pH dropping?

[jkh772]

Greetings fish tank friends,

I think i know the answer but i wanted to see if there are other solutions. i have a 20g guppy and mystery snail tank and 10g cherry shrimp/mystery snail tank, both planted w/ wisteria and floating frogbit. 

Previously parameters were stable- ph 7.7-7.8, no ammonium, 0 nitrites, 10-20 nitrates (w/ easy green for the plants), GH300+, kH80-120. Both tanks have been seasoned for   >8mo, good amount of mulm and film on algie on the substrate/back glass.  these parameters are similar to local tap parameters. 

I've recently hatched out a clutch of snails into each tank a few weeks ago. In the past week the kH went to zero and my pH dropped down to < 6.5. No spike in ammonia, nitrites or nitrates. Only change is the snail babies are growing fast and i've been increasing feeding (repashy/greenbeans) and added some wondershells. 

The babies are growing well but i did recently lose one adult snail so i am worried they are not happy with the pH drop. I already have 1-2 lbs of crushed coral in each tank.  Any other recommendations to boost my KH and stabilize the pH? I've just done a good sized water change, but i don't want to overdue it since i thought shrimp don't like big flucatuations.

Thanks!

[johnnyxxl]

So besides the recent pH drop what are your current parameters?  What is the parameters of the tap water after a few hours of sitting?  I would add rock or something that would raise your parameters and watch the size of your water changes if it is your tap otherwise I am not certain why the drop so quickly 

[Tony s]

What’s the last time you’ve done a water change. I know it can be scary thinking about sucking up baby snails. It sounds like your water has exhausted its kh. Best way to fix that is a good change. My 75g allowed me to skip for a bit. But possibly not a 20g. Possibly put a mesh bag over the end of your vac to keep the snails in.

let me clarify. I was Skipping changes when hatching snails. I’m not sure you can do that.

Edited June 17 by Tony s

[Mmiller2001]

Stop using crush coral and dose potassium carbonate to the KH you want the tank to be.

[jkh772]

Thanks for the comments:

The pH has dropped below  6.4 and KH have dropped to zero.  the GH has stayed high, nitrate 0 and nitrate 10-20  (using the ACO test strips). I also confirmed with an API master kit which were about the same. 

Tap is pH 7> 7.5, GH 300+, KH 80-120. 

I usually test weekly with aco test strips.  I do water changes based on the parameters, usually do a 20-30% water change every 3-4 weeks when the nitrates get > 50. last change was 2 weeks ago. the smaller 10g shrimp tank I do only 10-20% changes. The pH has been very stable until recently. 

@Mmiller2001- I thought that was supposed to help raise pH/KH? I just added more!

Thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mmiller2001]

On 6/16/2024 at 7:39 PM, jkh772 said:

I thought that was supposed to help raise pH/KH? I just added more!

Yet it's not working right? The problem with using CC is that it also raises calcium, you don't need more calcium. You want to keep a higher KH to keep the pH range higher. Also, using K2CO3 (potassium carbonite) adds K for the plants. You can instantly raise KH to the exact degree or ppm you want the tank to be. Using CC is nowhere near as accurate and using K2CO3 is instant.

[Tony s]

On 6/16/2024 at 9:39 PM, jkh772 said:

Tap is pH 7> 7.5, GH 300+, KH 80-120

Your tap water is sufficient by itself to rise to the levels you need. It is very simple to change enough water to get them back where you want. With the bit of extra bio load you may be exhausting your kh relatively quickly. You really shouldn’t even need the crushed coral. You have more than enough minerals. Just increase the amount and frequency of your changes. Your tap looks perfect for both shrimp and snails. 😃

Just to make sure your tap levels are constant and not dropping over time, you could take some water from the tap and test over varying time intervals 

[jkh772]

Thanks everyone- the obvious issue is the increasing bioload from my growing snails. I'm looking to rehouse them in another tank. i was just surprised how quickly they caused the kh to drop! This is my first time raising snails and I am paranoid about having enough calcium for their shells so I was erring on being heavy with calcium supplement.  

