pH mystery

[fishdad]

This is for my son who is really the aquarium guy but he won't ask questions.

His two freshwater tanks are going strong for a few months. One has 3 Gouramis and the other a whole bunch of Peppered Corys (I think that is how you spell it). The mom and dad kept laying eggs, my son kept putting them in a nursery thing and now he has about 40 of them growing away.

Lately some of the corys are dying. When he checked the pH it was like 6. We checked the Gourami tank and its 6 also.

Our water protocol has always been: Add seachem neutral regulator then add pH down until its about neutral (its takes a lot as the water is always rather alkaline at first), then let the water sit over night and check it again then use it. This is how we prepared the original water and the water each week or two for gravel cleaning and 15% replacement.

Now that we find the pH in the tank is so low its a mystery as to why this happened. We have minimal nitrate and nitrite on testing. Its like we should have never used all that pH down when we prepared the water but if we had not, we would have been putting in water that tested at 8.5 or so.

What did we do wrong? How should we change our water preparation? What do we do about the pH of 6 in the tanks?

Thanks for any help.

 

[WhiteWidow11]

Are you using strips? If so, they are inaccurate in my opinion.

If you have a liquid test kit, have you been testing the water each time before putting the ph down in? If not, maybe your water source has dropped in ph and the ph down is no longer needed.

Hope this helps

There are also some other things that can cause drastic changes in ph, something about buffer capacity etc.. but I am no expert

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[fishdad]

pH thanks for the help

Each time he does a water change he checks the pH of the new treated water before he uses it. The test is done after he adds the neutral buffer and the pH down. He doesn't check the tap water pH before treating it anymore but he does check each batch when its "done." He uses the liquid pH test in the little vial and we counter checked with test strips and got about the same low pH.
Is it me or does this seem weird?
Would you stop putting the ph down in the water treatment and start adding the new water at the test H of 8.5 with just the seachem neutral buffer in it for future water changes? Is it a good idea to tweak up the ph by adding pH up to the tank a little each day? I know sudden pH change is not good for the fish.
Thanks again for responding.

 

[eco23]

If you have any ammo or nitrIte in the water the tank is not fully cycled. pH can be seriously affected by different stages of your cycle (I had a major crash at the end of mine). Another major consideration is that fish MUCH prefer a stable pH as opposed to one that fluctuates. When you do water changes, the time before the pH down is fully circulated is a shock on the fish. It's a better idea to acclimate your fish to live in a higher pH as opposed to subjecting them to fluctuations.

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[WhiteWidow11]

Edit: He got it ^

My fish would love youe water

And I think he said he treats and test the water in a bucket before adding to tank.

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[fishdad]

thanks eco23

If I get your point: it would be better to have let the pH be high rather than push it down with pH down so that when I add new water it won't be a pH shock to the fish. I thought we were accomplishing that by getting the treated water to neutral at first then using pH down to get all the new water we add to neutral as well. It was a shock to us when we tested the tank pH and found it so low. At this point where we have these tanks that are at pH 6 and some dying Corys and tap water that comes out at 8.5 what would you suggest to move ahead?
Our nitrate / nitrate seem very low on the test strip not zero but my son tells me its very low. Would it help to get the exact numbers to post here?
Thanks a lot

 

[eco23]

If I get your point: it would be better to have let the pH be high rather than push it down with pH down so that when I add new water it won't be a pH shock to the fish. I thought we were accomplishing that by getting the treated water to neutral at first then using pH down to get all the new water we add to neutral as well. It was a shock to us when we tested the tank pH and found it so low. At this point where we have these tanks that are at pH 6 and some dying Corys and tap water that comes out at 8.5 what would you suggest to move ahead?
Our nitrate / nitrate seem very low on the test strip not zero but my son tells me its very low. Would it help to get the exact numbers to post here?
Thanks a lot

So you treat the water and get it conditioned/adjusted in a bucket before it goes into the tank? Probably already been mentioned, but run out tomorrow and get an API Master test kit. Those strips are virtually worthless.

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[fishdad]

pH

Yes we always use neutral regulator which is supposed to handle the chorine and buffer the water then we test the ph in the bucket and its always high and it takes quite a bit of ph down to get it to the 7 range. Then we wait over night and test the bucket again. Then when the pH is good and 7ish we use the water for the gravel cleaning / 15% replacement. Thats why we can't figure out how it got so low.

I will get the better quality test kit you suggest and restest the tank and use it to test our new water like we do now. Do you see any mistakes in our process where we are obviously going wrong?
Thanks

 

[eco23]

I personally am opposed to using any type of chemical treatment to alter water unless it's absolutely necessary. In some cases things like crushed coral are necessary to buffer water and stabalize pH, but that is a natural source instead of a chemical. Other than the fact that I don't like to use chems, I don't really see holes in the way you are adjusting the water before it is used in the tank.

