Driftwood dropped my PH to 4 overnight zzz

[sootz]

Hi all,

Need help from shrimp pros here.

I just bought this driftwood with plant from LFS yesterday. This morning my pH dropped from 7.5~8 to ~4...

I changed 10-15% water and left for work. Hopefully no casualties when I reach home later...

Anybody else has this experience? What to do? As this driftwood comes with the plants on it, can't do hot water treatment...


Background info:
- 20 liters of water (i think) in this 25liter tank
- 15-20 sakura shrimps in it
- Gex plant soil (The green colour 1)
- Biohome plus in the filter
- Besides the driftwood, there are some frogbit, water lettuce, java fern, 2 marimo mossballs in the tank

[sootz]

oh and 1 piece of ketapang leaf that has been left inside for 1 month liao

[Urban Aquaria]

Seems odd that with planted soil substrate your usual water pH was still 7.5-8.0... usually it should be around 6.5-7.0 range, especially with soil designed for plants. Plus you also have ketapang leaf in the tank too, which should keep pH lower.

Any change in use of test kit? Might be expired or somehow not generating accurate readings.

Certain types of driftwood can sometimes leach alot of tannins when put into tanks initially and it'll lower pH too, but i have not heard of or experienced pH dropping until so low (and so quickly) because of a piece of added wood, its quite strange indeed.

[sootz]

Thanks for the reply.


Sorry false alarm, I just got home and all shrimps are alive


The cause is coughIamanoobIdunnohowtouseaphmeterproperlylolcough


pH now is 7.5, please ignore this whole thing

[Evilsands]

i like your wood~! the plants are healthy~!

[stormhawk]

One thing I have to say, those small plants anchored in the wood are not epiphytic like Java Ferns and such and will not take root into the wood. These are considered marsh plants from the genus Eriocaulon. You might want to remove them manually from the wood and plant them in the substrate. I agree with Urban however, the pH should be below 7. If there is something wrong with your pH pen I'd suggest re-calibrating it.

[sootz]

Just started a thread for my shrimp tank http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...325#post737325

This pH pen of mine is really weird, I tried the below steps this morning:
- Use pH pen on a small tank of tap water with prime, left overnight: 8.5
- Use pH pen on my shrimptank: ~2? 3? 4?...cannot be right because the shrimps are not dashing around or not moving at all...
- Use pH pen again on a small tank of tap water with prime, left overnight: 8.5
- Use pH pen again on my shrimptank: ~2? 3? 4?
- Use a tissue paper to clean the pH pen...
- Use pH pen on my shrimptank: 7.5!

[Urban Aquaria]

You'll actually need to calibrate the pH pen with both 7.0 pH and 4.0 pH calibration solution regularly (soak the tip in each calibration solution for at least 30 seconds before doing the calibration adjustments)... if its not calibrated properly or only calibrated with one solution (not both), then the results will be not accurate.

In addition, the tip of the pH pen should only be washed with distilled water after each calibration and after each use to prevent residual contamination, don't use tap water or else it might become off-calibration again.

I initially went though alot of crazy wierd readings with my pH pen too (i forgot to read the instructions), only after i eventually calibrated and maintained it properly, then got accurate measurements.

[oakleyleo]

really sorry to hijack this thread. I have been looking for this TS's photo. Can someone please ID that plant in the picture. The bright green flower looking ones

[sootz]

really sorry to hijack this thread. I have been looking for this TS's photo. Can someone please ID that plant in the picture. The bright green flower looking ones

cyperus haspen

[stormhawk]

If these are Cyperus haspan then you are looking only at the top most part of the reed, which is the mop head of flowers, which will wilt away over time. I do not think it is this plant, but whatever it might be, this is definitely a marsh plant and you will need to keep part of it out of the water or the plant may rot off and die.