Uh Oh Help Please!

[LionessN3cubs]

::::sigh::::: 27 hours later and still have ammonia. No change at all in at LEAST the last 18 hours ....I dont know how or why since I've done NOTHING different.

Yesterday I topped the tank up..used dechlorinated water as usual. Temp was 82 last night ..shouldnt have really hurt anything at that temp should it? I mean maybe some sluggishness but not killed them or anything right? mannnnnnnnnn this sucks

 

[iankent]

Yesterday I topped the tank up..used dechlorinated water as usual.

just a thought - my dechlorinator removes ammonia, but still gives positive ammonia readings for a short while - might be worth checking if your dechlorinator takes out ammonia/nitrites etc.?

 

[LionessN3cubs]

well I found out what happened...my ph crashed for some unknown reason. Anyone know what causes this and how do I fix it? It's always been a steady 7.6 and now its top of the charts at 6.0


PLEASE tell me this didnt kill the bacteria? PLEASE?

 

[backtotropical]

Hi Lioness,

pH crashes whilst fishless cycling are common place, you just need to watch out for them. Not to worry, a pH of 6, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't actually kill the bacteria, it just stops them eating (the ammonia).

First thing to do is check the pH of your tap water. If the tap water is fine (i think you said 7.6), then do a large water change to bring the pH up again.

What do you have in the tank? Anything which might lower the pH? Also, are you using any additives other than dechlorinator? I'm just trying to establish the cause of the pH crash so we can avoid it happening again. It is possible that you may not have anything in the tank which will lower the pH, as the nitrogen cycle itself acidifies the water. Obviously its best not to add to that effect by using pH lowering additives etc.

Cheers

BTT

 

[LionessN3cubs]

Hi Lioness,

pH crashes whilst fishless cycling are common place, you just need to watch out for them. Not to worry, a pH of 6, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't actually kill the bacteria, it just stops them eating (the ammonia).

First thing to do is check the pH of your tap water. If the tap water is fine (i think you said 7.6), then do a large water change to bring the pH up again.

What do you have in the tank? Anything which might lower the pH? Also, are you using any additives other than dechlorinator? I'm just trying to establish the cause of the pH crash so we can avoid it happening again. It is possible that you may not have anything in the tank which will lower the pH, as the nitrogen cycle itself acidifies the water. Obviously its best not to add to that effect by using pH lowering additives etc.

Cheers

BTT

Okay....after I posted this, when I tried to get back to the website to check for answers I got an IPS driver error and couldnt load the page. Thankfully, a big water change was what made sense to me to do...I just changed out 90% of the water using ONLY dechlorinator (all I've ever used). Goodness its amazing how filthy a tank gets ..I didnt even know it was that yucky until adding the water back in stirred it up ick. Anyways...I retested the PH after adding the water back in and I had to test twice because I needed to use the high PH test...testing at about 7.8-8.0..its a dark tan color ...is that too high?

I have NO idea what could have crashed the PH. I have snails, the same decorations I've had in there, same gravel same everything. The ONLY thing I did was add water yesterday. I KNOW it was still processing yesterday because at 2:30 pm I added 4ppm....at 11 pm I was down to 1. Do the snails affect the PH at all? I've got an increasing number of them..probably 5-6 now since a few disappeared. I also added ammonia back in after the water change...I hope that was the right thing to do?

Unless something was in the pail I use SPECIFICALLY to do water changes. I didnt rinse it out or anything but neither did I notice anything laying in it before hand..I do "glance" in before I use it.

I haven't been checking the PH on a regular basis because it was holding steady...I wonder if it started falling a few days ago and I didnt notice? ugh I dont know BTT....can you give me some examples of what causes a ph crash?

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Lioness,

You of all people I thought would never have a pH crash! Your pH is so very high (7.8 to 8.0 out of the tap, right?) and I thought for some reason that you had relatively hard water. Maybe your KH is not as high as we thought. Anyway I wouldn't worry about it. It took so long for you to get a pH crash that you probably won't get another one anytime soon. I would just save the money and not get a KH test kit.

pH crashes happen during fishless cycling because the fishless cycling process itself relentlessly drives pH down. I think my water is different from yours - my KH is between 0 and 1 and my tap pH is 7.6, so unless I buffer my water, pH drops each day significantly during fishless cycling so I monitor pH at each test point, just like ammonia and nitrite. In fact I perform the pH test during the 5min wait for the nitrite & ammonia.

