PH problem?? Please read

1637 Views 4 Replies 4 Participants Last post by hubbahubbahehe, Apr 1, 2004

OakRaid

Discussion Starter · Mar 30, 2004

Hello, hope some of the experianced people will give me some impute on this .....
New tank .. 50gl .. running about a month. I checked the PH a few times the first couple weeks, and was 6.8 ...Now all of a suden, I am getting 7.8 on the tank. I checked the water supliers web site...and they are saying that the PH is 8.4 average!! I don't under stand how I could have had a 6.8 after setting up the tank?? my substraight is flourite...would it have been posible for the flourite to have buffered the water for a while after set up?
So now that I am running such a high PH ... would like to ask how this will affect my plants/fish, I know most plants like an acidic environment .. Fish in the tank right now consist of ..
1 Flame dwarf Gourami, 10 Neon Tetra, 2 SAE

I did more tests tonight, so thought I would list them here for you guys to see and try and tell me what I should do to, if anything like buffer, RO water, or get my water in another city??

PH... tank 7.8 Tap water ... 8.0
KH... tank 4dkh/71.6 ppm Tap water... 8dkh/143.2 ppm
GH... tank 7dgh/125.3 ppm Tap water... 4dgh/71.6 ppm
NH3... tank 0
NO2 .. Tank 0
NO3 .. Tank 0

Thank you!!

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gpodio

· #2 · Mar 30, 2004

With a KH of 4, your PH sounds right for a non CO2 enriched tank. Any chance you tested the PH shortly after a water change when your readings were lower? Tap water is compressed so it contains a lot of CO2 which will bring down the PH. Once the CO2 has gassed out, the water will stabalize to atmospheric concentrations of CO2, bring the PH back up. Wait at least 24 hours after doing a water change before testing the water. A few swings here and there in a new setup are not uncommon however, trust your current test results, they sound right on, you'd need to inject CO2 to get your PH down to 6.8 with your current KH.

Regarding the plants, if their needs are met, there is little preference in PH alone. Plants like CO2 (among other things), CO2 brings down the PH, perhaps this is why many say that plants like a low PH, but it's really just a secondary effect of the higher CO2 levels, that's what the plants really like.

Hope that helps
Giancarlo Podio

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OakRaid

Discussion Starter · #3 · Mar 30, 2004

THank you Giancarlo ... So you don't think the high PH will effect the plants at all? What about the fish? Most community fish ask for a much lower PH, and based on my water companys average, sounds like my PH could increase a little bit also.
I really don't want to use CO2 unless I have to.

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HeyPK

· #4 · Mar 30, 2004

That higher pH is telling you that you have lower CO2 than you did when you started. As a generality, the best way to run a tank that does not have added CO2, is to use relatively low light in the range of one to two watts of fluorescent lighting per gallon. Plants that are well adapted to growing submersed are best. The old-fashoned Amazon sword plants that have been in the hobby for a long time do well.

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hubbahubbahehe

· #5 · Apr 1, 2004

My water paramters are the same as yours. I used to worry that I wouldn't be able to grow plants at all either. But it's just fine. Don't worry, you'll be just fine. If you feel you need to lower ph, you should use ONLY Co2 as a means to lower it.

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