fishless cycle - question

[iforged]

Hey guys,
Im doing fishless tank cycle for the very first time.

I had my tank running for around 6 days now, I have few live plants as well as fake plants with one center piece ornament inside the tank.

My question is, I been monitoring the water levels every day, ammonia, and ph mainly.. not so much nitrite yet since its been only 5-6 days. I have noticed that my Ph drops 6.0 or below. I know that can stall your bacteria building process, so i kept on doing water changes to bring the Ph back up to 7-7.2, BUT... it keeps dropping down to 6 or lower. I have decided to add some Baking Soda in today, to see if I can stabilize it that way instead of doing water changes every day.

Any idea what could be causing the Ph to drop below 6 in less than 24 hours when its at 7.0-7.2 after water change?.

I got my ammonia at 3.0ppm atm, did nitrite readings and they are at 0

thanks

 

[Rivercats]

Not sure what is causing your ph to fall so rapidly but you can add crushed coral to your filter and or put some in a media bag and hang it under your filter outflow. This will add buffers naturally to your tank. Also certain types of rocks will do the same thing.

Have you actually tested your taps ph? In order to get a correct reading you need to put some tap water in a cup and either aerate it or stir it occasionally over 24 hours to let the water gass off then test the ph. This will give you the true ph of your tap water.

 

[iforged]

Not sure what is causing your ph to fall so rapidly but you can add crushed coral to your filter and or put some in a media bag and hang it under your filter outflow. This will add buffers naturally to your tank. Also certain types of rocks will do the same thing.

Have you actually tested your taps ph? In order to get a correct reading you need to put some tap water in a cup and either aerate it or stir it occasionally over 24 hours to let the water gass off then test the ph. This will give you the true ph of your tap water.

Yes i think i tested my waters true Ph not to long ago, it was 7.0 right out of the fridge and still read 7.0-6.8 after the 24 while being aerated.

I read that its normal for the growing bacteria to use up the kH, and the buffers while being produced, and usually causes the water's pH to drop, rapidly. So i found out that people with this issue manually dosed the pH back to 7.5-8.0 using Baking soda. During the final days of cycling, they slowly let the ph drop to its "normal" state so the bacteria doesn't die off. I guess my tanks normal water state is around 6.5 pH, without any buffers.

Rivercats, where can I buy crushed coral? I looked up Petsmart and Petco, and neither of those two seem to sell the crushed corals... any specific types that i should buy? Please let me know, I want to add the the bag of coral to the tank so i wouldnt have to add baking soda every day.

thanks

 

[Rivercats]

Do you have any local fish stores or saltwater fish stores you can call and ask? Crushed coral is just that, there aren't different kinds. Also I wouldn't "add" it into the tank without it being in some type of media bag so you can add or subtract to the amount you need to use. Here's some that Walmart has so I'd call them if you have a store by you.... Carib Sea ACS00121 Caribbean Crushed Coral 20lb: Fish : Walmart.com. Also name brand crushed coral will be more expensive than genetic crushed coral and it's all the same so do price checking.

Also you can use Texas holey rocks to increase kh and ph.... picture of texas holey rock - Google Search. I have a LFS that sells it and have some in one of my tanks.