ph mystery

[Shadow]

how low is low? did you use peat, ada/gex soils, etc that might cause low pH? how old is your setup?

You can use baking soda to increase it, but not advisable until you know what causing the pH drop.

[godprint]

how low is low? did you use peat, ada/gex soils, etc that might cause low pH? how old is your setup?

You can use baking soda to increase it, but not advisable until you know what causing the pH drop.

i using those normal ph test kit, (add 5ml water, drop 6drops) that kind of kit.

it's reflected at yellow color = ph 5.0, but i suspect it might be lower.

basically everything that's in the tank has been there for 3weeks or more.

namely:
- 1piece of driftwood(which was ran with boiling water before putting in)
- 2bunches of amazon swords
- 20 discus( 3" avg) ->eating well
- 6otos (all died suddenly 2nights ago)
- 2cories (died this morning)
- 5sae (still alive)

food type(morning and night only usually):
-bloodworm
-brineshrimp
-occasional beefheart
-tetra bits

canister: fluval 404

tanksize: 4ft (250L)

mmm please advice further... symtoms to see? rectifications?(put abit of sodium bicarbonate?)

thanks a million guys... (have since changed 35% of water with spare running tank wateR)

[Shadow]

if you are using ADA soils, my experience, water pH will be around 5 for the first 4 weeks. Actually mine was 4.8 measured using pH pen. It will slowly go up and stabilize at around 6.2. At least that what happen with mine. Not sure about ges or magic soil though.

That is why I'm asking about your substrate. As far as I now, none of the thing that you list down causing pH drop, except for the driftwood, but shouldn't be that much.

By the way, you can increase the pH test kit accuracy by double the water sample. For example you can increase it to 10ml instead of 5ml but the you need twice more drop to get yellow color.

[godprint]

if you are using ADA soils, my experience, water pH will be around 5 for the first 4 weeks. Actually mine was 4.8 measured using pH pen. It ill slowly go up and stabilize at around 6.2. At least that what happen with mine. Not sure about ges or magic soil though.

That is why I'm asking about your substrate. As far as I now, none of the thing that you list down causing pH drop, except for the driftwood, but shouldn't be that much.

By the way, you can increase the pH test kit accuracy by double the water sample. For example you can increase it to 10ml instead of 5ml but the you need twice more drop to get yellow color.

hi shadow,

yeah, as you mentioned, i felt non was causing such a low ph... what do any of you guys suggest i do now?

thanks!

[Quixotic]

Ian,

Uhm, your questions on this are all over in various threads, and you are going to get different and sometimes conflicting answers in the different threads/forums. If the issue is specific to your tank, why don't you just create a new thread for it. It will be easier for everyone to help you as well, right?

would a low ph kill otos and corys? because it seems that way, as i just changed water, and cleaned my filter, but the ph is also still very low.

Based on your tank setup, these are the observations:
1. Your tank is very sparsely planted,
2. Your tank bioload is on the high side,
3. Your tank has only been set up for only 3 weeks,
4. Your discus are messy eaters (especially with beefheart)

What is the substrate in your tank, ADA soil? How did you clean the filter? Water straight from the tap? Add any de-chlorinators? The answers, I suspect, will lie somewhere in between the above and the observations of your tank setup.

So I do not think that the low pH is the cause of your issues.

[stephen chung]

Yi Xiang,

Can bring your setup to my house? Whatever methods the forumers here use can otbring down the ph in my tank without adding ph minus....My aged water is arounf ph8 tap water is 9.2...sian man...

[doppelbanddwarf]

Wow stephen where do you stay? With water pH that high you should convert to some hardwater African cichlids.

[salexjared]

One which work pretty well is to put in coral rock in the tank, add coral chips in the canister filter.

You would see the PH going up to 7 (depending on how long you leave it in there).

Anyway, it would bring up your PH.... I found out that it becomes neutral quite quickly and you would need to remove the coral rock etc and let it balance itself back to around 6.0.

If you have expansive fish already in it, then dont try I was playing around myself for my shrimps and fishes etc and I had no causality . Only on my RCS and not CRS tank.

[stephen chung]

Wow stephen where do you stay? With water that high you should convert to some hardwater African cichlids.

I am staying at Serangoon Gardens area...I have seriously consider setting up a malawi tank...It will ben damn easy for me...hahahaha