New tank, ph keeps rising, need advice

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palacekeeper

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Jul 14, 2019
Messages
6
Hello all, first post in this forum. Recently decided to start up a freshwater biocube 16 to decorate my home office. It’s been about 20 years since I set up an aquarium so I’m definitely rusty.

I’m holding off on adding any fish to my newly started tank until I confirm whether things are ready.

Here’s the situation:

1. Tank is crystal clear, no ammonia or nitrites.
2. Ph from my tap is 7 on the nose and is well water that passes through a water treatment system.
3. Standard gravel from the fish store, spiderwood, plastic and silk plants, small air stone are the only things in the tank.
4. Standard filter that is included with the biocube and Aqueon heater.
5. I added TLC aquarium optimizer per recommendation at the fish store.

The tank has been running about 5 days now and every morning the ph is back at around 7.6 tested with TLC master kit. If I use ph down to lower it, its back up the next morning.

I tried removing the wood, filter cartridge, lowering the aeration to almost off, but ph still rises back up.

I tried separately testing a glass of water with, and without gravel and the ph stays the same, so it doesn’t appear to be the gravel or the water itself.

The only thing left to test is removing the air stone and the plastic and silk plants, but they seem like unlikely candidates.

Is it just normal for the ph to rise like this for a period of time or am I missing something?? I don’t want to add any fish and then have the ph rise .6 overnight.

Thanks for any suggestions!!
 
Leave it be, ph will naturally fluctuate and isn’t real important imo. Fish will adapt and chasing a perfect number is more trouble than its worth
 
Yes, it's not a good idea to use any pH altering chemicals.

What I think is happening is you aren't getting an accurate pH reading from the tap. Once the C02 has left the water you will be left with your true pH reading, which is why your aquarium water pH appears to be rising.
 
Yes, it's not a good idea to use any pH altering chemicals.



What I think is happening is you aren't getting an accurate pH reading from the tap. Once the C02 has left the water you will be left with your true pH reading, which is why your aquarium water pH appears to be rising.



What doesn’t make sense is that when I tested a glass of water straight from the tap it did not change at all after several hours, whereas the fish tank did rise about.4 in the same time period. I even tested the tap water after sitting overnight and no change, but the fish tank rose .6 overnight.

The other odd thing is that even after repeatedly adding the ph down it just comes right back up.
 
What doesn’t make sense is that when I tested a glass of water straight from the tap it did not change at all after several hours, whereas the fish tank did rise about.4 in the same time period. I even tested the tap water after sitting overnight and no change, but the fish tank rose .6 overnight.

The other odd thing is that even after repeatedly adding the ph down it just comes right back up.

I'm just guessing here, but maybe the tank has better aeration than the glass of water. If you can, I would try leaving water to sit in a bucket or glass for a full day with an air stone in it and then test the ph.

Hopefully someone who knows more about it will chime in. My tap water tests 7.4, but if I test my aquariums they read as 8.2. If your ph comes right back up after adding the ph down it's likely that your water is too stable to be affected strongly by ph down.
 
If your tank isn't cycled the pH can fluctuate until it's cycled and the water chemistry is more stable.

If your KH is really low it can cause your pH to swing more easily as well.
 
Thanks for all the info so far on this. So what do you think I should do next? Has adding several rounds of ph down degraded the water quality? Should I drain and start over with new water? This tank is now at 6 days since I added the bacteria stuff.

Also, if the water is very stable at 7.6 is it safe to add fish from the store that are in 7.0 water? Or will the ph come down eventually on its own after some period of time? Obviously I’m looking forward to adding some fish but I want to make sure things are ready before I do. Thanks!
 
No need to use pH reducing products. It causes swings in pH and can kill your fish. Fish adapt to pH and 7.6 isn't a high pH.
 
Okay so then just to confirm, it’s ok to put fish in a 7.6 ph tank that were in a 7.0 tank at the store?

This is important because it does appear after additional testing that my water wants to stay at 7.4-7.6. Even a simple glass of water returns to this ph if i lower it and let it sit overnight.
 
Yes. You can drip acclimate or you can drop them in after temperature acclimation. I personally don't drip acclimate. My pH runs higher than yours. 8.2-8.4
 
Okay so it sounds like I got wrapped around the axle unnecessarily with the whole ph thing.

At this point the tank has been up for 6 days with no fish and is crystal clear.

Is the once per day ph down that I added over the last 6 days a big deal to where I should drain and start over, or just leave the water as is and start adding a few fish? I have not “cycled” the tank yet - not sure if that is really necessary?
 
You can do a couple 50% water changes to remove a lot of the pH down. This should kick your pH near normal tap pH.

Cycling is always important and the best practice before adding fish. You can, however, do a fish in cycle and a lot of people do this.
 
Okay I’ll go ahead and do the cycle then and the water changes, thanks. I read about using a small shrimp for cycling before adding fish as one of the better methods. How long does that process normally take if i use a shrimp and spike the tank by adding the bacteria?
 
Shrimp takes a little bit to break down and give you adequate ammonia. Another option is using pure ammonia in a bottle with no additives. Ace Hardware sales it if you have that store around you. Dr Tim's ammonia will also work. I like this method because you can measure out the amount of ammonia you need to add for the amount of water you got.

It can take 4-8 weeks. If you can get media from an established tank you can seed your tank with beneficial bacteria and kick start the process.
 
I second using **used** media to kickstart your cycle (esp since you're on a well) also definitely keep any *chemical* adjustments to 0 unless absolutely necessary. I'm on a well have 7 tanks between 55/125g and after the initial setups have done very little testing other than an occasional check to make sure things are still running at par or if the fish are looking **off**.
DISCLAIMER this is MY method - all those that test frequently might want to move on now [emoji10]
I rearrange/upsize tanks and occupants without cycling the new tanks by using old media.and a combination of *old* water & new water (if I am at all worried about a fish's sensitivity I might even add distilled to the mix). I try to do a 70% WCs every week but it might be every 10 days depending on circumstances but with larger tanks I find you have a little more leeway.
The most important thing i have learned in this hobby is very few RULES are written in stone and there is ALOT of misinformation available so talk to real fish owners. Keep fish that look pretty and suit YOUR water parameters NOT fish that look pretty but have needs WAY outside your water parameters.
 
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