Will My Ph Crash?

[~T~]

Ok I pulled the DIY CO2 on my 8gal nano a month or so back cos I was having a shrimp disaster but the tank now seems to have stablised and my PH is at about 7.2-7.4.Only thing is my KH and GH are still very low(under 50ppm).Thing is im starting to get hair and staghorn algae and I want to start the CO2 again.Would doing so possibly cause a PH crash as this would probably kill my cherry shrimp.

 

[Liam]

50 is 2.8dH which is very soft. I am honestly not sure I have KH of 3 with diy Co2 and that is fine. Its been like that for months now. The ph does vary with the varied Co2 amounts. The ph goes from 6.3 to 6.8. Do you know if a PH crash caused the shrimp deaths before?

 

[Themuleous]

As long as you keep up the water changes (which you should be doing anyway for the sake of the fish) 2dKH is fine, people run tanks with a KH that is undetectable but they do large (over 50%) water changes regularly which keeps the KH level up and stops the pH crashing.

Sam

 

[~T~]

I domt think it was a ph crash that killed them as they died very soon after going into the tank.I do think it was ph related as I dont think I acclimatised them properly.

Also since its an 8gal and they are sensitive to big ph swings I dont think I can risk doing 50% changes(also the way I have my heater positioned dictates that I can only do a max of about 20%).

What if I ran the CO2 but did 20% maybe every 3-4 days? Would this be a safer option?

 

[Themuleous]

50% water changes on small tanks should fine, the pros do that every day in some cases. Can you not just turn your heater off when you do a water change that way you're not running the risk of it burning out? If not 20% every few days would be a reasonable substitute.

Sam

 

[~T~]

50% water changes on small tanks should fine, the pros do that every day in some cases. Can you not just turn your heater off when you do a water change that way you're not running the risk of it burning out? If not 20% every few days would be a reasonable substitute.

Sam

Ok thanks i'll do that, its just apparently big waterchanges with the less hardy shrimp is not a good idea but i'll work something out.

Thanks again

 

[Themuleous]

Just out of interest where did you hear that about the shrimp? I've been doing large water changes on my amano and cherry shrimp tanks with no probs.

Sam

 

[~T~]

Just out of interest where did you hear that about the shrimp? I've been doing large water changes on my amano and cherry shrimp tanks with no probs.

Sam

Really? Well its cherrys, rainbows and amanos so maybe I could get away with it.

I was told on the shrimp section of plantedtank.net and also read about it on the shrimpnazi forum.

 

[Themuleous]

Oh right, I made be wrong, but that's my personal experience. I do find them very sensitive to NO2.

Sam

 

[cheesy feet]

6 of my amano shrimp died in first few days,then i caught 4 and put them in my nano,2 disappeared long into the filter (i could see them but couldn't get them out) and another one just died.Now the one i have now is fine(like 2 weeks on),i think it's the acclimatising what is the problem.Sorry for hijacking the post but what is best at eating hair algae,cherry shrimp,amano shrimp or ottos.On one website i heard cherry shrimp are better all round algae eaters.