PH on a decline

[Mando]

Merry Christmas to All!

I noticed a few days ago (12/20) that my PH is steadily dropping. So I did a water change to bring it back up. However, next day it dropped again so I did another water change, and again it drops.

It feels like I'm having a ph crash? nothing has changed in the tank and the drop happens over 24 hours. For example. 12/26/19, 6.0 PH at 6:20am. 5.55 at 11:00pm, and this morning 5.44ph. It will continue on the decline until I water change. What could be going on? nothing has changed in the tank.

12/20/19
7:00am - 6.45 ph
6:00pm - 6.34 ph
11:00pm - 6.29 ph

12/21/19
7:00am - 6.16ph
6:00pm - 5.98
11:00pm - 5.82ph

12/22/19
7:00am - 5.65
1:00pm - 5.42

12/22/19, this is when I noticed the ph drop and I performed a water change. WC brought me back up to 6.46 but by 9pm I was at 5.81 again. My water is aged for 24 hours before going into the tank.

[jeep]

Is this your tap water?

[Mando]

Is this your tap water?

Tap into my 55g drum. Been running this setup for 2 years.

[danotaylor]

Mando it seems like somehow the carbonates in your system are being depleted. Your pH is already acidic and the nitrogen cycle is an acidifying process. Try adding some egg shells or coral sand or aragonite to replete your carbonates. This should stabilize you pH.

[Mando]

Mando it seems like somehow the carbonates in your system are being depleted. Your pH is already acidic and the nitrogen cycle is an acidifying process. Try adding some egg shells or coral sand or aragonite to replete your carbonates. This should stabilize you pH.

It started out of the blue. What could have triggered this?

[Mando]

Would 100% water change replete? I can do a 20% water change every hour until I can stabilize it.

[dspeers]

My process approaching this would be:
1. Is my ph probe accurate
2. Did something change in my source water.....would set aside a 5 gallon bucket and track ph beyond 24 hours and see if it is dropping and test Kh both in source and aquarium.
3. Is filtration system overwhelmed, what are the nitrates
4. Any new changes, i.e. different food source, plant fert, different filter material or anything else that might have changed

If none of the above is going on, not sure what could trigger this.

[danotaylor]

Hard to say really mate, possibly a change in your municipal treatment process. Did you ever check the kH of your source water previously? If so, check it now and see if it is less than before.

[danotaylor]

Just saw Don's post, lol, what he said, haha

[dspeers]

It's always fun when you are typing away and then hit post to see someone else has already responded Has happened to me several times, probably ought to learn to type faster. Also, according to my daughter I am good at looking silly anyway.....

[jeep]

Winter can play havoc with municipal water supplies. You never know what adjustments are being made at the source. Your ph seems to be dropping quite rapidly so it's definitely worth monitoring. You can also use little sodium bicarbonate to raise and buffer your ph until you figure things out. A little goes a long way...

[Mando]

My process approaching this would be:
1. Is my ph probe accurate
2. Did something change in my source water.....would set aside a 5 gallon bucket and track ph beyond 24 hours and see if it is dropping and test Kh both in source and aquarium.
3. Is filtration system overwhelmed, what are the nitrates
4. Any new changes, i.e. different food source, plant fert, different filter material or anything else that might have changed

If none of the above is going on, not sure what could trigger this.

1. I thought the same thing, but even if it's not accurate, the decline should alert that there is a problem whether it is reading 7ph as 6ph. I'll re-calibrate the probe. I hope I still have solution.
2. Could be a possibility. I will test the PH after 24 hours. The weird thing is that when I add water from my aged tank, the PH rises. So I'm thinking the problem is in my tank. I will test KH on aged drum, tank, and 5g bucket (test bucket)
3. I threw in extra sponges two weeks ago to seed them, other than that, filtration should be fine. I have a sump and a canister with lava rocks only. I'll check nitrates shortly. I've been feeding once a day since I've been overwhelmed with the holidays.
4. I added Pothos to my sump on the 23rd, no ferts, no co2, nothing else.

[Mando]

ok, so my tank has no KH. First drop turns yellow using the API kit. It's supposed to turn blue. Also, nitrates are between 5-10. Nitrite is o.

I measured my tap and I have a KH of 3. Aged drum has a KH of 2.

[dspeers]

1. I agree that the probe cannot be the entire source of the problem since it consistently shows a falling Ph until water change, but was hoping it was possibly exaggerating the problem
2. Was more interested in the trend in the aged water, as in is the ph also falling and if so how far even after 24 hours. Given that you are using chloramines, you are adding small amounts of NH3 as well as off gassing CO2. Both would raise Ph, so if it is going down, which is implied by the falling Kh, one wonders why. To date I have not found a good explanation for why some tap water Ph goes down (other than biological contamination) with aging. The bucket was in case something got into your barrel, but if that were the case I would expect the pH to be much lower from the barrel.
3. Sure, it is the sponges fault....although I would take them out out of respect for Murphy's law. 4. Feed that Pothos lots of light.......though your NO3 is not your primary source of Ph change, just not high enough.
4. gotta get your Kh up, how depends on how high your Gh is, low add Ca carbonate, at or above target Na carbonate. Also if we believe the data I wonder why your Kh is falling at all in your aging barrel
5. Final question though with low NO3 almost impossible for this to be the cause, any way one of your fish is in the sump or canister? Small fish in my canister crashed my african tank decades ago, resulted from GF trying to do me a favor. She did not tell me that she had tried to clean the gravel and knocked off the strainer from the intake.

[Mando]

1. I agree that the probe cannot be the entire source of the problem since it consistently shows a falling Ph until water change, but was hoping it was possibly exaggerating the problem
2. Was more interested in the trend in the aged water, as in is the ph also falling and if so how far even after 24 hours. Given that you are using chloramines, you are adding small amounts of NH3 as well as off gassing CO2. Both would raise Ph, so if it is going down, which is implied by the falling Kh, one wonders why. To date I have not found a good explanation for why some tap water Ph goes down (other than biological contamination) with aging. The bucket was in case something got into your barrel, but if that were the case I would expect the pH to be much lower from the barrel.
3. Sure, it is the sponges fault....although I would take them out out of respect for Murphy's law. 4. Feed that Pothos lots of light.......though your NO3 is not your primary source of Ph change, just not high enough.
4. gotta get your Kh up, how depends on how high your Gh is, low add Ca carbonate, at or above target Na carbonate. Also if we believe the data I wonder why your Kh is falling at all in your aging barrel
5. Final question though with low NO3 almost impossible for this to be the cause, any way one of your fish is in the sump or canister? Small fish in my canister crashed my african tank decades ago, resulted from GF trying to do me a favor. She did not tell me that she had tried to clean the gravel and knocked off the strainer from the intake.

My aged barrel had water well after 24 hours since I skipped last night water change and the PH was at about 7.00ph. I did a water change and now my tanks PH went up to 6.7ph. I looked at my apex and it dropped .02 then raised .04. Not sure if it will drop overnight. I may add crushed coral and do a WC in the morning, afternoon, and evening so I can get it back to normal.

I will measure GH shortly.