ph drops .5 per day

[mickeyG]

Hello All

I decided a couple of weeks ago to "beef up" my planted discus tank (still keeping 1.3 watts per gallon) with lots more plants. Hope I don't regret this as I had problems before when I tried a high tech planted tank.

I turned the CO2 back on (on and off with lights) and raised my kh back to 3.5 for safety. The CO2 level gets up to mid 30ppm by nighttime. Now my pH is around 7.0 in the am and 6.5 by lights out. Will this daily .5 point drop and increase take a toll on my 4 adult discus. They seem not to notice at all, but I am asking just the same.

Thanks

Michael

[Dave_Discus]

Your all good unless it starts to eat away at your kh.
Excess c02 turns into carbonic acid which erodes your buffer {kh}
Keep an eye on your kh and buffer if needed.

[lhforbes12]

Michael,
Dave is... mostly correct. CO2 and water does equal carbonic acid. However, since you are doing your wc's regularly there is no need for you to worry about it.

[Dave_Discus]

Good 'ol water changes.:D

[jeep8rus]

Plus it's a gradual decrease. If it dropped .5 pH in a minute they would notice. The daily drop isn't fast enough. Are you buffering your water with something? I have hard water so when I ran CO2 I didn't worry about it after a while.

-Russ

[judy]

I'm thinking you might buffer the water a bit to get the Kh up to five or six. That will help prevent the ph swing... but keep an eye on teh Kh. It it gets much lower than what you have now, you could be asking for a major, sudden Ph crash-- and that will hurt or kill the fish.

[phidelt85]

At a higher kH you'll have more CO2 in the water at the same pH, you may have to adjust your "daytime" pH.