Flourite gave me very low PH help me choose a new substrate?

[chefjohn2006]

Have had Seachem's fluorite gravel for several years, PH has always been around 6 or under. Nothing I have done has ever been able to raise PH in the tank it will go up to 6.2ish and then drop right back down within hours. After losing the last of my fish i decided to pull out all substrate and water and rinse it well and start over, my tap is about 7.2 after refilling the tank with water and the fluorite i was right back at 6-.... I have tried crushed coral, proper PH, lava rocks all without any difference. Today i removed the gravel emptied all water from tank and filter basically changed everything but my bio wheels and am finally at 7. Can anyone recommend a substrate that won't alter PH even though Seachem claims that fluorite won't, apparently they are wrong.

About my tank PH always 6 or less... Ammo Nitrite always 0, Nitrate i keep anywhere from 10 to 20ppm. The one thing is my KH is around 0 very soft but crushed coral should fix this.

 

[Coyne]

Are you testing your tap water straight from the tap, or are you letting it sit over night with an air stone in it. Testing directly from the tap wont give necessarily give you the true pH reading.

Also, with your water that soft there are no buffers to help it maintain a stable pH. I think once you figure out the recipe for the adding the correct amount of buffering then you'll see an improvement. Unfortunately, I have the opposite issue... Hard water and high pH, so Im not of any help in that area. Best of luck though.

 

[chefjohn2006]

Yeah my PH from the tap is 7.0 if i let it sit overnight it reads about 7.2 the problem is the proper PH buffers say not for use with live plants i'm hoping the crushed coral will raise my KH however i'm unsure of how long this will take and how much to use. I don't wanna end up at 8.3 like a saltwater tank. Right now i have about 2 tablespoons in the bottom of my filter intake to monitor its absorption into the water. My plants are just floating in the tank now because i think the fluorite may be too porous and now acts like a buffer to keep the tank at 6.0.

 

[Coyne]

With no buffering, anything that is decaying in your tank (dead plant matter, left over fish food, fish waste, drift wood, etc) will make your pH lower. Im not saying that your substrate isnt doing it, I just doubt its the only thing making your pH drop like that.
I feel like Ive heard people mention adding baking soda to water to increase General Hardness. Maybe look into that. I feel like that would be something that you would have to continue to do with every water change though.
Or maybe do some research into species that thrive in a lower pH.

FWIW, I have Flourite in one of my tanks and it has no effect on the pH, but like I said... I have very hard water.

 

[Coyne]

Jeez.. Im sorry.
To answer the question that you asked... Sand is inert, so you could try using that as a substrate. Gravel too, but then you'd risk waste build up and more pH issues.

 

[chefjohn2006]

I'm just gonna suck it up and get some new gravel tomorrow just to be safe I'm looking at the eco complete black substrate as it doesn't require rinsing (true pain with the fluorite) and will supposedly condition the water instantly with live bacteria and will not affect ph or kh. I'm hoping with fresh gravel that hasn't been soaked in 6.0 ph water for years will make a difference. As for fish i've always had amazon type angelfish mainly which prefer a 6.5 to 6.8 ph unfortunately 6 is a little too low for even fish of this type.

 

[Fishperson]

I have Eco complete and its great. My GH is low, not as much as yours though, and it's never had an effect.

 

[chefjohn2006]

Yeah I'm waiting for a GH and KH test kit to come in to the lfs i ordered it from. The only reason i know its that soft is from taking a sample to the store to be tested unfortunately with strips. Looking forward to seeing what its coming from the tap as far as hardness. Thanks for your guys input I'm hoping this fresh start will fix things. The coral seems to have buffered me a little to around 7.3 7.4ish.

 

[jetajockey]

Clay based substrates will suck the KH up for the first couple of months. I think your bigger problem though is lack of buffers. Definitely put more crushed coral in there and keep testing your hardness, and keep adding/subtracting as needed. It's not going to throw you from 6.0 to 8.2 unless you put a ton in there all at once.

 

[chefjohn2006]

So you're saying new gravel would have the same effect? The fluorite drops my PH from 7.2 to 6.0- in less than an hour.

 

[jetajockey]

Ecocomplete probably won't since it's not clay based, I believe it's some sort of volcanic type rock material (not completely sure). For the pH to drop that quickly tells me that your source water has very little buffers to begin with, so without adding something (crushed coral for example) to buffer the water, I think you're still going to have the same issue with the pH dropping over time, albeit maybe not quite as fast.

 

[chefjohn2006]

Well i was unable to find any ecocomplete locally i ended up with one bag of flora max also made by caribsea and is very similar to ecocomplete i mixed that with a bag of national geographic black sand and am happy with the results the tank is staying at around 7.2 7.3 range now will be monitoring for a few days before adding fish to cycle the new setup. Still waiting for kh/gh kit to come in.