I have a 30l Biorb set up with Biohome media, 2 WCMM, a Betta, a Bristle Nose and some live plants.
It's 5 weeks old & the chemistry is beginning to stabilise (fish in cycle), with a trace of ammonia (recent over feeding), no nitrites & about 30ppm nitrates.
My local water is very hard so I have been using 60% RO to keep the hardness at a medium soft level. After a water change the pH is about 7.2, but over the next 3 of 4 days it creeps up to 8.0.
I have reduced the time I have the tank light on for, hoping the plants would produce some more Co2, & have turned the air pump fully down (the Biorb pump was too noisy so I upgraded it to an Eheim 100) with little effect.
I eventually want to add some cardinals, so I want to get the pH down to the acid side of neutral. Any ideas how i can do this? Would adding Almond leaves to the filter help? What about adding a moss ball in a dark part of the tank?
BTW I had tannin problems from some natural wood, so the filter now has activated charcoal in it, could this be causing it?
It's 5 weeks old & the chemistry is beginning to stabilise (fish in cycle), with a trace of ammonia (recent over feeding), no nitrites & about 30ppm nitrates.
My local water is very hard so I have been using 60% RO to keep the hardness at a medium soft level. After a water change the pH is about 7.2, but over the next 3 of 4 days it creeps up to 8.0.
I have reduced the time I have the tank light on for, hoping the plants would produce some more Co2, & have turned the air pump fully down (the Biorb pump was too noisy so I upgraded it to an Eheim 100) with little effect.
I eventually want to add some cardinals, so I want to get the pH down to the acid side of neutral. Any ideas how i can do this? Would adding Almond leaves to the filter help? What about adding a moss ball in a dark part of the tank?
BTW I had tannin problems from some natural wood, so the filter now has activated charcoal in it, could this be causing it?
