Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => New Fishkeepers => Topic started by: sunshine on March 20, 2015, 11:05:24 AM
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Hi
Just tested the water and pH has dropped from 7.6 to 6.6. I've been doing regular partial water changes. I just did a larger one now 7litres. I'm away until Monday evening so hope it will be ok. Hubby is in charge of feeding fish but refuses to do anything else e.g. testing water.
I've got 10 ember tetras.
Any advice please?
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Have you added a large amount of bogwood to the tank? It can substantially reduce pH though your drop is pretty large...
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This is the 23 litre tank with just 10 embers? I've gone back through your posts and it seems you have very soft water so your KH (carbonate hardness) will also very likely be low too. Carbonate reacts with acids and keeps the pH stable, but you don't have much so it will get used up quickly. The natural processes in the tank (conversion of ammonia to nitrate) and other waste products made by the fish tend to acidify the water.
Before the pH drop, how often and how big were your water changes? With such soft water it might be advisable to do quite large, frequent changes just to top up the carbonate.
Other options would be to put a limestone rock, or piece of coral or even shells int he tank as these will slowly dissolve increasing carbonate (and hardness and pH, but not enough to harm the fish). In this scenario, lots of small water changes are better so the new water isn't very different from the tank water.
Another option would be to use remineralisation salts of the type used with RO water. The downside to this is that once you had slowly increased the amount to give the deired levels, you would have to treat all new water at every water change with the exact same amount of salts to keep the hardness levels stable.
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Hi
Thanks for your replies. Sorry for the delay - I've just got back from my weekend away (training).
Cod_only_knows - this is what I have in my tank along with plants:
small piece of Mopani Wood
Java Fern Coconut Bridge
Java Moss 3 Holed Coconut
Dragon Stone Rock
The above have all been in right from the start of the fishless cycle
Sue, yes it just has the embers in it.
Before this major drop on Friday, I'd been doing 5-7litre water changes every 5 days. The pH had been 7.6 since the fishless cycle but don't know if you remember Sue - I was getting that bright blue colour for pH test for a few weeks before this big drop.
I've just tested it again now & it is 6.4 :-( So I have done another 7l water change now. I have lots of shells around so I will rinse a few and add them to the tank asap as you suggested.
I'm confused as nothing had changed - still the same fish, plants, rocks & wood. Could the tap water have changed? I'll do a test & see.
Thanks again for your help and advice, I really appreciate it. :-)
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I think the cause is probably your KH. With a GH as low as yours, your KH is probably very low too. The natural tendency of a tank is to become acidic - nitrate at the end of the nitrogen cycle is acidic, as are other waste products made by the fish. In the vast majority of tanks, this tendency towards acidity has no effect on the tank's pH as the KH is high enough to remove all the acids. But if the KH is very low it is possible for the water to 'run out' of KH leaving nothing to remove the acidity.
5 litres out of 23 is 21%; 7 litres is 30%. I would try doing 5 litres every 3 days for a while and see if that helps.
If you check your tap water pH, don't forget it needs to gas out before testing. Either let a glass of water stand for 24 hours before testing or give some a very good shake. This will remove any dissolved gasses which could distort the reading.
And it might be worth getting some tap water tested for KH at a shop. If you do, ask them to write down the result, and the units they use (there are several, though degrees of hardness and ppm are the usual ones for KH)
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OK, will do - thanks Sue! Goodness, wish I'd listened more in chemistry classes! ;) I'll try & get it tested & let you know.
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I took water to my LFS (Pets@home) & they just did the same pH test as I do at home. I asked about KH but she didn't really know about that :-/ Interestingly, she said I should do a couple of readings each time as they may be different....she actually did 4 pH tests on the water I took in, 2 were the same 6.4, 1 was 6.0 & 1 was 7.6!!!!! How can that happen? I'm confused! :o
I'll add shells as you suggested, Sue & do the water changes & let you know what happens. Thanks!
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If you don't mind spending a bit of money you can buy KH testers. I had one (till it expired), an API one (£8 - £9) that came in a pack with a GH tester. It might be an idea to get one anyway so you can see if the shells are actually dissolving and increasing your KH.
Re the shop and the pH test - it really shouldn't vary that much over a few minutes on the same sample. It suggests user error to me - if she used a liquid tester, maybe she couldn't count drops or the tube was dirty from last time. If it was a strip tester they are notoriously inaccurate anyway.
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Don't mind spending the money - I'd rather keep my fish safe so I'll have a look for a Kh tester, thanks.
She used an API tester kit like i have. She showed me a bottle of something to 'normalise' your pH (£12) & she said it was a dechlorinator too but I thought I'd try your shell advice first.
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Avoid chemicals that adjust pH. They often contain things you don't really need to add to a tank. The only thing I would even consider is remineralisation salts as all they add is minerals found in naturally hard water and you add only enough to get the hardness you want.
If the shells don't work you could always try changing the substrate to coral sand. This is mainly used by people keeping Rift Lake cichlids which need very hard alkaline water, but that is in addition to using special salts to get the water hard and alkaline. But with your very soft water using coral sand would probably give you slightly raised levels. There would be more of it than shells and the smaller particles would dissolve faster. Calcium carbonate (shells, coral, limestone etc) is officially insoluble in water but it does dissolve very slowly.
This (http://www.apifishcare.com/product.php?sectionid=1&catid=18&subcatid=0&id=587) is the hardness testing pack I had; this (https://uk.hagen.com/Aquatic/Watercare/Test-Kits/A7830) is Nutrafin. Whichever you get, they work differently from pH, ammonia etc. Instead of adding x drops, waiting a few minutes then comparing the colour to a chart, they work by adding one drop at a time until the liquid changes colour. With API, the number of drops = hardness in german degrees and that can be converted to ppm by multiplying by 17.9. With Nutrafin, the number of drops x 10 = hardness in ppm (or mg/l, which is the same thing)
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Thanks Sue, I've ordered the API kit for Kh & Gh. I'm just rinsing the shells now - they've just been decorating my windowsill so sure they're ok! :)
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Hi
Water test results today:
tank:
KH = 1 drop = 17.9ppm
GH = 3 drops = 53.7ppm
tap:
KH = 2 drops = 35.8ppm
GH = 2 drops = 35.8ppm
Ammonia = 0
Nitrite = 0
pH = 6.6
I've been doing 5l water changes every 3 days and added the shells as you suggested, Sue. The fish all seem to be ok - doing their usual thing. :)
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I thought your KH would be low since you said GH is low. The safe level is 4 for KH. See what the shells do to GH, KH and pH over the next few weeks.
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Thought I'd update you....the pH has been 7.6 for the last 4 PWC. So should I remove the shells or leave them in? [Sue, you suggested I add them to help the pH.]
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Leave them in. If you take them out, the next few water changes will remove the carbonate that has dissolved from the shells and you'll be back to square one.
Once the shells get very thin, you'll need to get new ones.
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Thanks Sue - there is so much to learn! I think you should write a book on fishkeeping ....or have you already done so? :)