Ph Rise ?

[Curalingua]

I have my 4ft x 2ft x 2ft tank up and running since 31 Aug on fishless cycled using ammonia and mature filter foam.
Cycle went well and on 21 Oct added 6 Angels. All well.

Ammonia 0
Nirite 0
Nitrate 10 - 20 (have 7 in my water)
pH 7.8 (ii had risen from 7.6 at the start)

Water parameters remained static although I did not check pH again until today 3rd Nov

On 31st Oct
I added
6 x M.Boesemani
4 x Otocinclus Affins
2 x horned bee snails
2 x algae eating tiger snails

(can give you the snails real names but very long)

It is live planted (lots of brown algae till the clean crew arrived, now almost clear) and has 2 pieces of marsh root and and some aventurine rock.

The pH is reading about 8.0 today. I did 30% water change on Sunday and 30% the wed before that.

Can anyone tell me why it may be rising and I know the Angels wont like it although they are tank bred.

My tap water is reading 7.4 today.

Thanks

Fiona

 

[mattlee]

Hi Fiona, have you added any rocks or stones etc to the tank?
my tap water used to be 7.6 but for some reason has risen to 8.0..... i have angels in this and they are fine. as long as the pH is steady and not fluctuating then the fish should be fine. i know in an ideal world everyones pH would be 7.0 but i wouldnt worry about the angels too much as long as its consistantly the same pH. i wouldnt advise going down the pH upper/downer route as you may find it tricky to get water changes at the same pH as the tanks pH and may cause shock/stress to the fish. there are other ntural ways if you really want to lower it - peat, bogwood, almond leaves, black water treatment but all of these will leak tannings into the water causing it to look tea like and again care hs to be taken with quantities. i personally like the look and have a tank set up for my corys that is full of tannins, there are ways of clearing the water like plenty of water changes or running carbon in the filter etc.
my main tank remains at 7.4 even though my tap pH is 8.0 at the minute, i can only put this down to the bogwood i have in there.....
hop this helps

 

[Curalingua]

Hi Fiona, have you added any rocks or stones etc to the tank?

Thanks its reassuring. No I haven't added anything except the fish. Everything else as described went in at the beginning of the fishless cycle.

The only thing I did add was some carbon filter as there was a kind of very very thin clear oil slick on the surface of the water, barely visible. Water changes didn't remove it, but Its cleared now and I will remove the carbon. I added it about a week ago. That shouldn't have raised the pH, should it? Don't know what the film was though. Only thing I can think of was I have until now always used hand cream and although I thoroughly washed my hands before dipping them into the tank, maybe I missed some. Thats the kind of look it was anyway. I now dont wear hand cream, nobody told me the side effect of keeping TF was dry hands

Everyone seems very happy in the tank (touch wood)

Thanks again

Fiona

 

[mattlee]

thats good to hear, glad they are fine
it could have been handcream but what food do you feed as ive read that tetra crisps (i think) can leave an oily look to the water surface! but if its now gone and the fish are fine then i wouldnt worry

 

[Curalingua]

I use quite a variety of foods; flakes, granules, frozen and funnily I bought some Tetra crisps on the weekend. The Angels like them (mind you they like anything including trying to eat my fingers). But the film had cleared before I bought the crisps and is not back yet.