I need help please!

[motherspice]

ok im really confussed....I have been testing my 29 55 and 10 gal tank for ph......it used to be 6.4......but latley its been 6.0, so I talked to the lady in petsmart and asked her what to get, she said to get ph up (it also says that on my master test kit).......... so I added some 1/2 teaspoon for the 55 1/4 for the 29 and a few drops for the ten gal......as all 3 were 6.0, she told me to add some tonight again in the morn and again tommrow night then test it friday morn..this I got but.......now I am not getting this.I just tested the tap water its 7.6 right out of the tap........the water I keep for water changes in the gal jugs with prime and stress coat has 6.8.......Im not getting this????

I just did a water change last night on my 55 gal about 11 gals......and did a 3 gal water change on my 10 gal this morn, and both have 6.0 ph........... now my daughters betta fish has 7.6 his was changed last thusday.....how can this be? why is the ph high straight from the tap or sitting in jugs with prime in it, but in the tanks its low??

 

[black hills tj]

In order to get a proper test result from your tap water, you need to let it sit for 24 hours or aerate it for 1 hour before testing. This is because the water needs to off gas until it has a similar composition as the air in the atmosphere around you.

The water in your different tanks will test differently for a variety of reasons. Some factors include CO2 injection, live plants vs. fake plants, substrate type, chemical composition of rocks that have been placed in the tank, and driftwood amongst others.

I'll be honest, the worst thing you can do is try to chemically alter the PH of your water. Contrary to popular belief, most of the fish we keep can live in water of any PH. Yes there are exceptions, especially when wild caught fish are involved.

A stable PH, is better than one that swings. As long as the results of tests for one particular tank are fairly consistent, then there is nothing to worry about(in most cases).

 

[jsoong]

pH up is the wrong way to go .... Chemicals make lots of money for the lfs (that's why it is in the test kit info) but really only gets you into swinging pH.

What you want to do is to find out WHY the pH is dropping, then fix that.

If I understand your tests correctly:
Tap water pH is 7.6.
After sitting in a jug with Prime, the pH drops to 6.8.
Tank pH is slowly dropping to 6.0 over time.

I think the key to understanding why your tap water pH drops is to know its buffering capacity. Testing for GH & KH would be a start. <Alternatively, see if your water co. has water testing results posted .... that would let us know what we have to work with.>

I have recently read that some water co is now stripping hard water of most of the ions by precipitation, creating soft water with very little buffering capacity. Then the water co add NaOH to increase pH (to reduce pipe corrosion), so you end up with water that has high pH but low buffers. <They call this liming the water.> The problem fish keeper face is that the low buffering capacity in the water means the pH is unstable. Then initially high pH in the tap water don't stay that way. You expose that water to atmospheric CO2 & the pH falls. I suspect that is what is happening when you keep your water in the jugs.

Once you get the water in the tank, the pH drops further because fish waste & other decomposing matter creates acids. This can be accounting for your slow drop in the pH over time inside the tank. Your pwc is not helping because the organic acids now is acting as a buffer to hold down the low pH & your change water, having no buffers, will not do much except by diluting the acids.

If low buffering capacity is the cause, the treatment would be adding a buffer to the water. This might be happening in your betta tank ... You might have some carbonate source in that tank (shells, rock, carbonaceous substrate) that is naturally buffering the tank water to 7.6. <To prove that, test the KH in that tank's water. It would be higher than the KH in your tap.>

You have a couple options ... You can maintain your tanks at the low pH of your tap (ie 6.8 after sitting out), and do enough water changes & gravel vacs so that there is not enough waste decomposing in the tank to drive the pH down. As long as the pH is stable, you have no problems. Alternatively, you can add a buffering source (people here like crushed coral) to keep the pH stable, tho at a higher pH of mid 7's. <Just like what appears to be happening in the betta tank.> Because your tank pH is so low, you do not want to do this quickly. I would do that over the course of 2-3 weeks if you were to move the pH from 6.0 to 7.6.

Your best option would really depend on what your inherent buffering capacity of the tap water is ... so I would suggest starting with a KH test.

 

[Johnny Tuttle]

That's excellent advice.

 

[motherspice]

pH up is the wrong way to go .... Chemicals make lots of money for the lfs (that's why it is in the test kit info) but really only gets you into swinging pH.

