Ph Too Low?

[Rick]

The tap is 7.5. I have two dark colored pieces of wood that sink. Got those at the LFS. THey did not change the color of the water. They are the only thing in the tank that could cause it. Right now I have two kinds of tetras and some fancy guppies. I plan to add more tetras and some others.

 

[reddannyh]

Pretty much any type of wood will lower your ph. Just keep an eye on it and dont let it get any lower. Theres not much that can survive at a ph lower than 5.

 

[reg2k2]

As mentioned, you need to check the hardness of your water, specifically KH. This affects the ability of the water to maintain a constant pH; too low, you'll see a drop. Pick up a GH/KH test kit, a handful of crushed coral (avail. @ lfs, used largely for marine set-ups), and a mesh bag/nylon stocking. Add the bag of coral to your filter media. That is, of course, if the KH reading comes up < 5dKH/< 80ppm, as I suspect it will.

Large pH swings can harm any tank. From experience, I can tell you some may survive it, but it's definitely something you want to get in check.

A bit on water chemistry.

Good luck.

 

[Rick]

As mentioned, you need to check the hardness of your water, specifically KH. This affects the ability of the water to maintain a constant pH; too low, you'll see a drop. Pick up a GH/KH test kit, a handful of crushed coral (avail. @ lfs, used largely for marine set-ups), and a mesh bag/nylon stocking. Add the bag of coral to your filter media. That is, of course, if the KH reading comes up < 5dKH/< 80ppm, as I suspect it will.

Large pH swings can harm any tank. From experience, I can tell you some may survive it, but it's definitely something you want to get in check.

A bit on water chemistry.

Good luck.

Thanks for the replly. I will get these test kits and see what I get. What confuses me is that my tap water is just about neutral. So something in my tank is causing the PH to lower.

 

[reddannyh]

Can be a lot of things from poor aearation to over feeding.

 

[Rick]

Can be a lot of things from poor aearation to over feeding.

Neither of those apply.

 

[reg2k2]

So something in my tank is causing the PH to lower.

KH will work to guard against changes to pH brought on by acids present in the tank...nitrates, tannins from wood are both acidic. If the reading is too low, KH loses and pH will drop.

Did you get your results?

 

[Rick]

Happy to report the PH is now stable at 7.0 with no help from me.

 

[KathyM]

When we were running the 48 x 12 x 15, the bogwood really affected the pH - we ended up taking it out. I think in smaller tanks, the wood affects the pH more (obviously due to smaller capacity and larger concentration of tannins etc). The bogwood in our new tank lowers the pH but not as significantly (bigger tank).

This thread has been really interesting though as we're looking into setting up a much larger tank for the plecs/angels/tetras, which would be heavily bogwooded. How do people on here get around the pH issues with large amounts of bogwood?