Can't get the PH up Help Please

[Jawboxen]

Help me please. I am at my wits end here. I have been losing fish one or 2 at a time for the 7 months. Every 3 months i am going through some sort of bacterial/fungal spell and i treat it and everything if fine for 3 months then it comes back. I brought some water from my tank to my local pet store and had them test it as my test strips were no help. I have almost no PH in my tank. The levels are barely recognizable on their chart. So i bought some PH powder which is supposed to raise the ph to 7.0 I added it yesterday, no change. 6 hours later i added another 1/2 a dose because i lost another fish, no change in ph again. I tested the water again this morning and the PH levels are still so low they barely register on the chart so i dosed it at a full dose again this morning, again no rise in PH levels 8 hours later. I am down to barely any fish here. What do i do now? How can i get my PH levels up and stop losing fish due to no PH in my tank and why after adding so mu PH up is there still no PH in my tank?

I need lots of help please and thank you

 

[mgamer20o0]

what ph number was it? and what is it now. ph is a scale so its not like there isnt no ph in the tank. you should also figure out your kh and gh before trying to mess with your water.

what fish do you have?

 

[Jawboxen]

Yesterday at the pet store he gave it a level of 5.0 My test strips i bought are showing it barely even yellow. So i would venture to guess it would still be at the 5.0 level since my scale that came with the test strips starts at 6.0 on a full yellow and the color i get isn't even close to as yellow as the 6.0 The pet store guy told me the ph up would fix the problem and that the low ph levels are why my fish have been dying and getting fungus/baterial infections.

What is kh and gh? I have never heard of that?

I do know my nitrates are a little bit high but not alot which is a little odd as i use nitroban and my water is slightly high in alkalinity but not by much at all.

Does that information help any?

added: The fish i have are 3 silver dollars, 1 african brown knife, 1 pleco, 1 catfish (irredesent shark) The cat fish and pleco are new after losing my pleco and other shark/catfish after 4 yrs of having them.

 

[bs6749]

Yesterday at the pet store he gave it a level of 5.0 My test strips i bought are showing it barely even yellow. So i would venture to guess it would still be at the 5.0 level since my scale that came with the test strips starts at 6.0 on a full yellow and the color i get isn't even close to as yellow as the 6.0 The pet store guy told me the ph up would fix the problem and that the low ph levels are why my fish have been dying and getting fungus/baterial infections.

What is kh and gh? I have never heard of that?

I do know my nitrates are a little bit high but not alot which is a little odd as i use nitroban and my water is slightly high in alkalinity but not by much at all.

Does that information help any?

added: The fish i have are 3 silver dollars, 1 african brown knife, 1 pleco, 1 catfish (irredesent shark) The cat fish and pleco are new after losing my pleco and other shark/catfish after 4 yrs of having them.

Your LFS guy would be wrong because an acidic pH inhibits bacterial growth. I suspect poor water maintenance to be the cause of the fish deaths and not the pH of the tank. Poorly maintained tanks often have low pH levels.

As for the "magical pH raising powder" baking soda works to raise the pH and also provides buffering capacity (KH) to the tank so your pH won't swing, which can kill fish by converting harmless ammonium ion into toxic ammonium ion.

 

[mgamer20o0]

low ph wouldnt cause the fish to get fungus/baterial infections.

there is no product out there that can take away from maintenance. how often and how much water do you change at a time?

how big is your tank?

 

[Jawboxen]

It is a 55 gallon tank. I add water weekly about 10 gallons because of evaporation. I vacuum and change 25% percent of the water monthly when i change my filter pads. I do a 40% to 50% water change every 6 months normally.

Over the last 1 and 1/2 half years the tank has gone through alot of fungus and bacteria and has also gone through several power outages and ice storms this past winter. This past winter we were with out power for 5 days, 24 hours without a generator. After that we did a 75% water change and changed our rocks due to the nasty build up on the bottom and the green color the water turned. I kept my filter pads in to hold the beneficial bacteria and we didn't lose on fish. I felt awful, that water was cold, but they held out.

I did get a little behind the last 2 months on maintenance (sp?) due to being extremely busy raising a litter of pups and i don't trust my hubby to maintain it the right way. My husband did take over feeding the last few months due to me being busy with mom and pups and i noticed that there was a build up of waste food on the bottom of the tank.

Right now i am in a catch 22. I cannot use my water due to work being done to replace the water pipes on my road. None of us can drink the water and if it cannot go in my mouth it will not go in my fish tank, the water has a brownish color to it so i feel it isn't safe for my fish right now.

Thank you all for helping me.

 

[jsoong]

The low pH could well be related to poor maintenance .....

What you need to know is: The pH of the tank & the pH of the tap water (or your change water source). Ideally, you also want to know the KH & GH of both your source & tank.

GH measures the amount of calcium & magnesium in the water. This si related to hardness. <GH = General Hardness> KH is the more important here. This is a measure of the carbonate level in the water. Carbonate (& bicarbonate) is the usual buffer system that maintains your tank pH.

