pH Puzzle

[ASPSplinter]

I have a 10 and 40 gallon aquaria that both just completed cycling. The 10 gallon's pH is hanging around 7.4 which is good. The 40 gallon aquarium has several pieces of driftwood. The pH keeps trending towards 6.0. I use a wet/dry filter with the 40. I was wondering if I could gradually add some limestone gravel until I can get the water buffered to between 7.0 and 7.5ish? Thanks for the help in advance.

 

[jcolon]

For now, some limestone or crushed corals should help to buffer your water ... eventually as the tannins in the DW are leached out and exhausted ... PWC's should slowly raise your pH.

 

[BBradbury]

Your pH Question

I have a 10 and 40 gallon aquaria that both just completed cycling. The 10 gallon's pH is hanging around 7.4 which is good. The 40 gallon aquarium has several pieces of driftwood. The pH keeps trending towards 6.0. I use a wet/dry filter with the 40. I was wondering if I could gradually add some limestone gravel until I can get the water buffered to between 7.0 and 7.5ish? Thanks for the help in advance.

Hello A...

Unless you plan on keeping rare fish, you don't need to worry about hard or soft tap water. The majority of freshwater fish will adapt to the majority of public water supplies. Your lower pH is acidic and a perfect environment for plants, so get as many into that tank as possible.

Large, weekly water changes is the only guaranteed way to stabilize the tank water. Do them religiously, and you don't need to worry about testing the water perameters, because flushing a lot of pure, treated tap water through the tank keeps pollutants to a minimum.

B

 

[ASPSplinter]

PWC is the plan!

 

[jetajockey]

I agree with BBradbury in that I wouldn't bother too much with buffering the water, it likely has a sufficient amount of buffers in it already. Once the DW stops leaching tannins it'll go back up on it's own.

 

[Medic493]

I agree with BBradbury in that I wouldn't bother too much with buffering the water, it likely has a sufficient amount of buffers in it already. Once the DW stops leaching tannins it'll go back up on it's own.

On the other hand, adding a small amount of crushed coral at a time, ( a handful every water change while watching the ph) could be a long term solution as long as you don't add too much too soon. Bottom line, avoid major fluctuations in the Ph.

 

[jetajockey]

A long term solution to what, though? If the other tank is using the same water source and it's holding a steady pH then I would assume that the water has enough buffers in it naturally and the driftwood tannins are just lowering the pH. This isn't an issue as far as the tank's operation goes, but it could be aesthetically displeasing. Adding a buffer at this point will raise the hardness and likewise the pH, but once the tannins dissipate then the tank may have an unnecessarily high amount of GH (and likewise pH).

I'm not anti-adding buffers at all, but I think that people tend to do it unnecessarily because of all the fishless cycling reports that recommend it.

 

[Medic493]

I agree, I would just continually monitor the ph for consistency. Sometimes doing too much is a bad thing. Yea, as long as its not effecting operations, I would just wait it out