From my own experience and from my reading I completely agree with BTT - it will have virtually no effect on your bacteria except to put them on "pause." Shortly after your 90% water change you should be back where you were and can continue to time how fast they can drop the ammonia level you add. You've done the exact right thing, so now just do your testing tomorrow and don't worry about it!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[backtotropical]

Agreed Waterdrop.

Lioness, if you've not changed anything and its taken this long for it to crash in the first place, its probably just the effect of the nitrogen cycle. Snails won't affect the pH, and 7.8 - 8.0 is fine. Just keep a close eye on your pH from now on, just in case.

Out of interest though, bogwood in the tank will lower the pH, as do some substrates, and also CO2 injection which is used almost exclusively on heavily planted tanks.

Let us know what is happening with it tomorrow.

I'm sure your bacteria will come out the other end unscathed.

BTT

edit: forgot to say, adding the ammonia back in after the water change is the right thing to do.

 

[LionessN3cubs]

Hi Lioness,

You of all people I thought would never have a pH crash! Your pH is so very high (7.8 to 8.0 out of the tap, right?) and I thought for some reason that you had relatively hard water. Maybe your KH is not as high as we thought. Anyway I wouldn't worry about it. It took so long for you to get a pH crash that you probably won't get another one anytime soon. I would just save the money and not get a KH test kit.

pH crashes happen during fishless cycling because the fishless cycling process itself relentlessly drives pH down. I think my water is different from yours - my KH is between 0 and 1 and my tap pH is 7.6, so unless I buffer my water, pH drops each day significantly during fishless cycling so I monitor pH at each test point, just like ammonia and nitrite. In fact I perform the pH test during the 5min wait for the nitrite & ammonia.

From my own experience and from my reading I completely agree with BTT - it will have virtually no effect on your bacteria except to put them on "pause." Shortly after your 90% water change you should be back where you were and can continue to time how fast they can drop the ammonia level you add. You've done the exact right thing, so now just do your testing tomorrow and don't worry about it!

~~waterdrop~~

wellllllllllll that's a fine how do ya do lemme tell ya! Just retested my tap water for everything (which I did at the beginning) ....apparently the water company messed with EVERYTHING. My tap water had been PH 7.6 with a KH of like 8-10 I think. Now, I have a base PH of 6.6 and a big fat ZERO of KH and a big fat ZERO of GH.

Hey maybe I'll get lucky and doing a big water change and recharging the PH will actually give me a bit of a boost...speed things up a bit as far as processing time? A girl can hope right? I am just SO relieved that it only "paused" things and didnt kill them.

 

[backtotropical]

Hi again Lioness,

Bit of a re-think after your last post.

If your tap water now has kH 0 and gH 0, it will be very prone to pH crashes. Monitor it closely and see how you go, but if you find it to be crashing regularly, its worth adding something to raise the kH. This will make pH crashes less likely.

You can use many things, Bicarbonate of Soda, Coral gravel, Tufa rock, Limestone etc etc, although don't worry about this just now until you see what happens over the next few days / weeks.

Cheers

BTT

 

[LionessN3cubs]

When I changed the water about 4 hours ago, I added the amount of ammonia I have been adding (before I bumped it up yesterday) ...2.5-3 mls. That always gives me between 2-4 ppm. I just tested to make sure of the level for my log....and its only at .50.

So Im left to wonder. Did it not raise it high enough, or did it already drop it to that? If it didnt raise it high enough, should I add more tonight or will that bit be sufficient to feed my babies? I was pretty sure I was at the tail end of my cycle before the PH crashed since I'd had the nitrite spiked up to 5.0 and was processing 2-3 ppm in less than 24 hours so just maybe.....

anyways..just wanted to share this ...you all have been so awesome and patient with me even tho Im sure some of you either get a good laugh at me or are just plain sick of me LOL I really appreciate all of you being here to help.

