What If Your Fish Like A Low Ph?

[Tag2008]

Hi Guys,

Maybe a dumb question but...

You get your fishless cycle going and need to keep the ph up to around (7.5-8.6) to keep the bacteria happy for eating the ammonia and nitrite..

So you do this but the fish you like needs a low PH...

How do you keep your bacteria in good shape if you have to lower your Ph or allow it to lower itself?

Regards as ever
Tag

 

[Miss Wiggle]

bacteria will only die off below 5.5, very few fish require this level. At this level a different species of bacteria will grow to do the same job as the ones we normally culture. You can drop your pH to this level and cycle a tank fishlessly to keep fish at this level if you really need to, it takes an absolute age but i believe it is possible.

in more normal situations what people will do is raise the bacteria up with baking soda for the fishless cycle, then when the cycle is done you do the massive water change and the pH will then drop to it's normal level, if it needs further adjustment from there then do so or just add fish and the bacteria will be fine.

Bacteria will grow below the level you quoted, but optimum conditions are a pH close to 8 so if youre doing a fishless cycle it can speed things up to bump the pH up a bit,

 

[Tag2008]

Hi Ms Wiggle,

Thanks for that,

When I did a fishless cycle in 1 tank we have no buffer in our water I was told so the PH drops itself unless I add something to the water.. In the cycle I used baking Soda..

I realised this when my cycle stalled and the ammonia stopped getting eaten...This was due to the fact my PH had went down to around 6

Now if I wanted to keep fish who liked a PH of 6 and I just allow my water to go there itself will the ammonia eating stall like it did in the cycle?

Thanks again
Tag

 

[Miss Wiggle]

no, the pH crash is caused by the process of cycling itself, it drives pH down and drops it low, the ABacs population at this time is immature and not very hardy so things like this can upset it. However once the colony is built up and the tank is no longer cycling there will be nothing to drive the pH any lower than the level of your tap water and they will be mature enough to handle the pH at that level.

so in short, bump the pH up while it's cycling using baking soda, when the cycles done the water change will remove the soda, pH will naturally drop down to whatever it comes out of the tap at, if that's right for your fish and no lower than 5.5 then you'll be fine.

 

[paul_219]

Well i guess it depends on what type of fish u want to put in the tank to make it suitable for it.

 

[Tag2008]

Thanks Guys,