ph way too high HELP

S

saltwaternewby

Registered Member
Feb 22, 2006
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I have a 46 gallon bowfront tank that we started christmas eve of 2005. It has live sand and crushed coral as substrate and about 7- 10 pounds of rock. During the first few weeks we purchased a damsel to help with the cycling. It seemed to be doing fine the tests read right and everything so we moved our other fish which are a yellow tang, clown fish and aneome and 5 snails from our other tank to our new one. Everything seemed fine for a few days and we got hit with really bad red slime algae. I purchased a product to get rid of it (it didnt work) Anyways we added a bubble tip anemoe and a coral beauty angel fish. all of a sudden the angelfish dies and the bubble tip anemoe got sucked up into the power head.

Ok here is the problem we have done 2 10% water changes in 2 days and the ph reads at 8.8 and the ammonia has gotten to its highest at 1 after the water change it goes down. nitrates 0, nitrites 0. I have added proper Ph and it isn't going down. What do I do now. I heard that red algae in the tank can cause alot of problems with it. if anyone knows what to do let me know PLEASE!!!!!

now with an update my husband just tested the ph again and it is reading 7.4 after 30 min it jumped from8.8-7.4. All my fish are going to die...... HELP
 
What exactly did you add to the tank to get rid of the slime? If it was an antibiotic, then it may have knocked down your biological filtration. The fact that you're seeing ammonia supports that.

As far as the pH, that's more puzzling. Unless you are adding kalkwasser or a buffer like washing soda (sodium carbonate) then the pH should have no reason to go up. What is your alkalinity right now? That can tell you a lot about what's going on with your pH.

Overall, it looks like you are moving awfully fast. In less that 2 months, the tank is barely cycled, and there is not a lot of live rock, so adding so many fish at once, plus delicate species like anemones was a bit risky. Also, it's important to keep powerhead intakes protected with sponges or something like a quikfilter to keep anemones from being sucked when they wander around.

It would help to know more about the tank. Filters, powerheads, lighting.

I would keep up the water changes. Products such as Seachem Prime will detoxify ammonia, so you might consider adding it if the ammonia levels stay high. Also, don't add any other livestock, buffers, or additives until the tank has stabilized. Increase the amount of live rock to about 1 lb/gallon.
 
Your PH will raise when your ammonia rises so i presume your ammonia went sky high which upsets your KH which stabalises your PH and therefore your PH went wild.

Did you do any filter maintence? or anything like that? or overstock with fish ETC?

Reasons for it could be either your tank was not totally cylced, which if may not be as its biggish tank.

Or you dont have anough bacteria on your media to cope with the amount of waste to convert into nitrate, therefore its staying as ammonia and hence this.

Dont do lots of big water changes, do 20 - 30% every few days.

Hope you get it sorted!

Gib
 
Fish excrete ammonia out of their gills. It sounds to me like you were moving to fast in stocking your aquarium, or over stocking.

Ammonium Hydroxide "NH4OH" is a high alkali. The pH will raise and fall that being unstable. Using the alkali reserve. :D
 
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I am a little confused about the NH3/pH connection. I am reasonably well versed in chemistry and physiology, but am having trouble making sense of the previous two posts.

Fish excrete nitrogen as ammonia, NH3, not ammonium, ammonium hydroxide, or other derivatives. It is a weak base (some of it picking up H+ from the water to become NH4+), so it will have a tendency to increase pH. However, even at 1 ppm it would be a much smaller pool of buffer than the carbonate and borate that are already there. Further, if it were acting as a significant amount of base (aka alkali), it would in theory increase the alkalinity and pH stability.

I am learning things all the time, so a link or more complete explanation would be welcome. I just hate it when the dots don't connect for me.
 
Ammonia is a base with a pKa of ~8.2. At 1 ppm, is should not have any effect on the aquarium pH given the amount of buffering capacity of seawater. What is a bit more of a concern, is that at higher pH (8.8), more of the ammonia is in the base form (unprotonated) than the acid form (ammonium ion), and from my understanding, the base form is more toxic to fish than the protonated ammonium ion.
 
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