Aprils water dilemnas.

[April]

ok...heres what i have..dont ask too many questions with too many numbers etc .
my ms is 30. my gh and kh is one or less than.
so....i have tried many things. lately i have been using af cichlid chemistry to bring up my hardness and minerals.
the problem i am having..is sliding ph. it is fine with my adults as they can handle it . but the tiny fry cant.
i got a new handy dandy ph hanna meter from a very nice friend. so been testing.
heres todays results on all the tanks. all had 50 percent wc last night. all from stored water in a 100 gallon tank.which the ph was 7.
my tiny fry tank is.....6.3 with a bag of coral by the bubbles of the hydro sponge.i have two hydros running. and vacuum the bottom after each feed and no slime on the glass.
my older fry tank is....6.4 last night before wc it was 5.9 i added a bit of baking soda and then did a 50 percent change. with coral in a bag on the hydro sponge. .and have 3 size 5 hydros in a 40 gallon with 15 1.5 to 2 inch fry. many small meals a day and 50 percent change at night for now.

my next tank who had two adults in it is...6.1one hydro
next tank..one adult. aquaclear 200. and 6.8
storage today is 6.9.
yesterday it was 7.2
60 gallon tank...with 5 adults 5.2. but..was doing every second day wc on them.
so...what to use to keep it stable? if i add higher ph stored water to the fry.even 5 gallons at a time..i lose them. they see me spiral and drop dead.
so.now i bought kent ro right to try. and i also bought proper ph 6.5 . but not sure i f i can use both.
any ideas?

april,
what about a drip for the fry tanks?? then that way they would always be getting fresh water, but it would be more of a gradual addition of new water...much less fluctuation of the parameters....and continue with you media bag of coral...
david

[April]

that most likely would work best.but im in a 5th floor condo and worried id be evicted if it didnt go well. and.no idea how. or where to hook in. and they keep finding reasons to come in when im not home. and im meant to have a goldfish bowl or a 10 gallon tank tops..not tanks all over the house.

I thought that was illegal....I have to give my tenants 24 hours notice to come in unless it's an emergency-or I ask nicely...
Maybe you could hang paintings of "dogs playing poker" over your tanks to disguise them... ;)
david

[April]

they do send a notice but then what david? if im not home.im gonna hide all my 100 gallon tanks toute suite?
and they said last time if i said no id have to arrange another time and pay their fees to return. fire alarm inspection.

[BlueTurquoise]

Sounds dodgey... I am not sure about the laws over there but here you can flatly refuse and say that you get a service man to inspect the firealarm yourself or partly paid for by you and the owner etc. I am sure there are ways around it anyway...

Can I ask, what does the bag of coral do? lowers or raises ph/gh? ???

[April]

its meant to stabilize it at about 7.
this is a co-op though and run and the expenses paid for by the members. besides if i say no.then they might figure i have something to hide.
other than my dog , cat, rabbit, bearded dragon, and a few fish.

[RAWesolowski]

Calcium of the coral should raise the kH. Higher kH should be key to keep the pH from crashingb and accelerating. Sounds like you need the calcium for buffering the pH. What are the parameters for your tap water?


my ms is 30. my gh and kh is one or less than

download this picture, print out a bunch of copies, and tape them to the fronts of your tanks when you go out.... ;D
david

p.s. sorry april, not trying to make light of your water problems...couldn't resist...

[BlueTurquoise]

LOL April you sure that those are the only animals hiding in the house? ;D

[April]

LOL david. thanks for the laugh. i love that print. and very appropriate seemign im a dog groomer. im sure it may work
ok....the coral is in the fry tanks not holding the ph. maybe if i ran it in a aquaclear...
had a bit of coral in the storage and it went to 7.2. those are the parameters of my tap. i have added one tablespoon af cichlid per 10 gallons. still slides.

[Nightowl]

Hello April, Nightowl here. What you need to do is raise your kh: carbonate hardness(measure of carbonate & bicarbonate ions), or total alkalinity. Any kh level of 3 degrees or less leaves the door open for WIDE ph swings. I noticed that you are using af chem. to bring up hardness & minerals, and I'm sure it worked to make the water harder in terms of gh: general hardness(measurement of calcium & magnesium ions) but these ions do not stabilize ph, as it seems you noted:"..sliding ph." The calcium from coral is great for growing fry but really won't do anything for the kh. You must increase the total alkalinity; your carbonate & bicarbonate ions to stabilize your ph! Adding some baking soda can work but since the kh was so low, a small amount could really affect the ph. Of the things you mentioned, the proper ph 6.5 is the way to go. It will raise or lower ph to 6.5 and help keep it there because it raises the carbonate hardness.They make a 7.0 proper ph too, if you need a higher ph.(I think your referring to aquar. pharms.?) So, you can have a decent hardness level in a tank (GH), and still have a sliding ph problem from too low a kh ..... which creates a roller coaster of ph's, especially with lots of waterchanges. I would use proper ph 6.5 in my 100 gal. storage tank , whatever amount it took to make the ph 6.5 & then go from there doing smaller water changes. Anyway, sorry to hear that you lost some fry... hope this helps you. J(Nightowl) :vanish:

Hi April,

I would back that up with the Crushed Coral in a A/C.

