Help! My Ph has dropped a full 1.0!

[naturegrl]

I need advice quickly on what to do here, please. Yesterday I finally got my diy co2 running. My perameters before where, Amonia 0, nitrates 5, ph 8.3 I also did a 50% water change and thouroghly vacced the bottom right before.

Tonight I noticed my female GBR looked pretty pale. Never seen her like this. I've had her for maybe 3 weeks. So I did some tests and my ph is now 7.4!!! :eek3: Yikes!

My water hardness is very high and so is my KH-15. I thought my ph was going to be bullet-proof.

All of my fish are acting fine. Just noticed my GBR's color keeps fading in and out(the other male gbr's look normal)

My diy is putting out a steady stream of fine bubbles(fine airstone) which are kind of diffusing inside the mass of my my hornwort plant.

What should I do?

I put on the airstone full blast right away. Will that help? Pull the co2 line?

I realize this is a more desirable ph anyway, but how low will it go?

I'll stop there and wait for help....

Here's some stats:
55 gal. moderately planted, been up, cycled and running for about 4 months
about 2 wpg running about 8-10hrs/day
2 diamond tetras
1 dwarf gourami
4 german blue rams
4 black phantom tetras
4 black skirt tetras
1 schwartz cory (I know, I'm waiting to move some of these guys to a new tank and then add some friends for him)

Actually now my female gbr looks perfectly normal...

Thank you!

[rich311k]

That is a normal result of CO2 injection. You are doing fine. No need to do anything. The PH drop from CO2 does not really effect fish. Beside that GBR would like a PH below 6 so you have no worries.

[naturegrl]

Wow, that just seems like a huge drop in 24hrs. I put on the airstone last night because I wasn't sure what to expect. Nobody is gasping that I can tell.

Should I be worried about it dropping more? As you can tell I'm pretty nervous about the whole thing. I read loads on the diy and water chemistry subject before I gave it a try. After looking at that chart with kh/ph, I was off the chart and it looked like it was going to be very tough to get any co2 disolved in my water in the first place.

Anything I should be doing or watching out for? I would be a horrible gambler ;)

[rich311k]

Keep testing the PH but right now you are really doing well with the injection. If it drops more I would be really impressed. I think you should find it will not go much lower.

[calivivarium1]

I agree with Rich, seeing a drop in PH is normal when adding additional CO2 to the water column.

[naturegrl]

Thanks so much, Rich. I can relax a little now. I'll test the ph again in a couple of hours.

[Cliff Mayes]

You are probably OK.

Normally pH goes down in a tank. The CO2 drives the pH down and sometimes just allowing the water to set for a while will lower the pH so everything is probably OK.

Expect the pH to get to the acid range and a, relatively, slow change is not harmful but you are quite correct in being alarmed about a full number change in pH. If you drop fish from one pH to another without a chance to adjust it can be harmful but an overnight change should not cause any problem.

Try to avoid making any attempts to adjust the tank pH. Fish are designed to adapt and pH changes in nature are the usual thing. Any fish that is used to tanks is more likely to adapt quickly to tank conditions. Any fish that has been acclimated to local conditions should be OK but extra care and checking of shipped fish from distant places should be practiced.

[rich311k]

PH change from CO2 is not the same as changing PH due to KH changes. A point swing or more is common in CO2 injected planted tanks with no harm to inhabitants.

I do agree don't adjust the PH any, the last thing she needs to do is raise that KH anymore.

[naturegrl]

Thanks guys.

I've never tried to mess with my ph. Seems too risky and too much fiddling. Besides with my Kh it would take quite a load of whatever to make it budge. I've always had a "rock" steady ph of 8.3, that and what I read in that chart...that's why I was so shocked to see such a change.

I guess my fine airstone and "Plant ladder" diffusion is working. Some of my plants are already streaming little lines of bubbles (pearling?).

[Cliff Mayes]

Just as an aside for anyone listening. I learned the hard way a long time ago about buffering. I was trying to get the pH to go down and kept adding stuff to drop the pH and the dumb thing wouldn't change untill all of a sudden the Ph went through the floor. I did not realize that the buffers were keeping the pH up until I overwhelmed the buffer and pow the pH changed big time. If you decide to fool wth pH be careful!

[KarlTh]

Thing to realise is that pH changes do NOT affect fish. I'll say that again, because it goes against so much that you read and hear, but pH changes do NOT affect fish. Changes in TDS - total dissolved solids - which are often associated with pH changes do affect fish, potentially fatally, but changes in pH, with a range from around 5.5 to 9, do NOT affect fish. Rams do not like a pH below 6; they like the sort of TDS which is generally associated with a very low pH, but super soft water at pH 8 would suit them fine.

Consequently, the pH changes associated with CO2 addition, which are not associated with a TDS change, do not bother the fish - they don't even notice. Bunging chemicals in to change the pH back to normal, which do change TDS, will stress them.

The role of KH in CO2 injection is misunderstood. It does not reduce or prevent the pH drop, it just changes the start and therefore the end point of the shift. Moreover, KH drops over time between water changes, so if it's low from the tap it'll be even lower when water change time comes. Very low pHs (like below 6) will inhibit filter bacteria, so water which is in danger of dropping very low because of low KH is buffered to a KH of around 4 to prevent this from occurring. Me, I'm not convinced it's necessary; my tank drops below pH 6 with CO2 because the KH is 4 out of the tap and I filter over peat to lower the GH of 8; this also lowers the pH significantly to the degree that it's 6.4 without CO2 injection, so probably around the mid 5s with; fish fine and breeding, biological filtration probably minimal but the whole point is the plants are using the ammonia anyway. Besides, at that pH you'd need bottlefuls of the stuff to get enough toxic NH3.

[jpappy789]

:iagree: 110%

pH changes due to C02 aren't harmful unless in conjunction with a significant drop in TDS (measured with GH). But in that case CO2 wouldn't be the source of the problem.

[naturegrl]

Thanks Karl and Jpappy, That's good info. I thought I kind of had a good idea of how it all worked together, but i see I need to read a little more, and then repeat a few more times:)

My Kh out of the tap is 15. We have very hard water here and a high buffer. That is confirmed by my lfs. They are on the same city water system. I don't plan to try to mess with adjusting the ph or hardness with chemicals at all. It scares me too much. Just the co2 for the plants.

By the way, my ph seems to be holding at 7.4 at least for the last 14 hours or so.

So just to be sure, so far so good? I'm new to co2 injection, is there anything I should watch out for?

Maybe I will have a chance at my rams actually producing fry. They've laid eggs twice already in the 3 weeks or so that I've had them. They end up eating them by about the 3rd day, but maybe they will eventually figure it out.

Thanks everyone for the great info, and encouragement.

[KarlTh]

The eggs are unlikely to hatch unless you can get the GH down.