New tank- My pH will not go up???

[Rfin93]

Hey Guys,

First time poster as I am new to the forum. I have just set up my 34l fluval flex fresh water Planted aquarium.

I am new to aquarium keeping, but I live with my sister who has kept aquariums and reptiles for many years.

I set up the tank approximately 3 weeks ago and started with a fishless cycle, with only some wisteria, decorations, decorative substrate etc.

I dosed the tank with tropical salts, quick start and stress guard. From the beginning our tap water has always had a very low pH, but I dosed the pH as recommended on the instructions and waited for it to shift.

About a week later, my impatience got the best of me and I added two balloon Molly’s, a glass shrimp and a nerite snail, as well as a few foreground plants, baby dwarf tears, anubias nana etc. From day one, girl molly never seemed overly happy and was very lethargic so I bought a more comprehensive tests and also pH 7.5 salts thinking it would help more than the general tropical salts.

The shrimp and the snail seemed to only last a day or two so I went into stress mode.

The more extensive test revealed a whole host of other problems. My kH, gH and pH were all way under where they needed to be. So I did a 20% water change and redosed the tank with the stress guard, fresh start and pH 7.5. The fish seemed to perk up so I checked the levels a few hours later and the gH and kH levels had seemed to improve but the pH was still sitting around 6.8.

I then decided to include some of the crushed coral substrate from my sisters well established turtle tank and I put it in the filter in the back compartment of the filter just hoping this would help buffer the water. Even still nothing seemed to shift the pH to anything above 7, the best I have seemed to achieve is 7.2 but then it drops almost immediately no matter how much I am dosing the tank.

When the fish seemed to be improving I ordered a few more shrimp and another snail hoping my luck would be better... again impatient.... the snail died almost immediately but the shrimps have really been thriving. However, both Molly’s have died within a few days of each other. I will note that the boy molly had been seemingly healthy until the day he died.

Since losing the fish I have ordered some more nutrient dense substrate to help with my plants. I am going to leave the tank alone for about a week while I wait for that to arrive and then I am going to introduce this into the tank and remove some of the decorative substrate.

I have tried googling and researching but I can’t seem to make sense of how adding pH adjusting salts and substrate can not influence such a small body of water??

I am not sure whether to keep trying to manually increase the pH or am I trying too hard?

I have since removed the wisteria and decided to persist with slower growing plants as it seemed to produce too much waste and block the filter. I will also note the drift wood seems to have developed a clear ‘mucus’ that I have read on this forum is normal. I did soak it for two days before putting it in the tank but just want to confirm this is normal?

I will include photos of the supplies I have and the tank for reference.

All I want is happy and healthy fish so any advice as to how I can help my ‘Bermuda triangle of tanks’ is so appreciated and I look forward to hearing from some of you to hopefully get my aquarium thriving.

Thanks in advance ?

Rachael

 

[Clarazandra]

What are your other water parameters and what substrate are you using? If I had to guess I'd say your tank wasnt cycled when you added the first round of fish, the bioload jump started it and they likely were killed off by the initial ammonia spike. Also chasing pH is very stressful for your tank, fish can acclimate to a pretty wide range of pH so if you arent keeping anything that needs alkaline I would stop dosing with chemicals and just stick to regular water changes.

 

[Rfin93]

What are your other water parameters and what substrate are you using? If I had to guess I'd say your tank wasnt cycled when you added the first round of fish, the bioload jump started it and they likely were killed off by the initial ammonia spike. Also chasing pH is very stressful for your tank, fish can acclimate to a pretty wide range of pH so if you arent keeping anything that needs alkaline I would stop dosing with chemicals and just stick to regular water changes.

Hi Clarazandra,

I just did a water test and these are the results that came back:

pH- 7
kH- 240
gH- 0
Nitrates- 0
Nitrites- 0
Ammonia - <0.02ppm

The substrate I currently have in the tank is a diamond black quartz gravel, decorative only. I have just ordered the seachem flourite black as I had read that it will help with the plants but also keep the shrimps happy too.

I also tested my water straight out of the tap and it sits around pH 6.6

Any advice is so appreciated thank you so much for your reply

 

[Clarazandra]

I wouldnt worry abput the pH 6.6 is good for most fish and shrimp. My tank has dropped to 6 before a waterchange and the fish are doing just fine. As far as the water parameters, cycles can be a little tricky with plants and they can eat up the nitrates which is good but its hard to tell when the tank is cycled when everything reads 0 or close to. A good test is to dose the tank with pure ammonia if theres no living creatures in the tank, the plants will be fine just make sure its either powder or has no additives if you get liquid. Theres lots of articles online about ammonia cycling that can tell you the exact dosage for your tank. Wait 24 hours and if the ammonia and nitrites are at 0 you have a cycled tank, if not let it run its course and test every 24 hours until ammonia and nitrites read 0, hit it with one more dose of ammonia and it should disappear 24 hours later. Do a water change before adding any fish as this method will spike your nitrates