I truly think the reason that the pH has dropped is due to the fact that the tank is not cycled. An established, cycled tank should never have nitrItes appear on a test. I would bet that the stage of your cycle is affecting your pH. Do you know your exact water parameters? Ammonia, nitrItes, nitrAtes? It'd also help if you know your hardness (kH) and alkalinity.

 

[eco23]

It's nice of you to help your son btw. Myself, and other much more experienced members will be happy to help.

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[fishdad]

Thanks eco23

I will get the numbers and post them tonight
and do more research on cycling

 

[fishdad]

pH followup

eco23:
We did not have the better test kit you suggested but used a dip strip and in the tank and got:

nitrate: 40 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Total water Hardness: (something between 250 and 425) ppm
total alkaline buffering capacity: 80 oom
ph......... below labeled chart, guess at about 6 ir 6.1

Does this help understand where we are going wrong at all?
Thanks

 

[eco23]

eco23:
We did not have the better test kit you suggested but used a dip strip and in the tank and got:

nitrate: 40 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Total water Hardness: (something between 250 and 425) ppm
total alkaline buffering capacity: 80 oom
ph......... below labeled chart, guess at about 6 ir 6.1

Does this help understand where we are going wrong at all?
Thanks

Sorry it took so long to get back to you...busy day From what the numbers show, everything looks good with the exception of the pH being low. It is confusing to me though why the pH is dropping when the tank seems fully cycled and has good enough buffering capacity. the alkalinity level you're at should prevent any dramatic swings in pH. I would bet the problem with the numbers is in the test strips. I would not be surprised one bit if you tested with the API and it read out at something completely different. I'm gonna re-read your post and I'll get one of my buddies to look at it too. If the parameters are actually correct, it might be over my head. I'll get back soon. Also this time of the night is one of the busier for this foam, so hopefully one of the big boys can jump in too.

 

[fishdad]

Thanks for all the time eco23

I'm glad to hear that we are in the right ball park otherwise.

My suspicion is that we worked so hard with that pH down stuff to get to what the pH test was 7 in the bucket. I'm guessing that what we were really getting in that bucket was 6 - we certainly were surprised at how much of the pH down we had to add to get to 7 in the water we were preparing.

I'm going to get a better test as you suggested and then retest our tap water with it and see what it really is and how hard it is to get it to 7 with a good test. That makes sense for the future. What would you suggest if we got ourselves in this pickle by driving down the pH of the water we prepared and thereby the pH inthe tank. Do we have to leave it at this level or can we slowly bring it up up with pH up into the tank a little each day? I'm worried that this tank pH really is 6 and that is what is killing the Corys.

 

[eco23]

Yeah, you're definitely on the right track. If I was down to my last dollar, I'd bet it on the test strips being the problem. I would think that very tiny water changes every few days is the best bet. I definitely wouldn't use chems to bump it back up. Fish can deal with a wide range of conditions, but fast changes can be deadly.

 

[Deckape]

Hi, sorry you are having all these issues. Eco and I had issues with our Ph when we finished cycling too. There is an actual Scientist on here that wrote the "Tips and Tricks for a Faster Cycle" article. http://www.aquariumadvice.com/artic...ks-for-your-fastest-fishless-cycle/Page1.html

If you scroll down to the reply from him to Eco 23 or Eric ( same good fella). He tried to put it in layman's terms for us.

It says basically it is better for your fish to acclimate themselves to a ph (going with what you have) than strive for a particular ph with chemicals.

For some reason when the bacterium are breaking down the ammonia, leaving a by product of nitrites and using the nitrites to eat and leaving a by product of nitrates the buffers that are already in the water get used up too.

So instead of treating water for a.particular ph, just do regular water changes and go with what you have naturally.

I am a new guy at this too but he convinced me and I hope you the best of luck.

 

[fishdad]

Deckape and eco23 thanks a lot

I will take this good advice, get a better API test set and do some frequent water changes of small amounts to slowly bring it up to something more reasonable while avoiding chemicals

I thank you and my son thanks you (and the Corys thank you)

 

[eco23]

You sound like a good Dad. Let us know how it's going.

 

[Deckape]

Yea man, anytime. Feel free to help us when we need it too. Glad to be of assistance and keep us updated if you can, ok.

 

[Deckape]

Hey, I know that I said naturally but you still have to treat.the tapwater with a water conditioner to remove the chlorine gas and bind the chloramine.