without a photo but I would guess that you are correct that t is the reason you have a higher pH on that tank. If you can take it out of the tank, put a few drops of vinegar on it to see if it fizzes. If it does, then it is definitel raising the pH.

 

[Sysiphus]

Is the rock kinda white? Tufa rock I suspect and it is great for adding hardness and raising pH. I have a soft water problem in a 90 gal and two fist sized tufa keep alkalinity right in check.

 

[JackoUK]

Hard to tell what it is without a photo but I would guess that you are correct that t is the reason you have a higher pH on that tank. If you can take it out of the tank, put a few drops of vinegar on it to see if it fizzes. If it does, then it is definitel raising the pH.

I'll try and get a photo today if possible. I'll try the vinegar test next time I remove the rock.

Is the rock kinda white? Tufa rock I suspect and it is great for adding hardness and raising pH. I have a soft water problem in a 90 gal and two fist sized tufa keep alkalinity right in check.

It is white, which makes it damn hard to keep clean from algae. It's certainly doing the job though.

A couple more quick questions.

1/ As I do a water change I remove around 30% of the water, so when I put the new tap water in, 5.5Ph, it fluctuates to around 6.5. Is this too much of a fluctuation for the fish and will it distress them?

2/ I have a massive amount of algae in the tank containing the (suspected) Tufa rock. I have to clean it every three days and it only contains two DP's and a few plants. It has very low Nitrate readings and doesn't get any natural light at all. Could this be anything at all to do with the (suspected) Tufa rock?

 

[rdd1952]

I would cut the water changes to 15% and just do them more often if necessary. The main reason for doing them is to remove nitrates. Test your nitate before the next water change. If they're not more than about 20 ppm, a small water change will be fine. The main goal is to keep nitrates under 40 to 60 ppm unless you have high levels in your tap water.

How long are your lights on and is the tank ever in direct sunlight? Both are big at promoting algae growth. If you don't have live plants, you really only need the lights on when you're there to view the tanks. If you do have plants, 10 to 14 hours a day is plenty. I think it also helps to break the light. My tanks are on 4 in the morning, off 6 mid-day, on 6 in the evening and off all night. Total of 10 on and 14 off.

 

[JackoUK]

I would cut the water changes to 15% and just do them more often if necessary. The main reason for doing them is to remove nitrates. Test your nitate before the next water change. If they're not more than about 20 ppm, a small water change will be fine. The main goal is to keep nitrates under 40 to 60 ppm unless you have high levels in your tap water.

How long are your lights on and is the tank ever in direct sunlight? Both are big at promoting algae growth. If you don't have live plants, you really only need the lights on when you're there to view the tanks. If you do have plants, 10 to 14 hours a day is plenty. I think it also helps to break the light. My tanks are on 4 in the morning, off 6 mid-day, on 6 in the evening and off all night. Total of 10 on and 14 off.

Thanks rdd1952. The strange thing is my Nitrates reading for that tank are actually very near zero. Now I know my Phosphate readings in this region are massive so that might make up for that. It seems to take literally 24 - 36 hours for a small film of algae to form on the gravel substrate. I do have some live plants in the tank and the tank doesn't receive any natural light at all. The tank has two lights that can be switched independantly so I might try just having one on for now and see if that makes a difference. I'll also cut the water changes down to 15% to lower the stress on the DP's.

Thanks again rdd1952