low pH

[revolutionhope]

Hi SKF!

I'm hoping to get some advice and opinions on managing pH for a tank with cherries and bee shrimps.

My pH is measuring around 5.4 and I'm concerned it may continue to drop over time to unacceptable levels even for bee shrimps. Currently there is only CRS in the tank but I want to add some neos soon.

Firstly some background detail - I have a tank with a modest amount of cal aqua labs black earth premium as per the manufacturer's advice. I use RO/DI water (I changed cartridge recently and TDS of RO is zero) with SS GH+. I keep up with regular WC and the TDS is about 140ppm at last check. The tank is heavily planted, has quite a few pieces of driftwood here and there and also some catappa/IAL. There is oodles and oodles of filtration including canister and air driven sponges, and the stocking rate is low-medium. There is some benibachi fulvic grains in the canister (although these fulvic grains are roughly 6 months old and should be close to expiring now; however I will still remove these fulvic grains when I get around to doing some maintenance on the canister however). The shrimp are quite happy and new ones are regularly getting berried.

Anyway, so aside from removing the fulvic grains and possibly removing the indian almond leaf, and maybe some of the larger driftwood which may help to prevent the gradual acidification that is going on. I am wondering if anyone has experience using small amounts of aragonite or similar to help buffer the tanks. If anyone has any other suggestion or opinion it will be greatly appreciated. I don't fancy that cherry shrimps will breed very well in pH 5.4 or less and I really do want to keep some different coloured shrimps in this setup!

I will be most grateful for any input :-)

love n peace

will

-edit- I should add that it's true that as a last resort if it really comes to it then I could remove some of the substrate but I don't want to pollute the water in this way if I can avoid it..

Edited March 7, 2016 by revolutionhope

[neo-2FX]

Seiryu rock will increase pH. If you add a very small rock it will increase your pH slowly and buffer to a certain point.

[ineke]

All my tanks are around PH 5 even with only about 2 cm of substrate. Although I don't breed Neos inside anymore I had good success with my colonies of Neos at this ph.  The main thing is to acclimatise slowly over 3-4 hours.

Removing the IAL can help as they do reduce PH. The fulfil grains also reduce ph and if you are using RO water with Salty Shrimp they fulvic grains last much longer than when using tap water as they don't have to buffer so much. 

The main thing with any shrimp is stability - once they adjust to a new water parameter most shrimp will thrive as long as there are no big swings. When you add things like ph up or other ph raising chemicals you can get big swings which are much worse than low ph. 

Edited March 7, 2016 by ineke

[revolutionhope]

Thankyou both :-) I believe I will get off my arse with regards to my CRS tank soon. Then I'll remove the fulvic grains from the setup and monitor pH frequently.  I am pretty keen for the crs to expand their social horizons soon :-)

I'm halfway through setting up a large tank in my bedroom using a similar ratio of substrate and driftwoods relative to tank volume; but no fulvic grains.. hopefully  that tank stays in high 5s or preferably above 6 so neos can have a fair go in there too. I will keep the seiryu stone in mind it seems like a potentially neat solution.love n peace will