ph/ammonia issue

[wcrosson]

First ill start by giving you my parameters...
PH - 6.0
ammonia - 4.0-8.0
nitrite - 0
nitrate - 10-20

TANK - 55g
FILTERS - marineland 350b biowheel filter and fluval submersible filter on bottom of tank

I have one 6 inch oscar and plenty of aireration.

_______________________________________

My problem obviously lies within my water parameters. the tank has been up and running for over 4 months. Everything was fine until i added a piece of driftwood which in turn, dropped my PH. I removed the driftwood and i guess from stirring things up the ammonia spiked to almost 8ppm. I managed through water changes and ammo lock to get these levels under control. The ammonia was ok for 2 weeks and shot right back up.

As far as my PH is concerned.... i gave it 2 weeks to start to creep back up and it stayed at 6. I then added a filter bag of crushed coral and it rose to 6.4, stayed there for a week, and now its back to 6.

I am at a loss and about to pull my hair out. Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[neilanh]

Welcome to AA!

How long prior to adding in the driftwood was your tank running, and what was the pH then? 4 months isn't long enough for the old tank syndrom, which presents similiar to what you're seeing.

Do you know what your kH (buffering capacity) is straight from your source water?

 

[wcrosson]

Welcome to AA!

How long prior to adding in the driftwood was your tank running, and what was the pH then? 4 months isn't long enough for the old tank syndrom, which presents similiar to what you're seeing.

Do you know what your kH (buffering capacity) is straight from your source water?

a

The tank was up and running for about 2 months when the driftwood was added. I dont think i properly prepared the wood as far as boiling, and cleaning it really well. all i did was let it soak for a day and add it.

as far as kh, i do not have a kh test kit. i was actually considering buying one this evening. I do know that the ph straight from the tap is 7.0.

 

[bluerose]

High ammonia can screw with your pH; frankly you need to do whatever you can to get that ammonia level under 1ppm, IMHO. I wouldn't worry so much about the pH as the ammonia level right now.

If a lot got stirred up (enough to spike the ammonia to 8ppm) then you should consider doing gravel vacs more often...

 

[jsoong]

If your tap water is pH 7.0, chances are that it has little buffering capacity, that's why the pH drops.

However, I agree that your most pressing concern at this point is getting the ammonia under control. You can worry about increasing buffering capacity later (if your tap is poorly buffered).

 

[William Banik]

Problem is the pH has dropped to 6.0. Nitrification, the bacterial breakdown of ammonia to nitrites to nitrates ceases at 6.0. If it were my tank I would approach the problem by treating the aquarium with Amquel + until the Ammonia is 0ppm. Then I would do 10% to 15% water changes once or twice a day with the intention of slowly increasing the pH back to 7.0. The key is to raise the pH SLOWLY ( .1 or .2 per water change). Monitor the pH level if it goes to .2 during the refill stop and allow the fish to acclimate for an hour or two. Don't forget to keep a close eye on Ammonia during the process. If it starts to rise treat with Amquel + until in drops to 0ppm. The more cautious you are the better chance your fish will survive.

Once you get the tank stabalized at 7.0, you need to test the KH of your water. Like others have noted, I suspect you will find you have a very small buffer 1 or 2 dKH (20 to 40ppm). When you added the drift wood the release of tanic acid ate up the buffer and caused the pH to drop to 6.0. This is easily fixed by adding baking soda. Let's not worry about that just yet and concentrate on getting the ammonia out and slowly raising the pH.

Best regards,

William

 

[Dano01]

How will you know when the ammonia is 0 when most test kits will give false positive results when most water conditioners are used?

 

[William Banik]

How will you know when the ammonia is 0 when most test kits will give false positive results when most water conditioners are used?

Dan,

Overlooked your good question. Seachem MultiTest - Ammonia will do the trick. Lamotte Ammonia -LM3304- will also account for ammonia removing conditioners, is easier to read but costs quite a bit more coin.

Best regards,

William

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

There is also a relationship between pH and NH3 that test kits don't reveal, most kits test for NH3/NH4+, the latter being Ammonium which is relatively harmless, and at a pH of 6.0 you will have almost 0 NH3 or the bad Ammonia, which if you're wondering, is why your fish aren't dead with that high of a reading.

Read this article before messing with pH:
Aquaworld Aquarium - The Ammonia and pH Relationship

From what I gathered from this article is that in your situation, a TAN of 8.0 and pH 6.0 you actually have less than 0.005 ppm toxic Ammonia, the rest is Ammonium. They don't give out a formula on that site but it's pretty easy to understand the extremes.