@Mmiller2001 I'm not a chemist, but i guess because my calcium is already high, the CC/calcium carbonate doesn't release the carbonate to act as a buffer and thats why its not working? That actually makes sense! I'll give the Potassium carbonate a try. 

I was hoping there was an easier way than water changes. I've been timing my changes just based on nitrates but i guess i'll have to go back to daily testing- hopefully will stabilize soon or the K2C02 helps. 

Thanks!

 

[jkh772]

Any recommendation on potassium carbonate products? I didn't see a branded aquarium K2C02 product and i'm nervous about just adding straight K2C02 powder into the tank- its been too many years from high school chemistry to calculate my dose! flourish potassium is K20 so i don't think it will buffer the same way. 

[Mmiller2001]

On 6/16/2024 at 8:51 PM, jkh772 said:

Any recommendation on potassium carbonate products? I didn't see a branded aquarium K2C02 product and i'm nervous about just adding straight K2C02 powder into the tank- its been too many years from high school chemistry to calculate my dose! flourish potassium is K20 so i don't think it will buffer the same way. 

No chemistry needed, just some measuring spoons. 
https://a.co/d/9KK8ccj

[Pepere]

On 6/16/2024 at 10:39 PM, jkh772 said:

I was hoping there was an easier way than water changes

I find it amazing how much more difficult people try to make things to avoid simple water changes…

I have been guilty of the same thing.

Sometimes, investing to make waterchanges easier is the better path.

I have found routine simple water changes makes keeping a tank free of visible algae so much easier for me and has sold me on doing the work…

Edited June 17 by Pepere

[jkh772]

I'm sure i put this on myself with hatching out my snail clutches. the tank was very stable until they started to really grow and increase their eating. 

@Pepere I don't really mind water changes but how quickly the tank went from very stable to huge pH drop took me by surprise. I was looking for other solutions that don't require daily water changes (that's what I've been doing this week to keep pH > 6.5) or getting rid of my baby snails!

I've found a lot of info about nitrogen cycle and monitoring ammonia/nitrite/nitrate to determine timing of water changes but those have been very stable (I presume thanks to my plants) but not so much info about pH/KH monitoring other than adding crushed coral (which is what I was doing but wasn't working).  I was previously only checking nitrates to determine timing to change water but if not for the test strips I would have totally missed my pH drop!

Thanks everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

[Pepere]

On 6/17/2024 at 1:22 PM, jkh772 said:

I don't really mind water changes but how quickly the tank went from very stable to huge pH drop took me by surprise. I was looking for other solutions that don't require daily water changes (that's what I've been doing this week to keep pH > 6.5) or getting rid of my baby snails!

I bet the kh was steadily decreasing while ph wasnt moving as fast, until kh depleted..

 

If your tap water is 80 ppm kh, that is a little under 5 degrees of hardness.  A 30% water change will raise tank kh to just over 1 degree kh, and it might not do that simply due to acids in the tank converting carbonates to co2 early on.

 

I dont think you need to do daily water changes, but initially you might need to do a few back to back 50-70% water changes to get kh simply from your tap water.  Alternatively using Seachem Alkalinity buffer to get kh back up and then doing weekly 30-50% water changes should keep up on kh depletion.

 

I am personally not a fan of crushed coral for a number of reasons…

Edited June 18 by Pepere

[jkh772]

@Pepere thanks! Since these tanks have tank mates (shrimp/guppies) who I'm worried about the parameter swing, I've decided to just start pulling out a lot of the baby snails to reduce the bio-load and hopefully stabilize parameters so as not to risk losing everyone.  Even with 30% changes daily this week, the KH zeros out by the next day! i acknowledge perhaps was futile to try to hatch out a full clutch of mystery snails in a 10g, but they were so cool to see grow! i thought the 20gal would have been reasonable to grow out but perhaps not with the number of snails that survived. Now most of the snails are moved to the outdoor tub for grow out. 

