Extremely low PH with Benibachi soil

[route]

Hi,

I'm using Benibachi mineral soil in an ADA Mini S tank with roughly a 3 - 4cm soil height. PH reading is currently at 4.5 which is too low for the CRS. Shrimps are doing fine but I would like to further raise the PH of the tank to the upper 5 range - anything above 5.5. Tried doing water change using my tap water (ph 7.2) and it brought up the PH of the tank to 5.4 for probably 30mins before it goes back down to the PH 4 range. I do a 20% change each time to avoid any drastic change in water perimeters.

Any advice on how i can raise the PH slowly? The soil was suppose to buffer the PH to around 6 but somehow its a little too aggressive in buffering the water

[torque6]

Hello route. Adding small amount of coral chips helps to buffer PH, but then again, tank this small will be difficult to maintain stable water parameters. It will be subjected to large PH swings as you are seeing now. 30mins drop 5.4 -> 4... all shrimps may suffer.

Your old 1.5 feet tank would have been a better choice for shrimps.

PS: By the way, not to say small tank not good for keeping shrimps, as I have seen office nano tanks 9L with moss only and have shrimps.