pH crashing in friend's tank

[Batt4Christ]

A buddy of mine who recently got back in to freshwater aquariums (in the last 8 months or so), and who I have finally put on the right track as far as plants are concerned has a problem related to pH.

He has a 20g long at home that he has a fairly fine gravel bottom to, fake driftwood, and some real plants. Water chemistry hasn't been an issue...untill"

He set up a DIY CO2 system with a flipper diffuser. Ran it for a couple of days, then checked his water chemistry. While all the rest of the parameters seem fine (using API master test kit):

Ammo: 0
NitrAte: 0
Nitrite: between 20 & 40ppm

But his pH was 6.0

His tap water comes out at 7.0.

He tested his water using the only tests he had for hardness/alkylinity (some strips) and I don't recall the numbers, but they reflect medium hardness and alkalinity.

So he unplugged his CO2, did a water change and got the pH back up to 6.4.

Next morning it was at 6.6

Got home from work and was back down to 6.0.

Did another water change - got it back up to 6.6

Of course, he is stressing his fish beyond measure in the process.

This morning - back to 6.0, his small school of neons looked bleached out. He did another water change and neons regained some color.

His substrate is gravel (aquarium gravel), a piece of fake driftwood (specifically for aquarium use). He has a few small collected rocks (I would think these would be more likely to cause hard water issues/high pH than lower...??). His fish stocking is:

12 neon tetras
6 bleeding heart tetras
One apple snail

He also has several live plants - amazon sword, java moss, java fern, anubias.

He has "cleaned" out his AquaClear filter as per my directions (gentle squeeze in tank water from water change). He did say there was a lot of brown slime. He vacuums his gravel when he does water changes, so tank is pretty "clean". Temp is 79 degrees.

He did have a bout with ich about 3 weeks back, which he treated with heat and a little aquarium salt. But has done several water changes since then.

Any guesses or directions to point him? I am at a loss.

 

[Monkey Magic]

I had massive fluctuations with my ph
At one stage it was the highest it could go on my api test kit then i took out my buffers and it whent to the lowest even unidentifiale colors on my kit and havent lost a single discus or ram which are 'apparently' more sensitive to changes in their environemnt than most. so i did a little bit of reading about other peoples expirience and came to the conclusion that sometimes ph is overrated its more about your gh kh im still having fluctuations with my water. my water is incredibly soft out of the tap which makes it unstable anyway. i wish i knew what was causing mine to fluctuate but ive just rolled with it and buffered accordingly.

 

[absolutangel04]

I wouldn't be concerned about a pH of 6. Stability is more important than any given number.
Did he measure the tap water right away, or after letting it sit for a day?

 

[Batt4Christ]

He measured at the tap.

 

[absolutangel04]

Let the water sit for 24 hours and then test it. That's more accurate than right out of the tap.

 

[rkilling1]

I wouldn't be concerned about a pH of 6. Stability is more important than any given number.
Did he measure the tap water right away, or after letting it sit for a day?

I agree. There is nothing wrong with his pH.

What did he expect would happen after adding CO2? It's a fact that adding CO2 will lower your pH.

The more stuff he does to correct the non-issue, the more problems he is going to have.

Oh, and tell him to post on here instead of you.

EDIT: let's just say that his tap water is truly 7.0 and he added CO2 and now the pH is 6.0. PERFECT, dropping the pH by one pH unit means he is adding 30 ppm CO2 which is the ideal amount.

 

[Batt4Christ]

He hasn't posted because he hasn't registered yet (and is quite busy - he is a public school band director with a lot of responsibilities going on - particularly with the end of the year stuff going on. I told him I would post for him and have kept in regular contact.

As far as the pH is concerned - it is the rapid fall that concerns him (and me). When he removes the CO2, pH doesn't rebound. It stays at 6.0.

 

[Razorback01]

I just noticed this thread that was posted for me! Thanks batt! As for the answer: I realized that my DIY yeast mixture contained too much yeast and it was reacting too fast through the sugar. Once I realized that tablespoons was supposed to be teaspoons, it made all the difference in the world! I have since added pressurized co2 and things are going very well for the time being!





I'm very glad to be aboard! I'm still very new to the planted tank game but thanks to a little LFS knowledge, a little AA, and a lot of me constantly texting batt4christ, my tank looks pretty descent for now!