 

[waterdrop]

Aw, Lioness, don't let your husband know you have this soft side

Sounds like you're already bouncing back from the "pause". Your job now is to test ammonia, nitrite and pH (and KH if you've got it) each time. Continue to focus on the time periods and that you're trying to qualify the filter being able to drop both toxins within 10-12 hours from a level of at least 4ppm. Once you hit that you'll want several days in a row of it doing that just to be sure its not a false alarm - also, by that point you can be seeing how the days mesh with a good day for a trip to the LFS to hopefully find your first batch of new friends!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[LionessN3cubs]

okay ya'll....I need help on how to keep the PH from crashing again!

Tests this morning:

Ammonia was between 0 and .25 (awesome)
Nitrite between .50-1.0
Ph 6.8 It was on the high end last night..now crashing.


What do I do? I know bicarbonate of soda (since I have some baking soda in the house) but how much/how often?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

you know with pH crashes it seems like the people who'se cycles take the longest always have a crash, i think its just inevitable that after 5/6 weeks of cycling the pH will crash, if you're cycled before that then you should be fine, if the cycle takes a while then you should watch out for a crash.

have you kept testing your tap water, it could have been a temporary blip that it dropped down so low and it may be coming out of the tap at 7.8 again? if that's the case then just another water change so you're stable at 7.8 should be enough.

dunno quantities for bicarb of soda, i've always used crushed coral to buffer up tanks when they've needed it. just sprinkle a bit in the substrate or into the filter.

 

[waterdrop]

Back when I started getting my pH crashes (it was at the stage where ammonia was finally dropping and nitrite spike was beginning to happen, just past 21 days of fishless) I decided to go with baking soda because I needed quicker actions to occur (baking soda is essentially instantaneous, whereas coral takes a week or two to show effects.)

Lioness, here's what I do if you want to extrapolate to yours. When pH gets lower than I want, say below 6.8, I do a 90%water change (basically all the water except what's in filter, or leaving enough for plants not to pull out so badly) and I dechlor & rough temp match the return water. Then, for my 28G, I add 2 teaspoons of baking soda right away, sprinkling widely so little clumps of white won't hang around. I don't remember your volume, but just extrapolate, add baking soda in 1/2 teaspoon increments (smaller increments not significant) and start a little low if in doubt. KH test before/after so you can see and document what it does to your KH.

I found it made complete sense with what I was learning in the scientific forum. It really does buffer and cause pH to stay stable. For me, getting KH up around 4 or even better 5 caused my tap pH of 7.6 to be preserved a very long time (actually it is 7.6 as tap, but seems to be 7.4 or 7.5 after dechlor.) My fishless cycling process always seems to do better after this.

Using sodium bicarb (what baking soda is) is supposed to somehow not be good long term (something about raising alkalinity I don't fully understand yet) but it will all go out with the large water change after fishless cycling. I would only use crushed coral to do a similar move after I had fish, but I hope to avoid messing with KH and pH at all after fishless cycling is finished.

MW, you are right, there is this whole set of things that often seem to go together - long cycling, KH drop, NO3 hitting 40+, then pH crashing and bacteria doing worse right at these times. I keep thinking I'm getting a handle on picking that apart but its surprisingly complicated.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Using sodium bicarb (what baking soda is) is supposed to somehow not be good long term (something about raising alkalinity I don't fully understand yet) but it will all go out with the large water change after fishless cycling. I would only use crushed coral to do a similar move after I had fish, but I hope to avoid messing with KH and pH at all after fishless cycling is finished.

yup, definatley best to avoid messing with it if you can!

we had some african cichlids for a while and wanted to raise the pH up a bit, ours is naturall stable as anything at 7.4 so it didn't need much boosting, handful of crushed coral in the substrate was enough to get it up where it wanted to be and it leeches out slowly so it just gives a nice gradual raise which is safest with fish in. likewise when the effect starts to drop off it's all gradual