Question on Prime

[crownjules]

What's up folks?

This past week I bought and began setup of my new 38g tank. As my first endeavor into the aquatic petkeeping world, I've done a lot of research to make sure I get things right. One thing that's baffling me is this.

I filled up my tank and took readings and found that my water had a pH of 8.8 or more! This is using the API liquid test kit. I did a test to water straight out of the tap and it turned the same color. I let tap water stand for a full day and conducted yet another pH test, this time getting ~8.4 (as a note, tap water also contains .25-.5 ppm ammonia and no nitrites/nitrates).

This was all before I received my Prime water conditioner. After putting a half a cap into my tank and waiting an hour or so, I did another set of tests and found the pH had dropped to 7.4.

Does Prime contain something that neutralizes the pH, or does the presence of chlorine and the other things Prime treats increase the pH of your water?

[Reddog80p]

Prime will not affect your pH.

[fishcatch22]

perhaps you bought an expired test kit... they have a shelf life.

[Reddog80p]

Do you have anything else in your tank that could have dropped the pH? Driftwood, Plants and other things in your tank may have contributed to the pH decline.

[Mgamer20o0]

thats strange. whats in the tank so far?

[crownjules]

The tank is empty of anything organic. The only things in there have been in it since I first filled the tank. That includes:

Aquaclear Power Filter 50
Visi-Therm Stealth Heater
25lbs of small rocks

To clarify, I filled my tank and had it sitting around for 4 days before I got Prime and added that to the tank.

e: I think I will try a test tonight and fill up my water change bucket from the tap and add the appropriate amount of Prime. I'll do before and after pH tests, because I can't see anything else that would have caused the pH to drop (unless pH of water will naturally neutralize given time?)

[Hound]

Have you tested your waters KH?

[quadpants]

25lbs of small rocks

What kind of rocks? There are plenty of them that will alter your pH.

[Squawkbert]

Prime addition essentially knocks the NH3 out of solution. NH3 is quite basic, so in a tank w/ little or no KH, taking out 0.3ppm NH3 should cause a drop in pH.