Ph Dropping

[JoshuaA]

Thanks for the replys,now into day 33 and my ph has held at 7.5 for 3 days now, but now my ammonia processing is slowing down,for a cpl weeks has been doing 3-4 ppm in 24 hrs,but day 31, ammonia 0.6 after 24 hrs, added ammonia, Day 32 0.6 ammonia after 24 hrs,added ammonia to 3-4 ppm, and now today ammonia 2.4 after 24 hrs. Is this normal or is something going wrong.

Don't stress over it, big water changes can "Stall" the cycle process or at least slow it down, however in the long run there is some evidence to suggest water changes in fact speed the cycle up.

 

[Mickfender]

Hi all, thanks joshuaA, the bicarb seems to have done the trick, PH back up to 8.5 for 2 days now and ammonia down to zero in 24 hrs again. Just waiting for the nitrite to start dropping now,on day 35 of cycle so hope its soon.

 

[JoshuaA]

Hi all, thanks joshuaA, the bicarb seems to have done the trick, PH back up to 8.5 for 2 days now and ammonia down to zero in 24 hrs again. Just waiting for the nitrite to start dropping now,on day 35 of cycle so hope its soon.

Hey again Mick! o/

We've been suffering the same problem as you however it appears to be the Nitrate which is causing the problem the Nitrite is usually around 0 - 0.25 after 12 hours of adding the Ammonia now however the pH seems to drop massively over the period of 3/4 days. Tap water is usually around 7.4 but currently the pH was at 6.6/8 with a Nitrate reading of around 40 - 80ppm. Ammonia raises the pH up to 8.4 very fast!

The water is very soft in my area so I'm told and so did the fact sheet I got from United Utilities (Water Supply Company for my area) I will have a test kit tomorrow sometime to find out the real value. I'm a bit concerned of taking the approach of using chemicals to adjust the pH.

I'm interested in the Coral chips or Sea Shell approach and wonder if anyone has any experience of this working for them over time? I mean doing a 25% water change a week with coral chips/shells to adjust the pH using Bi-Carb seems messy if fish were in the tank. People say crushing the shells up and then putting them in the flow of water from the filter is the best way, however the filter is pretty tight for space currently and I was wondering if laying cleaned sea shells found at the sea shore on the gravel substrate would be suitable and effective over a period of time. The cycle appears to be close to an end with Nitrite disappearing just over 12 hours after the Ammonia is added so I'm trying to weigh my options up and try prevent the problem of a possible pH crash after fish are introduced.

Sorry for Hi-Jacking your thread Mick but I thought a response on this may be useful for the both of us!

Also on the Nitrate test, from my experience of the last few weeks completely ignore it until your Nitrite is within a readable measure. Our API master test kit certainly has the issue of conflicting results, Nitrate has only really become readable after the Nitrite is at 0ppm. Other wise we get off the chart measurements, furthermore the liquid tests seem rather inconsistent from the bottle. Sometimes the liquid pours out rather than drips and sometimes it doesn't drip at all! We can do two tests on the same day and sometimes it responds sometimes it doesn't and we get a 0ppm reading. I wouldn't be concerned about the Nitrate though until you can read Nitrite. It's great you have got your pH stable for the meantime now though! I've just kept up with doing water changes every few days once the pH hits a low spot.

Also a tip from experience is that if the Nitrite is at an unreadable measure for a long time do a massive water change until you bring it in a readable measure before you add more Ammonia. Then wait a few hours then do another Nitrite test and compare. You can easily detect then whether your Nitrite is being processed! You may also notice that you have actually got a substantially large colony of N-Bacs and they were actually just struggling with the massive back log of Nitrite from the Ammonia over the last few weeks!

This is from the experiences me and my girlfriend have had over the last 25 days of cycling!