MyameeGirl
Aquarium Advice Regular
Hi everyone,
Just a quick synopsis of my problem:
Since setting up my tank (May 2011), my pH has always been a consistent 7.6, straight from the tap. I noticed last week that my pH had dropped down to 7.0 and then a few days later dropped again down to 6.6. (All I have in the tank is a betta, apple snail, amano shrimp, two amazon sword plants, and two marimo balls).
I started to do an extra water change during the week in order to keep the pH from falling so drastically, so to kind of catch it at the 7.0 mark and have it bounce back up from there.
In the meantime, my betta is having trouble with a fin so I added 15ml of betta spa to my 6.6 gallon tank (as per instruction on bottle) yesterday and when I checked my water last night the pH was at 6.4!!
This morning, I did a pwc of about 25% and when I checked the water again, the pH is still at only 6.6.
I tested the water directly from my tap as well and now it's at 8.8???
My building had the water shut off last week for a bit last week to "work on the pipes", so I'm wondering if they could have done something to raise the pH in our tap water?
I'm really not sure what to do in order to even all this out. Do I do a big water change to get the betta spa out of there, or is that still okay to use? Do I add some pH Up?
My amano shrimp was dead on the floor this morning so I'm wondering if the low pH made him leave the tank. I have a snail in there so I don't know if it's harming him as well.
My water parameters are: pH 6.6, Amm 0, Nitrite 0, and Nitrate 15-20%
Any advice or instruction is appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
~ Mona
Just a quick synopsis of my problem:
Since setting up my tank (May 2011), my pH has always been a consistent 7.6, straight from the tap. I noticed last week that my pH had dropped down to 7.0 and then a few days later dropped again down to 6.6. (All I have in the tank is a betta, apple snail, amano shrimp, two amazon sword plants, and two marimo balls).
I started to do an extra water change during the week in order to keep the pH from falling so drastically, so to kind of catch it at the 7.0 mark and have it bounce back up from there.
In the meantime, my betta is having trouble with a fin so I added 15ml of betta spa to my 6.6 gallon tank (as per instruction on bottle) yesterday and when I checked my water last night the pH was at 6.4!!
This morning, I did a pwc of about 25% and when I checked the water again, the pH is still at only 6.6.
I tested the water directly from my tap as well and now it's at 8.8???
My building had the water shut off last week for a bit last week to "work on the pipes", so I'm wondering if they could have done something to raise the pH in our tap water?
I'm really not sure what to do in order to even all this out. Do I do a big water change to get the betta spa out of there, or is that still okay to use? Do I add some pH Up?
My amano shrimp was dead on the floor this morning so I'm wondering if the low pH made him leave the tank. I have a snail in there so I don't know if it's harming him as well.
My water parameters are: pH 6.6, Amm 0, Nitrite 0, and Nitrate 15-20%
Any advice or instruction is appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
~ Mona