Newbie, trying to get his water PH up... :-)

dnajarro

dnajarro

AC Members
Dec 5, 2004
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Brooklyn NY
www.davidnajarro.com
Ok So as I stated in the title, I'm pretty new at this... I've had a fresh water aquarium since I was 10, recently I decided i wanted to try doing the salt thing. I've read up a here and there and even bought one of those "dummies" books. Anyhow.... I have a Combination of gravel, crushed coral, and live sand in my 40gal, 80% being mosty crushed coral and sand. I also have 2 decent size pieces of Catspaw coral as well and I still having trouble getting my PH higher than 7.8. Is there anything else I should Be doing?
Oh another thing, There's a PETCO(complete idiots) not far from me, but I don't know if I should rely on what they're telling me. They mentioned that my problem could be the 3 pieces of "lava" rock I have in the tank(2 small 1 medium) wich I purchased from...Petco.
Well, If anyone can help me out it would be greatly appreciated
 
Welcome to AC!
On your ph question-how long has your tank been set up? What kind of equipment do you have-powerheads, skimmer, etc.?
If you don't have enough gas exchange, this can drive down your ph (at least this is my understanding-if I'm wrong, someone please feel free to correct me!).
I don't know if the lava rock could be doing this or not, but it seems a little odd to me that it would be...
Rather than adding ph up or any chemical like that, you can us plain old baking soda. There was a thread a few days ago about using baking soda to raise ph. Do a search on it & you should be able to come up with it. If not, holler.
 
thanks for welcoming me in :-)
Anyhow, as far as the equipment that I have for the tank, My only filtration is a fluval 304, I was told by my Local store that I really didnt need a skimmer unless I had live coral. I've decided to to still get a skimmer, and it should be arriving this week. I purchased a seaclone 100. The tank has been running for about 2 months.
I originally started a brackish thank thinking it would be easier, boy, was I wrong...
At the moment I have 2 leopard puffer which I slowly acclimated and he's fine, and 3 mollies.
So to list my equipment:
Fluval 304
Whisper 40
Hood with a Marine glo lamp.
but I don't have any power heads or Skimmer
thanks again for the help
 
Adding some powerheads will increase circulation and that will help the fish, anyway, though maybe not raise the pH. What salt mix are you using? There are a number of ways to up pH--but you'll need to know the alkalinity to determine what method will work best. Has the tank cycled?
 
Hey thanks for responding...
thats part of my problem.... I thought it cycled but one day to the next it got suddenly weird on me... here are my current readings
Ammonia: 0.25
Nitrate: about 40-60
Nitrite: about 1.5
pH: 7.8-7.9
I don't have a clue as to the alkalinity, Maybe I should go get a test kit for it :-)
It's a little hard to tell color :-)n
 
Knowing the alkalinity will help determine what's going on, but I will say that a cycling tank burns through buffers quickly--do you have anything in the tank that will help with that (aragonite, crushed coral, etc)?
 
Yes I do, I have the about 10lbs of the original gravel(pet store said to keep it cause it had bacteria I needed), about an inch of crushed coral, and about 25lbs of live sand on top of it all. A about 2 pieces of coral, one catspaw and the other a small piece of staghorn coral. Maybe I need more coral?
 
Unlikely to help--if the CC is present but not increasing pH, something else is going on. Let's see the Alk numbers--and what type of salt mix are you using?
 
I'm going to buy an Alk test tonight and test my waters... As far as the salt mix, I'm using instant ocean. Is the lave rock likely to bring down the PH? thats what someone at petco said... of course soon after I bought $60 worth of rocks from them.
 
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No, lava rock would be more likely to increase it--but it certainly won't decrease it. So far as I know, the only decorations that can effectively decrease pH are wood--or using peat in the filter.
 
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