What you want to do is to find out WHY the pH is dropping, then fix that.

If I understand your tests correctly:
Tap water pH is 7.6.
After sitting in a jug with Prime, the pH drops to 6.8.
Tank pH is slowly dropping to 6.0 over time.

I think the key to understanding why your tap water pH drops is to know its buffering capacity. Testing for GH & KH would be a start. <Alternatively, see if your water co. has water testing results posted .... that would let us know what we have to work with.>

I have recently read that some water co is now stripping hard water of most of the ions by precipitation, creating soft water with very little buffering capacity. Then the water co add NaOH to increase pH (to reduce pipe corrosion), so you end up with water that has high pH but low buffers. <They call this liming the water.> The problem fish keeper face is that the low buffering capacity in the water means the pH is unstable. Then initially high pH in the tap water don't stay that way. You expose that water to atmospheric CO2 & the pH falls. I suspect that is what is happening when you keep your water in the jugs.

Once you get the water in the tank, the pH drops further because fish waste & other decomposing matter creates acids. This can be accounting for your slow drop in the pH over time inside the tank. Your pwc is not helping because the organic acids now is acting as a buffer to hold down the low pH & your change water, having no buffers, will not do much except by diluting the acids.

If low buffering capacity is the cause, the treatment would be adding a buffer to the water. This might be happening in your betta tank ... You might have some carbonate source in that tank (shells, rock, carbonaceous substrate) that is naturally buffering the tank water to 7.6. <To prove that, test the KH in that tank's water. It would be higher than the KH in your tap.>

You have a couple options ... You can maintain your tanks at the low pH of your tap (ie 6.8 after sitting out), and do enough water changes & gravel vacs so that there is not enough waste decomposing in the tank to drive the pH down. As long as the pH is stable, you have no problems. Alternatively, you can add a buffering source (people here like crushed coral) to keep the pH stable, tho at a higher pH of mid 7's. <Just like what appears to be happening in the betta tank.> Because your tank pH is so low, you do not want to do this quickly. I would do that over the course of 2-3 weeks if you were to move the pH from 6.0 to 7.6.

Your best option would really depend on what your inherent buffering capacity of the tap water is ... so I would suggest starting with a KH test.

Wow thank you so much im really still confussed.......but I will go get a KH test tommrow after work.....so the ph up is no good? this is making me crazy as for whats in the betta tank just gravel and a neon cave and a silk plant thats it.........my 55 has a cave a house 5 plants and a center piece plant and a bridge and gravel and a small piece of driftwood for my BN placos............my 29 gal gold fish has 4 silk plants a neon castle and gravel.....my 10 gal has gravel 3 plants ship and a shark little thing and had a rock but we took that out tonight just incase

 

[Zagz]

Don't use the ph up is what they are saying. You can also leave the rock in, it will not hurt anything. Once you test for kh post the number here and the members will help you figure this out.

 

[rob28]

i really wanted to quote jsoong but since its so long, im jus gonna agree

zagz too

 

[bazil323]

Yeah, don't worry so much about pH. There are actually only a few fish where that actually matters, like saltwater fish and discus. As long as your fish aren't acting weird or looking sick, the pH will be fine as is. The worst thing you could do is try to change the pH. Unstable pH WILL hurt the fish, but a stable (but perhaps less than or more than ideal pH) will not.

 

[OldMan]

The problem is not that the pH up stuff doesn't work. It does work but whatever made your pH go down will make it happen again. The real problem with pH is not the value that you have, it is the constant changes that are hard on the fish. If you can leave the pH alone and it is stable, there is no problem. If you see a constant drop soon after a water change, chances are good that your KH is low. In that case the advice about keeping some calcium carbonate, aka crushed shells, in the tank will work. It will also raise the KH so things don't move around as much.

 

[motherspice]

ok we have some shells from the beach now what do I need to do to make it safe for my tank?? I know I cant use store bought shells right?

 

[gzeiger]

Boiling them will remove any bacteria or other organisms that might be dangerous. There's nothing about the chemical composition of seashells that will be dangerous to fish. They will be somewhat more effective at buffering if you crush/break them up. Some shells you might buy are painted for decoration, and any kind of paint will prevent them from dissolving and helping the water. You can buy crushed coral or shells (I've seen it sold under the name aragonite) which will work, but if you have free ones from the beach you may as well just use those.