I have also tried it first just with a Hydro but it seems the water flow over/through the Crushed Coral was not sufficient.
I then have added a A/C and placed the CC into it and 1 sponge above. It works for me. Also the Crushed Coral did not have a too big effect on the conductivity (about a rise of 20 Cond..)and kept the pH in a range of 0.1-0.2 over 24 hrs.

Someone is using the recon mix and adds some pH Stable from Kent to stabilize it. Sorry I forgot who and where I have read about it.
That would work also, you just would have to figure out how much the TDS/Conductivity rises with a certain amount of pH stable and then you know where to set the TDS/Cond. for recon.

What I have experienced with all pH up's and down's and stabilizer you can buy is that they all increase the TDS/Conductivity mostly in for us unwanted high amounts.
I know so far of only 2 which don't impact it too much.
1: Crushed Coral
2: German Peat Granular ( needs to be used over a longer period like a week or so to react best)
I am no water guru or similar. Those where just things I have figured out with my city water and R/O water.

Ronald

[Nightowl]

Hello again, just a quick followup re:using crushed coral, or any coral. Yes , you can have carbonates of calcium in water, which would help raise kh, but to what degree I'm not sure. I believe calcium needs acid conditions to dissolve(calcium reactors for saltwater reef tanks use water w/ a ph of 6.2-6.6 generally), so how do you control that? Just for the heck of it, I decided to test water from a 15gal. tank w/ sm. cichlids that has about 1lb. of coral skeletons in it. The ph of this tank tested 7.4. The GH tested 27 degrees(multiply x 17.9 for ppm.). The KH tested only 4 degrees!(about 72ppm.). Just wanted to share the numbers with all of you. Take care & good luck to all..... J(Nightowl) :vanish:

[April]

thanks for your help. starting to sound logical. my hardness is very low so not worried about my conductivity or hardness getting too high for breeding...dont think. it takes alot to even get the hardness up to 2.
i will have to start experimenting and measuring. easier now with my meter. just gotta measure the hardness now and see where thats at.
i bought the aquarium pharmaceuticals 6.5 to try and see how that goes. try that for a bit . only need to get the fry up to 2 inch or so then its not as much of a worry.

[henryD]

April,

I have very soft water here also. The KH and GH here is about 1. The crushed coral seems to have worked for me. You do have to play around with the right amount though. In my 100 gallon I have about 2 nylon stocking full to get the PH to stablize. I have also noticed that the bio load of the tanks also determines how much you need. I had added some additional fish in the 100 gallon tank and noticed that the Ph was dropping a little. Yesterday I had to add an additional bag of nylon because of the extra bioload. I have noticed I have to get the KH and Gh to about 3 before the water stablizes.

My guess is since this is a juv/fry tank your probably feeding heavily? Which is probably not helping your case.

If you store your water have you considered adding coral bag in there? I was told that corals are slow release agents so they take time.

[April]

hi henry. yes i have coral in the storage. that stays fine. definitely seems to be the fact theres a ton of little gills releasing ammonia and lots of feeds.
so maybe i need alot more coral in the nylons.

[April]

ok did a 50 percent wc on the fry and added the ph proper 6.5 and the kent ro right and now my ph is 7.2 this morning. they seem to think its ok....
see if it slides.
storage tank is 6.5 . all the small tanks are 7.2 all had the ph proper added.
as of tonight all tanks at 6.5 . seems the proper ph is working...but could get costly. but.if i can keep the ph stable...may be worth it for fry anyhow.
thanks for all the suggestions. i may try a few different things with a few different tanks...and see which works

[scotz]

April - What type of crushed coral are you using ? Did you buy it that way ? Reason I am asking is that I too have been experiencing a PH drop - actually crashed in 2 of my tanks and boy my discus did not like that ! This is so frustrating to me as I have to use only ro water - my water is pure iron ( leave out a glass of water and 1 hour later it is orange due to the high iron content ). We have a water softner for the household water but it puts to much sodium in the water and my discus don't like that either ! So I have been using pure ro water with kent ro right, to add back some minerals. Well to make a long story short - I was trying to find a cheaper way to add minerals back in ( with over 400 gal. of tanks and changing 40% + water a day kent ro right is costing me big bucks !) and my ph crashed and I lost some fish - of couse 2 of my favorites. I have heard that coral works so maybe I should try it. Do you think crushing the coral would give better results ??

scotz

[April]

hi scot. i get it by a 10 pound bag at my lfs meant for african tanks. so ask...
also .one store here sells oyster shells which have been cleaned and treated for the same purpose.
but..you still need the kent ro right. or.there are some recipes out there..but my ph went up too much and too different with the recipes .
my friend uses ice breaker by windsor salt. called road runner. which is calcium chloride. br careful though.i found one ice melter product here which had blue dye added and urea. gotta be straight calcium chloride. id stick with that brand.
i was using calcium , magesium( epsom salts) and sea salt. (instant ocean. equal parts. but my ph went higher..
im back to kent ro right for now.
but you could mix that and see how it goes.
so far this last day with the ph buffer..all my tanks are right on 6.5 . but i will most likely use that just for the fry.

