I hope somebody can help me out as this is driving me crazy

I have changed from tap to remineralised RO water

I use aquasoil in my tank for crs and cbs.

The problem that I have is that the ph just keeps falling

The RO has a TDS of 12 and PH of 6.5 to 7

I reminelarise using Jayc'c DIY method to get to  tds of 140 and GH 5.5

But the Ph keeps dropping and sits at 4.5 to 5

Can I use baking soda to increase the Ph?


Before changing over to RO the water was PH 6.5 and the tank has been running for around 4 months now

get rid any stuff that could affect the ph

catappa, aldercone, wood

 

monitoring the tank with floating plant, healthy and fast grow floating plant would be a good sign

Edited August 18, 201510 yr by salvanost

Thanks for your quick reply salvanost,

 

I have some spider wood, not a lot, 2 pieces and 4 oak leaves, will remove and see if it helps.

I struggled with keeping the shrimps alive with tap water and thought it will go much better with remineralised RO, but seems I am struggling just as much but on a different level now 

don't forget to dosing bactery if there any sign of random death each day

no ammonia spike but dosing bactery when ph lower than 5 really good, but i don't see it as good solution for long term

thats another problem, we only have stability in south africa and that dont work well in acidic water for bacteria

What is your KH?

KH is between 0 and 1

Just got back home and bought a ADA Ph kit

The Ph with the ADA kit is at 6.6

Also had a look at the old Nutrafin test kit, its expiry date is 31/8/2015, so might have been old

pH at 6.6 seems better with this new test kit. 6.6 is certainly normal.

It might have helped when you removed the wood and leaves.

Was your tank cycling? pH can fall to low levels when the tank is still cycling. 

What brand/type of substrate are you using again? ADA aquasoil?

Hi @jayc

 

What exactly happened was the tank was cycled and everything, with normal tap water as per guide with aquasoil and stability. Everything was fine for around 2 months and then my yellow, crs and cbs started dying off one after the other.

I knew the culprit was our tap water, so moved my shrimps to a friend's, to house them while I get my p/m right.

I removed all the tap water from the tank, well around 90% and filled with RO with TDS of 12 back and remineralised to 140 and 5 GH with your DIY recipe.

It is then when my ph dropped so low.

 

Do you think it might be that the RO has no buffer and this has dropped the ph so low.

 

I have added a vial of biodigest just incase it goes back into a cycle, cause stability is no good in water with ph below 7

 

I have tested again, ph of the nutrafin stays at 5 and ph of the ADA kit is at 6.4, tho I am a little sceptical about the ph kit of ADA as this is more for a planted tank with CO2......I think

 

I have ordered a Ista ph pen from a local pet shop and should pick it up tomorrow

 

Oh, the aquasoil is the newest type, we only get the newest type around here.

 

I have added back my shrimp yesterday, taking a chance here, and they all seem fine. The shrimp I added back are yellow neo, crs and blue jelly, even tho I am not sure which ph result to trust

Edited August 20, 201510 yr by Maurice

i doubt amazonia soil would be 6.6

and expired tested still works, just minor color change

Hi salvanost

 

Why do you say it wont buffer to 6.6?

I received my ph pen and after calibrating it my ph jumps between 6.7 and 6.8, so I'm actually very happy.

The nutrafin ph was way off, so thats seeing the bin

 

I actually want to get it down to 6.5, so will add some adler cones and ial.

P/M stands at

ph - 6.7/6.8

Tds - 135

GH - 5

Kh - 0-1

 

So it looks i am in the green zone for my crystals......happy days :)

Edited August 22, 201510 yr by Maurice

be carefull with ATC brand, it's won't work normally under  extreme low ph

the sign would be a weird reading result after adding alder cone (the ph increase not decrease, tds too)

ATC?

 

I thought alder cones decrease/lower ph of water

Had to bin my nutrafin ph test as well.

My tanks with environment, ada amazonia and benibachi were reading at ph 4.5....

I have been experimenting with peat and because of that my PH dropped to 4.5. That was not my intention, but it did not kill my Crystal Black. Not sure if it would do in the long term.
I did normal water changes, removed alder cones and catappa leaves and it came back to about 6.0.

For every 50L of water, put two tablespoon of large size aragonite into the filter. This will stabilize the pH. All my matured tanks have it. There is no adverse effect when used for long term.