@PepereWhy don't you like crushed coral? @Cory talks about it a lot so i was trying it, but as it hasn't done much with my tanks. I used a couple bags of crushed coral in my 55 gal cichlid tank which had dropping kH/pH a couple months ago- it took a while but finally stabilized. I'm guessing now because my water is already really hard so the cc takes even longer to buffer, or maybe i just have too much bio load. 

Thanks!

 

[Tony s]

On 6/19/2024 at 10:06 AM, jkh772 said:

Why don't you like crushed coral?

The main thing wrong with crushed coral is that it's slow to respond to large water changes. It takes time to dissolve. meanwhile your gh and kh are suddenly lower. sometimes drastically. doing water changes with equilibrium means you can adjust and keep more stable water. it all depends on how often you're going to do a change

keeping in mind that you'd also need to adjust your kh as well.

[daggaz]

Meanwhile the big advantage is the majority of tanks will trend towards acidity due to the typical chemical reactions that are occuring in them as food and waste are broken down..  having a bunch of crushed coral or similar substrate means your buffer levels are automatically replenished, more so the lower your tank dips, and dipping is simply made harder because of the buffer in the first place.   So in a tank where you dont do a lot of water changes, or where any replacement water is carefully pre-conditioned, its generally going to be a good thing to have in there.  (I used seashells and some chalk-bearing flint hardscape collected from the local seacliffs, as well as lime buried in the substrate).  You just can't use it like a crutch, giving no thought into what is changing in your tank.

That said, my tank is maybe a little wee bit too high in pH and I wonder how it would look if I could nudge it down just a smidge.  

[Tony s]

On 6/19/2024 at 10:50 AM, daggaz said:

my tank is maybe a little wee bit too high in pH

yeah, you're probably just fine. The best way to do water is to match your tap and buy local. almost all fish have a great deal of plasticity and will adapt just fine. there are exceptions of course. mainly discus, rams and apistos.  85% of the US has neutral to hard water. so, it's not worth fighting what you have. Now, wild caught fish and trying to breed sensitive fish is completely different. then you have to be more aware of what they need

[Mmiller2001]

On 6/17/2024 at 2:55 AM, Pepere said:

I find it amazing how much more difficult people try to make things

Truer words haven’t been spoken. How simple is it to add a measure spoon of K2CO3 to set the KH instantly. Yet people want to add crushed coral and keep the tank in a constant state of instability. I give up.

[daggaz]

But the coral will actually act to create stability, setting up a chemical equilibrium between solid and dissolved carbonate, and this remains in equilibrium no matter how much acid is produced from bacteria, so long as you have undissolved coral/limestone remaining in your tank.  With K2C03, yes you can set it instantly (better measure correctly), but this is eventually depleted and doesn't come back as an active buffer, and will also quickly be lost with water changes.   So you have to keep doing it.  That's not exactly stability, is it...

[Mmiller2001]

On 6/19/2024 at 10:28 AM, daggaz said:

But the coral will actually act to create stability, setting up a chemical equilibrium between solid and dissolved carbonate, and this remains in equilibrium no matter how much acid is produced from bacteria, so long as you have undissolved coral/limestone remaining in your tank.  With K2C03, yes you can set it instantly (better measure correctly), but this is eventually depleted and doesn't come back as an active buffer, and will also quickly be lost with water changes.   So you have to keep doing it.  That's not exactly stability, is it...

False, crushed coral continually raises Ca. Hence an ever increasing GH followed by a decrease after any water change. Depending on the amount of water changed, a significant decrease in Ca after both plants and fish are trying to adapt to the increased GH.

[daggaz]

I didnt think about the Ca.  You are right... that's interesting.   Though I wonder if it doesn't drop out again as calcium phosphate, if you have phosphate ions in any excess. 

