How do I lower Ph and KH?

With a KH that low you are more likely to induce a pH crash than you are to do those fish any good in my opinion.

What did you do to cause that pH drop? If you used a chemical it is just going to shoot back up anyway and if you aren’t prepared you’ll lose those fish very quickly.

If you used a chemical then in my opinion you should do a water change and get that KH back up a little bit and when you do get the fish just do a very slow and thorough assimilation.

If you used some other method, post back and let us know.
 
I was cycling my tank, and when the cycle stalled, I added some baking soda and did a water change. Since the cycle finished, I have been adding a small dose of ammonia every day just to keep the bacteria fed and the tank ready. The ph is fine now but the KH is too low. Now I need to stop the ph from dropping more and bring the KH back up. I DO NOT want to lose any fish.
 
I see so you are saying that the pH and KH naturally fell from the 8.0pH 6dKH in your original post to the levels you have now? If you added anything other than the ammonia and baking soda, that is the most important thing to know.

The baking soda should have raised the KH and the pH, not lowered it, so your results would be strange otherwise I would think.

If you haven't added anything else, I think that the massive water change that you need to do to clear the ammonia prior to putting in the fish will raise the KH back up some.

Obviously it will also raise your pH, but that is preferable to the instability caused by the low KH.
 
That is correct, when my cycle stalled due to a Ph and KH crash, I added baking soda which brought them up to ph 8 and Kh at least 6 (more like 10 but I did a few water changes to bring it down to 6). Then I just kept feeding ammonia and the tank finished cycling. Now, I am still feeding small doses of ammonia and the numbers are dropping again. So, I should do just a water change? Do you think 75% should be okay?
 
Beeker said:
So, I should do just a water change? Do you think 75% should be okay?
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Yep 75% seems to be the most highly recommended number I've heard. And you’ll have to do one before you put those fish in there anyway since you’ve still been* dosing ammonia.

Since you are getting them tomorrow, I’d turn off your filters, do a 75% water change and treat the entire tank with chlorine/chloramines/ammonia remover and then turn your filter back on and check the pH again in a few hours (or if you do it tonight, tomorrow morning). Unless your tap water is that soft, it should stabilize the water.

edit: If your tap water is that soft, they you are probably best off not messing with it right now and just get your fish assimilated and comfortable in the tank and continue with maintenance as necessary to keep things stable.

If in the future you really want to bring the KH up, you can add a tiny bit of crushed coral in the filter and that’ll help you out there. I definitely wouldn’t use baking soda once the fish are in.
 
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Great, thank you so much! :) You have been very helpful.
My tap isn't that soft. It is about 4. The ph is about 7.5. I'll do that water change and then acclimate the fish. I don't have any ammonia remover, though.
I only recently added the substrate so, I don't think there is all that much ammonia in it. I cycled the tank with just an ornament and a filter. I added the substrate just last week and added live plants. Should I just change the filter cartridge?
 
Beeker said:
Should I just change the filter cartridge?
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Definitely don’t do that :)

That filter contains all of the beneficial bacteria that you built up during the fishless cycle. If you remove that now it'd be like starting completely over again.

So again, don't do that :)

Good luck!
 
Use RO water.
 
Bio acidification,
The natural processes in our tanks consume KH. normally water changes and good maintenance combined with a reasonable bio-load make this effect unnoticeable. However with fishless cycling, we are simulating a massive bio-load, and the bio activity eats KH rapidly. Baking soda counteracts this easily and quickly. Since your cycle is done, I would go with the water change route. go big on the water change and then see what you have. be prepared to do a few smaller ones in the next couple days, but a 75% - 90% water change should put everything back close to your tap numbers and stable for your fish.

And really!, quit worrying about the Ph it will not hurt your fish. They won't know the difference once they are acclimated. 3 DKH is the commonly mentioned safety zone. so anything above that is good. If your tap is 6 dkh, then you want your tank to be 6 dkh. target a safe KH level and accept the PH level it gives you. You can only contrl PH by tampering with KH or by adding Co2. tampering with Kh in the down direction is difficult and the fluctuations will be hard on your fish.

Tampering with KH in the upward direction is relatively easy, but that isn't what you are desireous of right now.

With your Tap numbers you really have a pretty decent water source (some of us would absolutely love to have your water) Just relax on the PH KH situation and worry about developing good feeding and maintenance habits while watching your fish swim.

Use RO water.
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This is an option and one of the better ones I guess. If your watyer is way too hard you can find a ratio between tap and RO water that dillutes the hardness to a desired level. then if you are religious about measuring, and mixing, and have a very good maintenance schedule you can regulate it that way. You essentially lower the Kh through dillution, which of course equates to a lower Ph. But you are still doing unnecessary work and putting forth unnecessary expense when your tap is fine to begin with. If your tap water was 14 dkh, and 8.8 Ph it might be worht the trouble to mix RO all of the time.
You could mix it to achieve dkh of 6 and Ph of 8.0 so your fish would be happy.
Dave
 
Ditto. What you've got coming from your tap is pretty much what I'd call 'perfect' water. You've got a nice amount of buffer at 4dKH and can safely add CO2 if/when you want to get into heavily planting your tank, you've got plenty of buffer to prevent pH swings and to support bio-acidification. It's easy to overload a buffer with fishless cycling, you're driving the bacteria so hard, producing massive colonies compared to a standard, properly stocked bio-load, plus not really doing any water changes for weeks as a matter of course. On the flip side, you don't have obscenely hard water which is really hard to tamper with.

Do a big water change like you'd just finished cycling the day before you add the fish, then fall back to 50% weekly. Monitor your N species for the first week to make sure nothing disastrous happened.
 
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