Temprrature and pH

[Azure Lord]

I am in the process of cycling my tank, and have noticed that on days when I'm not home the pH tends to be close to 8.2.
On these days I leave my A/C off and my tank stays at around 80* as opposed to the usual 76*
Its consistent so far.
Does the temp affect pH or is it something im not seeing? Perhaps the effect of my bubbler in warmer water?
My pH is normally 7.8-7.9 with kH and gH being 9 and 15 respectively.
Any advice or please direct me to some reading material.
Btw you guys are all awesome!
I cant wait until I get a lot more experience under my belt and can actually start helping others.

 

[Delapool]

Following I guess higher temps may gas off co2 more? I must admit with a kh of 9 I would of thought it pretty well buffered.

 

[eddyk]

The bubbler ( air stone I assume ) will not change Ph will help dissipate heat. Ph changes in a cycling tank are not uncommon. What are you using to measure your ph?

I spoke with a biologist at Biolift ( I use their Niteout II and Special Blend) and she shared a lot of good info.

Do you have fish in the tank?

Plants?

 

[Azure Lord]

The api high range ph test. No fish....just cycling with no seeding material

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[eddyk]

There are a lot of opinions and you will receive a lot.
There are a lot of wicked smart aquarists on this forum. We all have opinions based on our experiences and and what we have read.

A few questions first off:

I assume this is freshwater correct?

What size tank are we talking about?
What are you using for filtration?
Do you have substrate in it? ( gravel, sand or more specialized substrate )
If so what kind of substrate?
Do you have or plan to have plants ( live )

All I can give you is what worked for me.

What worked for me is a heck of a lot of plants in good substrate (eco-complete and fluorite ) and using Special Blend and Niteout II. ( made by Biolift ) And of course help from others on this forum. Xavier55 has been a god send.

Start with good water change. Then add good substrate and plants (if you do not have them)

If you are going to add substrate, it is not too early to start over, but will add time. If you do not want to start over, adding the above mentioned substate will be messy. you will need to cover the intakes to your filter with fine filter floss, and run it AFTER most of the dust settles. Once the tank is clear, you can plant and remove the filter floss.

If you have substrate disregard the above pontification....

I have gotten a lot of good advice from this forum, just trying to pay it forward with what I have learned so far.

Try to steer away from chemicals to stabilize your chem levels, chasing numbers with chemicals gets expensive and exhausting.

I always thought plants would be difficult, but in fact it has been very easy.

Plants will require lighting tho and that will dictate what type of plants you will use.

I have posted pics on my profile of the 125g I have just cycled. My nitrites are still a bit high ( 1.6ppm) but the cycling went super fast with plants and live bacteria (Biolift products I mentioned).

I have done this with my 29g tall tank with great results... I then thought bigger is better and put together the 125g tank. ( The next tank will be a 300-400g )

 

[Azure Lord]

Freshwater
10g
Tetra PF10
Gravel
No live plants planned



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[eddyk]

Smaller tanks are hard, because there is no built in buffer in the small volume.

Try some of the biolift product and do small water changes. Large changes will prolong the cycle dramatically.

Small tanks are great but much more difficult.

What kind of fish do you plan to put into it?

 

[Azure Lord]

Dont burn me for heresy...but tetra glofish

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[eddyk]

a great choice.

once the filter grows the necessary bacteria you'll be great!

 

[Azure Lord]

Ty..i know its a little tight for a schooling fish.....but i hope itll be ok

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[eddyk]

It is a little small. Remember the rule of thumb. 1" of fish per gallon. Use this as a broad rule.

Once your tank is cycled, then add fish slowly. 1 per every 2 weeks or so, or...

You will begin your cycle all over again.

 

[Azure Lord]

I was planning on adding 2 tetras every two weeks. Is that ok?

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[eddyk]

Not sure.

It is difficult to " Measure " how much bacteria you'll have. Error on the conservative side, adding 2 will add a lot of bio-load to your tank. A lot is relative, you have a pretty small tank.

 

[Azure Lord]

I consider that rule extremly broad. I use it provided what ever i get is an inch or less. Plus i consider how much "running space" fast, darty fish need.
Just because you can drive a corvette on the city street doesn't mean you should get that sum***** out on the highway.
Personally i think that rule only counts if their a slow moving fish that only gets 2" long.......

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[eddyk]

It is a broad rule of thumb. But, When you have little experience, the best way to learn is follow the broad rules, then refine them, to meet your needs.

You have a 10g tank. Since you do not have plants and not much bacteria and average filtration. You are limited on 3 different levels. It's not bad, just is what it is.

I would start with the rule of thumb and experiment. If you have a large filter capacity, you can handle a little larger bio load. The essential bacterial must be there to support that bio load. Slowly adding that bio-load ( fish ) will help prevent any spikes in your cycle.

 

[Azure Lord]

Well i was hoping to get my bio filter up to where it can process 5pmm ammonia in 24 hrs...and add like 4 tera to start and go from there. Any opinions on this?

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[Caliban07]

As I understand it. Temperature does have an effect on ph. As temperature will alter the disassociation constant of a base or acid. Suppose it would depend on the type of acid and the temperature how much would disassociate (how much hydrogen ions are released in to the water) as an increase in hydrogen ions will lower the ph this increasing acidity.

For example it is only true that pure h2o has a ph of 7.0 at a temperature of 25 degrees C as the temperature increases more the disassociation constant increases so more h+ ions are released in to the water lowering the ph.

H20 at 100 degrees c equals a ph of 6.14.

Not that it matters. Your ph is fine. Fish will adapt with a slow acclimatisation process. You just have to watch for ammonia at higher ph and temps as the toxicity is vastly increased.


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[Delapool]

Does that mean some O2 would boil off when at 100c?

 

[Caliban07]

You lose more and more oxygen as the temperature increase or rather the amount of dissolved oxygen the water can hold.

The dissolved O2 concentration of freshwater at sea level with a temperature of 50 degrees C falls to around 6-7ppm as opposed to around 9ppm at 25 degrees C I don't think there will be much oxygen left in water at boiling point. You'd have to calculate it but I've not looked in to it that much yet.

I'm sure someone else on here would be able to work out the exact value.


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[Azure Lord]

So basically, the ph rising had nothing to do with my room temperature?

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