pH drop?
- Thread starter bluerose
- Start date
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bluerose
Aquarium Advice FINatic
So what should I do about PWCs then? Keep using tap?
Personally I'd just use your tap water and quit mixing it with the bottled water. Treat with a dechlorinator and that's it. Do smaller water changes to start, so that your fish will adapt well to the rising KH and pH. As the numbers slowly come up and are closer to your tap water, you can do larger water changes without stressing them.
Another option would be to move the fish to a bucket and almost completely drain the aquarium. Then fill with dechlorinated tap water. You could then drip acclimate your fish to the new conditions.
Another option would be to move the fish to a bucket and almost completely drain the aquarium. Then fill with dechlorinated tap water. You could then drip acclimate your fish to the new conditions.
OasisKeeper
Aquarium Advice Activist
The reading you got were pretty much what we suspected I think. Soft tank and hard tap water.
What we still don't know is what it is in the tank that is depleting the Kh so rapidly after your pwc(s).
Possibilities include fish bio load, bacteria bio load, decaying organic matter, or some physical item in the tank.
Since the driftwood was one of the last additions (correct?) I think I would run an experiment to see if that was the source of the problem. I would pull it out and put into a bucket of dechlorinated tap water for a week and monitor the Kh in said bucket to see if it falls.
As to the tank itself, I would follow Joy's advice sans driftwood.
What we still don't know is what it is in the tank that is depleting the Kh so rapidly after your pwc(s).
Possibilities include fish bio load, bacteria bio load, decaying organic matter, or some physical item in the tank.
Since the driftwood was one of the last additions (correct?) I think I would run an experiment to see if that was the source of the problem. I would pull it out and put into a bucket of dechlorinated tap water for a week and monitor the Kh in said bucket to see if it falls.
As to the tank itself, I would follow Joy's advice sans driftwood.
bluerose
Aquarium Advice FINatic
The driftwood was added about a week after the tank was started up.
Timeline, as I can remember it-
-set up tank aug 25/26 with plants
-added driftwood that weekend
-added fish on Labor Day.
I never saw much of an ammonia/nitrite spike (to .5 but that's all), but at this point they are both always 0 and nitrates are around 5ppm. I'm guessing that the plants (one of which was an anubias nana in a pot full of a mossy/felt material- it was in an established tank and the felt material was pretty green looking so I'm guessing well seeded) silent cycled the tank... now that I understand cycling better I can't really see any other way it could have cycled with the very minimal ammonia I added and the short time period it took.
The driftwood was soaked in extremely hot water (not boiling- just as hot as it gets out of the tap, which could quite possibly burn) several times until it no longer released tannins and then I rinsed it in dechlor water before putting it in the tank. I suppose the combo of the driftwood and spring water in the tank at that point could have really dropped the pH- I didn't think it would so unfortunately I didn't test the pH at that point.
My bucket is probably *just* large enough to hold the driftwood (it's longish), but I don't have a lid, and since I'm in a dorm, there is zero space- if it gets bumped and spilled it would be a pretty big problem (and by pretty I mean REALLY- I dropped a damp towel on the floor and didn't see it and the carpet started bubbling up after a couple of hours). I'm more inclined to try 10% PWCs to see what happens doing it that way first.
Thanks for all the help you guys!!
Timeline, as I can remember it-
-set up tank aug 25/26 with plants
-added driftwood that weekend
-added fish on Labor Day.
I never saw much of an ammonia/nitrite spike (to .5 but that's all), but at this point they are both always 0 and nitrates are around 5ppm. I'm guessing that the plants (one of which was an anubias nana in a pot full of a mossy/felt material- it was in an established tank and the felt material was pretty green looking so I'm guessing well seeded) silent cycled the tank... now that I understand cycling better I can't really see any other way it could have cycled with the very minimal ammonia I added and the short time period it took.
The driftwood was soaked in extremely hot water (not boiling- just as hot as it gets out of the tap, which could quite possibly burn) several times until it no longer released tannins and then I rinsed it in dechlor water before putting it in the tank. I suppose the combo of the driftwood and spring water in the tank at that point could have really dropped the pH- I didn't think it would so unfortunately I didn't test the pH at that point.
My bucket is probably *just* large enough to hold the driftwood (it's longish), but I don't have a lid, and since I'm in a dorm, there is zero space- if it gets bumped and spilled it would be a pretty big problem (and by pretty I mean REALLY- I dropped a damp towel on the floor and didn't see it and the carpet started bubbling up after a couple of hours). I'm more inclined to try 10% PWCs to see what happens doing it that way first.
Thanks for all the help you guys!!