[scotz]

Thanks April :) I will check out my LFS and see what they have for crushed coral. I guess I will have to stay with kent ro right for now - I also tried my own mixes but they were not right either.

thanks again

scotz

[April]

think of it this way,...if you didnt spend it on kent ro right..youd spend it on something else you dont need.
like going to a movie for two ....or junk food etc.
i like to convince myself thats its just an expense...and pretend i never had the money in the first place....if i buy fish stuff.

[Nightowl]

Hello April, Nightowl here. I read that you're having some luck w/ the proper ph 6.5. I did some investigating at work today and saw that the AF cichlid chemistry by Kent, which many use to stabilize ph is actually a product designed to raise & maintain GH, general hardness, in aquarium water. This makes water harder but does not raise the KH. The Kent AF cichlid buffer is the product that will raise & help maintain KH, or carbonate hardness, which then will helpstabilize the ph of the water. I use this product at work and it is extremely potent!! In a 30g. tank that the ph has dropped it only takes about 1/4 teaspoon to bring it back in line. There are times at home when a ph has dropped in a tank and I know even a large w/c won't quite do it(my tap ph is 7.5 but the water is fairly soft) so I use just a pinch or two of this stuff and it really helps to balance things out. It is a buffer, so it does raise ph rapidly in soft water, but what it does that AF cich. chemistry and crushed coral don't do well enough (unless your sure the coral is releasing calcium carbonate) is adjust the KH,carbonate hardness, or our "total alkalinity", which takes us to a point where we can target & maintain a ph level. The proper ph6.5 is an item which raises ph & kh, and then has something in it to back the ph down a bit, locking it in ,due to increased kh, at 6.5. The Kent AF cichlid buffer by itself would make the ph in your storage tank way too high, but Kent makes a product called ph ControlMinus that can be usedw/ the AF cichlid buffer that would lock in a lower ph the way the proper ph products do. This might be more cost effective as the Kent products seem to be much more potent. The 500gram AF cich. buffer is about $8.00 US & would last quite a while. Don't know price of the ph control minus. I guess the absolute simplest way to go would be to blend sodium bicarbonate w/ sodium biphosphate..... that's probably all the proper ph 6.5 is anyway!!! The only advantage to the Kent items is they are phosphate free(and cholesterol free too!). Well, if this didn't help I hope it was at least interesting... take care, JT :vanish:

[April]

nightowl . thanks very much. next time i go.i will check it out. but i have to make sure it stays at a certain point.. for the fry anyhow.
but i can experiment and see which works.
my water is the same..once its sliding even a wc doesnt stop it from keep sliding.and doesnt bring it back up. the adult tanks i dont have as much trouble with.

[dred]

April,

Seems strange to attempt offering advice, but ... here goes.

You water sounds very close to RO right from your tap. You mention a condo - did your tenant group get together to process the water in your building?

It seems as though you are resisting preparing your water in the storage container. It seems that if you get the KH set in your storage container all your problems will be solved. It would stop all your your in tank pH swings, and you would no longer need to do the tank by tank spot treatments (coral, etc.). I think you will also find it is much easier to get accurate results in the larger volumes of water. And you get the built in aging that would allow you to verify that it has stabilized before adding it to the tanks.

I'm a rank newbie, but I decided that the "stability" camp presented the best argument. Basically the camp posits that actual pH value is much less critical than pH stability. Spawning is the exception and the low hardness/pH values are still necessary for spawning. Buying in suggests: If you achieve a reasonable level of carbonate hardness, the result will be stable pH. And, if you are treating the storage tanks, the storage water will not swing your tanks.

So, I would really suggest you concentrate your efforts on creating a liveable system (cost, effort, accuracy) for constituting your storage water. This way the growout headaches dissapear and spawning is treated as the special case. Imagine saying goodbye to guessing at exactly which chemical reactions might occur when you add storage water, or exactly what response the media your adding to your tanks will have over time.

Dunno, but I can tell you the pH and hardness of all three of my tanks even though I haven't tested this week. It only took about three days for everything to stabilize and it hasn't budged a bit with about 80ppm carbonate hardness.

milton

[April]

Milton. good advice.
i am storing and do have it all stable in my 100 gallon tank i am running with the kent ro right in it. but...in the tanks..with daily wc of 50 percent and i had af cichlid chemistry added....in the storage.it still slid very fast. and also with siphoning the bottom between each feed. it stays steady in the storage container. not a problem.
im trying the kent ro right again now. and using the buffer in the storage.
so far so good.

[DavidH]

Hey April, my tap's super soft. Always had problems with swings. City's gone to chloramines. I now use ro water with RO Vital. I started to have the pH swings again and started to add baking soda. After trial and error, I've finally been able to stabilize. I use 1 tsp RO Right to 20 gals and 1/4 tsp bs.
You can adjust this to suit yourself. I make up water at tds 40 and the bs raises it slightly. Seems to be working pretty good. Fish are breeding, so things must be ok.

Dave