How to control ph?

[cakchew]

hi guys. the story goes like this: my tank's ph is always in the acidic range. i use ph tester to test before and the colour shows a ph of about 6.5. however the ph suddenly shot up to probably ard 7.5-8.0 after i came back from my hostel. i stay in my hostel so i go back once a week to see my tank. this happened when i wrapped my inlet with sponge to prevent the shrimps frm being sucked in. however i did not washed the sponge because i was lazy and i guessed the water quality caused the ph to rise? so i took out the ph and did water change. however it has been one month since i took out the sponge but the ph is still in the alkaline side. may i knw what is happening? does the ph decrease from DR.Mallick helps?

[|squee|]

If you're injecting CO2, increase the bubble rate slightly. More CO2 dissolved can help lower the pH.

If not injecting CO2, then... if you really want the pH to be on the acidic side use those pH reducers or use ketapang leaves.

[cakchew]

i used dr mallick's ph down but like no use man. jialat man...quite frustrated over the problem.

[valice]

hi guys. the story goes like this: my tank's ph is always in the acidic range. i use ph tester to test before and the colour shows a ph of about 6.5. however the ph suddenly shot up to probably ard 7.5-8.0 after i came back from my hostel.

Check the accuracy of your pH tester first when in doubt...
Get distilled water and check.. It should give you a reading of 7.

Btw, any shrimp death as a result? If there isn't, then don't need to worry too much... Ignorance is sometimes a bliss...

[PeterGwee]

Do note that the pH of all kind of substrates once flooded (contact with water) after a few weeks or months will return to or near neutral (pH 7.0) even with aquasoil. I'm not sure why shrimp folks like to mess with the pH so much as there is simply no way of keeping it at one point nor does it matter that much unless you are actually messing around with the KH and GH salt content (keep it near to the tap water level or you risk stressing them whenever you do water changes.). I just use my tap water for my planted tank without adding much stuff except a little GH booster and plant nutrients.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[cakchew]

thanks peter. so how do you adjust the gh or kh? add what leh??? any threads that teach on the gh,kh,ph correlation??

[valice]

You will need to let us know how's your set up like... So that we can advise correctly...

But the geez is that, if the pH is gradually increased due to the peat effect wearing off or what, it is alright. You don't need to worry about the pH now at 7.8... In fact, in Jurong, tap water has a pH of 7.6 due to chloromine...

[cakchew]

my set up ah. nothing different leh. jbj base fert. lapissand. cannister filter with some ehiem lava rock and ceramic rings. fert dose of seachem macros micros. malayan shrimps,black mollies. thats all! and the worst thing is the ph was ard acidic range for a few months before transiting to alkaline. its so pissing man!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[PeterGwee]

When plants do well, they remove much of the CO2 (acid) and the pH moves up (due to the alkaline buffer..baking soda). Why folks especially those shrimp loving ones seem to think that it is an issue beats me.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[wasabi8888]

Peter


This is new to me.. are you saying that when plants do well, they abosrb more CO2 and thus ph will move up? if so, should we then increase CO2 to compensate that?

is pearling a sign of CO2 saturation?

[valice]

Yup... CO2 will push the pH down due to carbonic acid... It is a mild acid...
So when the plants uses the CO2, less carbonate is present in the water, so pH will move up slowly (note: not drastically, so no shrimp death). Whereas using pH down solutions, might cause drastic change in pH, and that leads to shrimp death...

Don't up and down your CO2, as that is the cause of BBA. Hit the CO2 high right from the start with surface movement to allow air exchange...

Pearling is a sign of gas (O2 and CO2 and what nots) saturation in the water...

[wasabi8888]

Vincent

I justed up my bps from 1.5 to 2 so that i can see more pearling from the plants with my new T5 lights.. is that wise or not? I reckon since i changed from 36W PL to 48W T5, the plants would abosrb more CO2....

[valice]

Yup... Increase lights will mean increased uptake.
But that is unless you have high plant load too...

With T5, if you have good CO2, you will definitely get pearling 4 hours before lights off... But Peter always mentioned that pearling should start 2 hours after lights on... Which I still can't obtain... Sigh...

[wasabi8888]

So how do you obtain that?

Is that such a thing as an ideal time for lights to be on?

What is your timing like?
My timing is 745am to 830am (cos that's when i wake up and feed the apistos)

11am to 3pm
7pm to 12am...

is the above too much?


I went home at about 1130am today (lights come on at 11am) and I do not see much pearling.....

[valice]

My timing is 2pm to 12am... No siesta...
I only feed my fishes once a day (sometimes once every 2 days) on weekdays and twice a day on weekends...

My fishes still sleeping in the morning, so no point feeding them in the morning...

Increase your CO2 somemore... Grey_fox managed to attain the 2hour pearling with 7bps on his 5ft tank... So I believe it is achieveable... Don't use your bubble counter as the ultimate gauge of BPS... use instead the entry rate of the CO2 into either your reactor or diffusor as the gauge...

My CO2 required very high pressure to enter my reactor, so if I used only 1.5/2 bps, the co2 could never enter the reactor... but now i just stuff my co2 tubing into my surface skimmer and co2 is like 2bps when exiting from the tube... But bubble counter is giving me 4/5bps (due to length of tube)...

[wasabi8888]

What fishes are you having? my apistos seem hungry all the time.. everytime i walk near, they come up to eat..... they even nimble at my finger when i am removing some leaves that floated on top....

[cakchew]

i am living in kallang area. can anyone recommend a rough bubble rate for my 3 feet tank? it is planted with quite some plants.