Help with water parameters...

[TygGer]

Here are the details:

15g tall tank with 3 black skirt tetras, 2 neons and 2 fancy guppies.

Live various plants, 26watts, DIY CO2 (probably dont need it, but had it when I had a 10 gallon w/ 26watts), Seachem Flourite substrate, and biweekly dosing with Flourish.

Ph: 6.0 (maybe less, test kit does not show lower scale)
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: approx 40 (Need to do water change)
Ammonia: approx 0.25
temp: 78

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Everything has been fine for the past few months until recently this past month 2 of the 4 guppies died overnight on two separate occasions. There were no signs of injury or sickness... Although, I did notice one of them started to decrease in activity, swimming low to the gravel and at times resting on the gravel the day before he died.

I feel that my ph is too low, but it was been around that mark for atleast a year. The tap Ph is about 8.0 and no matter what I do (without adding extra chemicals) I cant increase the Ph.

Any recommendations on what I should do to "fix" my water parameters? My nitrates are a bit high because a couple of my plants started to die when I moved from a 10gallon to a 15 gallon while using the same wattage.

Thanks

 

[Menagerie]

The CO2 is lowering your pH.
Guppies are not long lived and it simply may have been their time. The other possiblity is they were extremely sensitive to the ammonia. Even at .25, fish can get ill.

 

[TygGer]

I've tried adding baking soda to the mix to try to buffer the ph. With or without baking soda, Im getting nearly the same reading.

So would a water change be the best thing to do right now to reduce the ammonia and nitrate?

 

[flipz]

Hopefully you are doing water changes every week. And yes, a water change (and gravel vacuum) is the best way to lower your ammonia and nitrates. Ammonia and nitrite should always be 0, if they aren't then it's the sign of a "problem." The nitrates are safe up to about 40 so you are borderline right there. You seemed to know that though. So definetly gravel vac ASAP, and just keep up with weekly water changes.

HTH

-brent

 

[Menagerie]

Baking soda will buffer, but not raise your pH. It will also raise the carbonate hardness (if you put in a ton of it). Definately do a water change to lessen the ammonia and take out dieing/rotting plants.