PH Issues... From CBOng

[Allen_1971]

OK I received a pm the other day requesting for help, and I thought it would be better if everyone could answer him instead of just me... always good to get a few opinions.

Beginners Info Sheet
++++++++++++++++++

Tank Dimensions (LxWxH): 4x1.5x2ft
Lighting Intensity(No of Watts): 4 x 36W
Type of Lighting (FL/PL/MH) : 2 x FL & 2 x PL
No. of Hours your light is on: 7hrs
CO2 Injection Rate (bps) : 4 bps
Type of CO2 (DIY/Liquid/Tank) : Gas Cylinder
Substrate Used : RMC
How Thick is your base fert : 1 inch of Dennerle 120
How thick is your gravel : 4 inch fore and 6 inch back
Liquid Fertilizers Used : Seachem Flourish Trace & Tropica Mastergrow
Frequency of fertilization : weekly
Tank Temperature : 27.4
Type of Filter (overhead/internal/canister) : cannister
Filter media used : Ehiem 2224, wool, ceramic rings, Ehiem substrate
How long has your tank been set up : 1 week


Chemical Properties (Fill what you can)
---------------------------------------

Carbonate Hardness (kh):
Total Hardness (gH):
PH : 7.3
NH4 (ppm):
NO2 (ppm):
NO3 (ppm): 0 mg/l
PO4 (ppm):
Fe (ppm):

Bioload (Your Fish and Plants)
------------------------------

<2 x SAE; 2 x otto; 10 x Yamato>
<10 x assorted plants, green + red ... not sure of names though>


Describe your problem :

<tried searching the site for ph. What is a good range for ph in a average planted tank? Was once told 6.7 - 7.0. How then do I reduce my ph from 7.4? Increase CO2? or use buffer?>
Pls advice and thanks

[Allen_1971]

OK heres my take...

1) your lighting levels are a little low for your tank size
2) If your tank is newly setup, your light hours are ok...
3) There is no need to dose seachem trace and TMG simlutaneously... TMG is quite complete in trace elements

Some questions from me :

1) how are you dissolving your CO2? diffusor? reactor? atomizer?

2) you need to measure your KH... CO2/PH/KH are all linked in a planted tank... if you want to bring your PH down, you need to first know your KH. Heres a link explaining this

[sherchoo]

I find the gravel a bit too thick. Actually, I would recomend 3" of fert and 1" of gravel.

[cbong]

this observation about too much gravel is something new. had several opinion to have thicker gravel. interesting new opinion, but how then to prevent the fine fert from clouding?

[cbong]

thanks Allen. I was advice to use the seachem to provide the iron content for red plants. is TMG alone good enough?

[cbong]

i am using a reactor to dissolve the CO2

[cbong]

For a planted tank, what would be an ideal condition for:

pH: ??
KH: ??
other parameters: ??

pls advice.

[Goondoo]

----------------
On 3/3/2003 10:00:00 PM

For a planted tank, what would be an ideal condition for:

pH: ??
KH: ??
other parameters: ??

pls advice.
----------------

As you can read in most articles, there's never an standard "ideal" condition for plants or fish. Apparently, plants growth might be affected by water supply conditions, human care, kind of fishes in the community tank, light supply, CO2 availibility, speed of water flow, temperature, various swings of PH, KH, different chemicals like fertilization, trace elements, NO3, PO4..........

As such living things are totally different from Computer Technologies, there isn't any standard "settings" on how to "tweak" your environment for them. The only ways are maybe, lots of reading, lots of failure, lots of holes in your pocket and lots of cursing and swearing. What we can discuss here should be merely what we thought could affect the plants' growth or how we could discuss what we had failed to understand. It should not be simply taken as a "Walk Through" or "Installation Guide". We can't justify a twins having the same meals, same parental care, same education.... and still end up with different thinking, different "maturing" age.......

Pardon my whining.... had a bad day in office... Lucky tomorrow Malaysia Public Holiday... else don't know how to survive tonight...

[loupgarou]

Describe your problem :


Pls advice and thanks

---------------
sorry, if there's no problem, I've got no solution.. sit back and enjoy..lol

unless you mean ph too high.

check your water. who knows, your tap water might be hard (however unlikely that is in singapore)

[Allen_1971]

CBong,

Normally we target CO2 levels of about 20ppm... If you read the link I originally posted, you should be able to see a PH/KH value which gives this level.

The normal way of achieving this is to first fix your KH to your desired level, and follow up with CO2 injection to bring the PH down.