Zesul

Do you think cherry shrimp would be ok in my current pH level I'm worried they would just die off in my water right now.

Would there be any long term issues with using a chemical to change pH especially since this is going to be a shrimp only tank and I know they can be very sensitive.

For this method would leaving the mixed up water in a closed home depot bucket be ok?

Hey everyone sorry it took a couple days to get results cuz I had to go out and get another air pump and air stone. After resting the water with the air stone for about a day or so the pH jumped up to about the same levels I'm seeing in the tank so about 8.2-8.4. Now I'm just trying to figure out where to go from here I don't have the money for an getting an RO system or getting gallons of distilled water every time I want to do a water. I was wondering if a pH down chemical might be an option not the biggest fan of the idea but not sure what else to do.

Yeah think I'm just going to go some more testing with my tap water and then the substrates effect on it. So I'll probably update in a day or two to show the results. The only other thing I have in the tank besides the rocks, driftwood, plants, and eco complete is a small amount of Imagitarium Black Aquarium Sand to give some height to certain parts of the tank. So maybe that is causing some issues?

I have well water and it is softened.

These are the levels I'm getting right now and I did a 50% water change a couple days ago

I didn't get any bubbles from the rock so I don't think its the culprit. Another thing to add is I wasn't sure if I needed to wash the substrate cuz it came wet so i put it straight in the tank ( not the smartest thing to do looking back at it). So would taking it out and washing it help?

Sorry not sure if I'm replying properly first time using this forum. Yeah I took out a small amount of the substrate to test and my tap water is about 7.0 pH rested and then tested it after 12 hours. I'm going to test the rocks in the tank using the vinegar method someone else suggested.

Would distilled white vinegar work that's what I have on hand and for the plants I have on the rock would I need to remove them. How would I do that safely?

*Disclaimer this is my first tank ever* I just set up a 5 gallon planted tank to cycle about a month and a half ago (planning on adding cherry shrimp). I recently discovered after letting my tank just sit for a couple weeks with weekly water changes that my pH levels are very high, about 8.4 to 8.8 using the API master test kit. I scoured the internet for a solution and on the petscord forums we came to the conclusion that it's the substrate I'm using Caribsea eco-complete. Testing it out of the tank it jumped my 7.0 pH tap water to 8.0 after just 12 hours of resting. I would really like to avoid changing out my substrate since my plants are doing well and starting to root and grow nicely. Though recently I'm thinking of taking the substrate out and giving a very thorough cleaning to see if that helps. Also as a side note as you can see I'm having a crazy algae bloom as with all this pH craziness I'm having a hard time establishing my cycle so the algae has been out of control (I've lowered my fluval nano light to 40% strength at this point).