PH help please

[Vernon Hankins]

I have a 47g tank that I am converting from Blood parrots to a brackish tank. I removed the ciclids and decorations, cleaned the gravel, did a 75% water change, added plants and driftwood. I have no amonia, no nitrite and very little nitrate. After two days I added 8 dwarf puffers, 2 ruby scats, 2 green scats, 1 dragon goby, 5 ghost shrimp and 3 octo... algae eaters. (All the fish are very small) Now to my problem. My PH drops down below my test kits ability. I freaked out, did a 50% water change and tested at 7.0 . This has now happened three days in a row.

[A340]

Sorry, if I'm not reading your question right, but are you trying to raise your pH? I believe most brackish tanks are around 7.5 - 8.5 pH. If so, the easiest way, in my opinion to raise the pH level is to use a different substrate such as crushed coral. I've used this several times in some of my Malawi Cichlid tanks and it works like a charm.

I currently have one tank that is brackish, because our local water already has a pH level of about 7.6, it's not critical for my Snowflake Eel.

I hope that answers your question, if I understood your question wrong, my apologies.

[kimmers318]

What is the PH of your tapwater....check it straight out of the tank, and after letting it sit for an hour or so. If your tap PH is fine, something in there is bringing your PH down, although I don't see anything that would do that.
You need to be careful about bringing PH up, if it keeps swinging back down and you keep bringing it up it will stress the fish.
What test kit are you using? You might want to find one with a larger range and double check directions that you are using it right, and that the kit is not outdated.
If your tap PH is low, there are a lot of people who will be jealous of you as most of our fish have to adapt to our higher PH!!!

[sergo]

it could be a lack of carbonate hardness. have you tested for that? are you using tap or r/o water?

[Chrona]

Sergo hit it on the head. If you have little kH in your tap water, then your water doesn't have much buffering ability. The nitrifying process itself causes the water to go sightly acidic, which is probably what you are seeing. Try adding about 1 teaspoon of baking soda SLOWLY (ie over the course of 2-3 days).

[Lady Hobbs]

Another question......are you using any peat at all because peat will lower the pH.

[Vernon Hankins]

once again my PH was below 5. I checked it from the tap and it is 7.5. I did test for Gh/Kh but am really unsure of what to do to raise the reading. The kit list methods of reducing the figures but nothing about raising them. Oh... here are the readings. Gh - 8, Kh - 2. The test set is a Tetra. I have also used an API for the PH and it reads the same. I am still trying to figure why this is happening only to this tank, my other 2 are fine.

[sergo]

your kh is too low. it needs to be at about 6-8. chorona gave you the best method for raising it.

[Chrona]

2, 6 degrees I'm assuming? As long as you have some kH in the tank (and 2 dH is enough), you shouldn't see any pH swings as a result of nitrification.


After reading your post again, I realize we all missed the obvious culprit. Your driftwood is lowering the pH. Try taking it out, doing a water change and observing the pH then.

[Lady Hobbs]

I've had driftwood lower my pH a point or two but never that much.

[sergo]

my driftwood doesn't jack with my ph at all.
i've always been under the impression that about 6*kh is ideal for ph stability. or have i been under the wrong impression?

[Chrona]

my driftwood doesn't jack with my ph at all.
i've always been under the impression that about 6*kh is ideal for ph stability. or have i been under the wrong impression?

That may have been partly my doing. I think I said 4-5 kH is ideal a while back, for stability purposes, but I have since found out 1-2 is just fine. You just have to have some to buffer the water. Anything past 2 just raises the pH unnecessarily.

[Vernon Hankins]

well it looks loke it was the buffering. I found an amquel product in powder form to stablize the PH. It kept the PH from droping off the scale. This morning my tank is at 6.5. Alot better than swimming in acid.