If you have all low light plants and don't use artificial fertilizers, there is no need to use CO2. CO2 is not a big deal either way because the effect it has on pH is almost meaningless. The pH can swing a full point with CO2 but your fish really won't care. I run pressurized CO2 on one tank that swings from about 7.8 before the CO2 comes on to about 7.0 right before it goes off. The fish move with that swing every day and it doesn't seem to bother them. It is about what I would have expected because the same thing will happen in an outdoor pond or lake. Overnight the CO2 will increase with fish and plant respiration and the pH will drop. When the sun comes out and the plants stop producing CO2 and soak it up instead, the CO2 in the lake will go to near zero and the pH will rise like crazy. Fish are exposed to this every day of their lives in the wild so there is no reason they need to be protected from it in our tanks.
How do I stabilize my PH????
- Thread starter D_K
- Start date
Awesome info guys! :headbang2:
I have always been told and read that stable PH is mandatory. It is good to get another perspective.
I will have to start tinkering around with the peat (which btw, seems to have zero affect on anything) and the coral.
It is funny actually, I bought this tank 4 months ago and I have been tinkering with building up the landscape and getting it where I want ever since. Maybe one of these days it will house more then just the refugees from the live bearer tank that had a population explosion.
I have always been told and read that stable PH is mandatory. It is good to get another perspective.
I will have to start tinkering around with the peat (which btw, seems to have zero affect on anything) and the coral.
It is funny actually, I bought this tank 4 months ago and I have been tinkering with building up the landscape and getting it where I want ever since. Maybe one of these days it will house more then just the refugees from the live bearer tank that had a population explosion.
I was told that for a while as well. Fish could care less about pH, it's the TDS that matters. Easiest way to monitor that, other than by using a TDS meter, is by testing for GH and KH.
Yep. It seems to put people's mind at ease when they hear that they do not have to mess with pH, but as soon as they see it move a little it suddenly becomes a huge ordeal. Not to worry though!
Is there a range in which the pH swings are too extreme? I would think a hypothetical swing of pH 10 to 2 would be stressful to the inhabitants of the tank.
Well, they'd already be dead at pH 10 anyway.
It's not so much the size of the swing but the speed. I wouldn't put a fish straight from pH 6 to pH 7.5, but I'd drip acclimate it over perhaps half an hour. Hard figures are hard to come by. It does take time for a fish to sort out its pH balance, but not half as long as some people imagine, and they do seem to take the change in their stride.
It's not so much the size of the swing but the speed. I wouldn't put a fish straight from pH 6 to pH 7.5, but I'd drip acclimate it over perhaps half an hour. Hard figures are hard to come by. It does take time for a fish to sort out its pH balance, but not half as long as some people imagine, and they do seem to take the change in their stride.
A good range is between 6-9...outside of those you start seeing problems with fish as well as your bacteria colony I believe.
