Lost 12 fish
- Thread starter cap1384
- Start date
when you artificially lower the pH, the buffers in your water are going to want to bring the pH back up (or at least this is my understanding). anyway, if your pH is constantly going up and down, the fish never get a chance to adapt. with a few exceptions, most fish are better off acclimating to your water parameters as your water parameters are coming out of the tap, minus the chlorine and chloramines. if your fish never can adapt to one set of conditions, then they are constantly under stress and that can lead to die offs.
how can we help you if we dont know what is going on in your tank? we dont know you from a hole in the wall. we arent at your home to check these things for ourselves. and not knowing you, we dont know what you know about keeping fish and what you dont. we arent trying to be aggressive or mean, we need all information in order to answer you question
Yes, I completely agree, your attempts to adjust the pH are the culprit here. As inkyjenn said, the buffers in your water will keep bringing the pH back up to what it would naturally be, after the chemicals have temporarily lowered it, making your pH fluctuate all the time - which is bad for the fish. What is your pH naturally? Almost all fish, with the exception of some very sensitive wild caught species, can adjust to a very wide range of pH. Unless your pH is something like 9, you do not need to be lowering it. It is the rapid change in pH that is a problem. I am not well versed on the science behind all this, but I have seen some members explain it very well on other threads so hopefully they chime in here.
EDIT: In reading your original post again, just wanted to mention that I very successfully keep rummy nose tetras and gold rams in 8.0-8.2 pH - they do not need to be in an "acidic" pH as some will tell you, as long as they are properly acclimated. Like I said, trying to adjust your pH with chemicals will do way more harm than good. I don't think this is the reason you lost them, but fyi 72 is way too cold for rummies and cardinals - they prefer it closer to 80.
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well after teh ph is adjusted its not moving back up i made sure before hand by finding out wxactly how much to use to keep the ph at a lower setting (untill all the buffers in the water are being used up) I know that the Ph is not moving up and down I think i am going to calk this up to a broken window and a sudden temp drop i went in the room this morning and the temp in the room was 60 temp in the tanks was 70 who knows what it was through the night
Messing around with the pH is (almost ) surely the cause of part of your problem. Whatever else happens trying to adjust the pH without RO & add backs is asking for trouble, no matter what anyone says. Done it before, long, long ago. Much better to very slowly acclimate fish to your water.