In water with low KH, the pH is unstable. Normal fish waste produces acid. <The nitrogen cycle NH3->NO2->NO3 releases H+, ie acids.> If there is inadequate buffering, the pH in the tank drops. You can manage this with more frequent water changes, but if you get behind, you get into trouble. If your tap pH is much higher than your tank pH, then I would think this is what is happening. <This is often call a pH/tank crash, and is one cause of fish death.>

I cannot recommend the best way you can manage this without knowing your tap water composition. However, i would recommend AGAINST any of the powders & potions from the lfs. <Some actually work if you know what you are doing, but the vast majority cause more problems than it solve.>

Some more reading if you want to delve into the depths of water chemistry:
Water Hardness

 

[bs6749]

I'd just do a 100% water change and that way you don't have to worry about the fish dying from ammonium ion being converted into ammonia.

 

[DizzCat]

It is a 55 gallon tank. I add water weekly about 10 gallons because of evaporation. I vacuum and change 25% percent of the water monthly when i change my filter pads. I do a 40% to 50% water change every 6 months normally.

Over the last 1 and 1/2 half years the tank has gone through alot of fungus and bacteria

You would not have fungus/bacteria problems if you did your maintenance right.

You should be doing at LEAST a 25% water change WITH vacuuming once a WEEK, not once a month. When you top off once a week with new water and not vacuuming which removes poop and leftover food, you are just diluting the messy water. The 40 - 50% clean should be at least once a MONTH, not once a year. Because your water is not clean, its a breeding ground for fungus and bacteria and the fish are not in healthy living conditions, which means they cannot fight it off.

I have a 55 gallon too, and this is what I do:
Once a week at least a 30% water change (with vacuuming).
Once a month I do a big water change of about 50-60%, cleaning filters and everything else.

If I were you, I would do about a 60% water change and start over with better maintenance.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Seriously, yeah, what DizzCat said. I do 30-40% PWC weekly, clean my filter (canister) every 3 weeks, and change the coarse pads every 9 just like the manufacturer recommends, and I don't have very many problems.

Your pH problem is due to conversion of uneaten foods, a pH that low will stall out your Nitrogen cycle. Although, with pH below 6.0, you will have virtually zero True Free Ammonia (toxic) per this chart

Aquaworld Aquarium - The Ammonia and pH Relationship

but you need to get it back above 6 at least, depending on what kind of fish you keep.

What kind of filtration system do you use?

 

[sieski]

It is a 55 gallon tank. I add water weekly about 10 gallons because of evaporation. I vacuum and change 25% percent of the water monthly when i change my filter pads. I do a 40% to 50% water change every 6 months normally.

Over the last 1 and 1/2 half years the tank has gone through alot of fungus and bacteria and has also gone through several power outages and ice storms this past winter. This past winter we were with out power for 5 days, 24 hours without a generator. After that we did a 75% water change and changed our rocks due to the nasty build up on the bottom and the green color the water turned. I kept my filter pads in to hold the beneficial bacteria and we didn't lose on fish. I felt awful, that water was cold, but they held out.

I did get a little behind the last 2 months on maintenance (sp?) due to being extremely busy raising a litter of pups and i don't trust my hubby to maintain it the right way. My husband did take over feeding the last few months due to me being busy with mom and pups and i noticed that there was a build up of waste food on the bottom of the tank.

Right now i am in a catch 22. I cannot use my water due to work being done to replace the water pipes on my road. None of us can drink the water and if it cannot go in my mouth it will not go in my fish tank, the water has a brownish color to it so i feel it isn't safe for my fish right now.

Thank you all for helping me.

Well replacing the evaporated water isn't a water change. If you lose water then you should still take 20%ish out on top of that for water changes then replace the lot.

That could be one cause of l;ow ph. Also from what I've learnt on my steep learning curve from the great guys here areation can also Increase the ph in the same way I presume poor areation can lower it. How well is the tank oxyegnated? If you suspect this you could lower the water level so the top surface of the water is agitated more by the filter.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

BTW are you sure you're actually putting 10 gallons in a week? In order to have that much evaporation, you would have to be in an extremely low humidity environment, or you'd have to have a waterfall in the tank (which would cause enough agitation to oxygenate the water, so I doubt that's the case!!!)

For reference, in a 55g tank (I have one also) 10 gallons would equal about 3-1/2 inches of water column.

 

[bs6749]

Or no lids on the tank, which also explains why fungus may be an issue as an uncovered tank would have much more exposure than one with lids.

 

[darkmule27]

As has been said, the replacing water is a problem. Don't do a 100% water change though! That would shock the fish as they have slowly adjusted to the high TDS in the water and a sudden drop (not to mention the sudden rise in pH) would do far more harm than good. Do small, frequent water changes, probably no more than 10 gallons a day for the next week or two. Then begin a regular maintence schedule of 25-50% a month at least.

 

[mgamer20o0]

Or no lids on the tank, which also explains why fungus may be an issue as an uncovered tank would have much more exposure than one with lids.

never heard that one. i have my tanks open for years with out a single case of fungus.