20 gallon long tank high ph problem

...?

Protein skimmers aren't really functional in freshwater, and other than providing agitation to gas off dissolved CO2 and raise pH, are completely unrelated to pH.
 
Ok I think my ph is going to be alright where it is then. I am having trouble raising ammonia levels with the fish less cycle. I have been using fish food but it hasn't raised the ppm past .5 yet.
 
If you don't have access to plain ammonia, use a piece of raw shrimp. Don't go with a huge chunk, and know that it will smell, but most fish foods have preservatives to slow decay.
 
Ok thank you. I will try to get some. Should I clean out the fish food in case it does start decaying and offsets my ammonia already from the shrimp or plain ammonia?
 
You can leave that as a back up plan since you'll be monitoring ammonia levels anyway. You don't want it to get too high, since that will impede the bacteria as well, but you can't remove all sources since that will take away the food source. It's more difficult to manage if you're not using ammonia, since it's difficult to control the additions from decaying matter.
 
I had a white film growing on my driftwood for a while that I researched and understood it to be normal and temporary. I've noticed that it's turning a darker shade of grey in some areas and I was wondering if maybe it's dying or if it's a form of algae I need to be worried about.
 
It's likely fungal, and this is normal as it passes the fruiting stage. You can manually remove it if you'd like, not really critical. I've never had them cause any water quality issues since the microorganisms in the tank eat it.
 
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