EDIT: and yeah, thats never going to happen.  tricalcium phosphate..  no way that dominates any reaction equilibrium.    Clearly the answer is to have a metric ton of shrimp in your tank, to set up an equilibrium with the Ca ions.  Every few weeks, you just need to harvest shrimp to keep things in balance.  

Edited June 19 by daggaz

[Pepere]

On 6/19/2024 at 10:06 AM, jkh772 said:

@PepereWhy don't you like crushed coral?

I know Cory recommends its use.  
 

The reasons why I am not a fan follows.

GH is comprised of calcium and magnesium.  K.h is carbonates.  Crushed coral adds calcium and carbonates as it dissolves and no magnesium.

 

plants need both Calcium and Magnesium and do best with a specific ratio. I have very soft Tap water, 1 degree GH, 1 degree KH.  By dosing both Calcium and Magnesium in known amounts I can optimize plant growth.

as a general rule KH does not aid in plant growth but it can be important to some livestock.

 

If I dose crushed Coral, I have no idea what the end stage of increase will be or how fast it occurs, and that dissolving will also slow with time as there gets progressively less crushed coral in the tank as it dissolves over time.

plants continually work to reprogram to optimize themselves for the conditions they find themself in to make the best of things. You do a waterchange, and assuming you are using crushed coral because you have very soft water asI do and conduct a 50% waterchange and essentially gh and kh will roughly be half of what it was before the water change, and then it will start rising so your plants are continually trying to reprogram for changing conditions.  Personally Iuse Equilibrium in my water change water that doses calcium, magnesium, iron and potassium.  The new water going in will be roughly the same levels of these as what is coming out except for any depletion that occurred over the week, so stability and consistency in my opinion is enhanced.

plants tend to do better with all parameters staying pretty much the same, CO2, temp, GH, KH, Nitrate, potassium, phosphorus, trace elements lighting, etc…

@Mmiller2001 uses individual dosing of lab grade calcium and epsom salts for magnesium instead of Equilibrium and his planted tanks are both award winning and absolutely stunning.  In no way would I argue that Equilibrium is superior to his method, and when my stock of Equilibrium starts to approach the end I intend to consider his method in more detail…

I originally had crushed coral in my tank also based on @Cory recommendation and still have a bag of it.  I pulled what I had in my tanks as I learned more about it not providing magnesium, and the water change issue.   My plants are doing much better now than before, but I in no way attribute it all to removing crushed coral.  I have changed a lot in my tanks both with water and light parameters and plant husbandry practices etc…. I do not however foresee using crushed coral again…

 

One might set up a test tank and add crushed coral and graph GH, KH changes over time and what affect water changes has, but I cant see doing it myself.  Honestly it is just way to easy to dose Equilibrium with a measuring spoon into replacement water…

[jkh772]

Thanks everyone! I'm not planning on any award willing fish/plants I'm just trying to keep my fish/shrimp/snails alive!

I didn't think about the stability of parameters or minerals for the plants. I only have frogbit and wisteria which seem to be powering through but good to know. 

My goal is to not have not have to micrormanage the parameters so for me the answer is to avoid overstocking and to test more frequently to not let things get so out of hand. 

 

[Pepere]

On 6/19/2024 at 5:57 PM, jkh772 said:

My goal is to not have not have to micrormanage the parameters so for me the answer is to avoid overstocking and to test more frequently to not let things get so out of hand. 

While I am not a fan of crushed coral personally and do not intend on using it again, I dont think it is horrible.  I just think there are better options…

for your needs given the kh of your tap water, once you get excess acids neutralized and get kh back up I suspect weekly water changes will be plenty to kep kh in a good range for you.

 

for myself I have 1 degree kh in my tap and do nothing to supplement it.  All of my tank inhabitants tend to be the acidic water variety and are quite happy with it and my plants seem to like it too.