Water problems!!

travelinman1969

travelinman1969

AC Members
Oct 23, 2003
548
0
0
Lost Nation, IA
Visit site
I just got back from my neighbors house and, Houston we have a problem. I wrote a thread a couple weeks ago about this guys tanks, granted he was misinformed about how to take care of his tanks. I have since, straightened him out. The tank I'm most worried about is a tank I'm taking some of his fish from. But, there is no way those fish will survive the huge swing in parameters. His tank has the following, I'll add what it was 2 weeks ago too:

ph- way below 6.2, that's as low as my test kit goes. A guess is 5.0-5.5, doesn't seem to have changed.
gh has come down to 150, was 300+
kh 0, hasn't changed
nitrite- .5, down from 3.0
nitrate- 240+, my color chart only goes to 240 and it is way darker than that, a guess is 600, doesn't seem to have changed.

He has been doing 5 gallon changes every other day for the past 2 weeks, I think. I hope. Obviously, he's been doing something, some parameters have changed. The one I like is the nitrite. However, the water here is a 7.8 ph and hard, but the changes have not changed the ph. Can the high nitrate levels have anything to do with this? I plan to do a 50% change tomorrow with my RO water, but need some input as to why this is happening.

Our original plan was to bring the ph up slowly, then attack the nitrate issue, but the ph is not coming up. Affraid to do a 50% change with this hard water. I'm thinking we may need to attack the nitrate issue first, that's why I'm looking at doing the RO water change. Any ideas?? What should we attack first, and tap or RO?? RTR?? LOL

Need to get his parameters close to mine. Mine are:

ph 7.0
kh 80
gh 75
nitrite 0
nitrate 40 (I fight this on a constant basis, new tank should help.)
 
Last edited:
if the kh is 0 and the nitrates are high, I can see how his water would have such a low ph. Add a bag of crushed coral, or better yet, put crushed coral in the filter of each of the tanks and this should slowly bring the kh up along with the ph. if that's going too slow, slowly add a baking soda solution. that will bring the kh and ph up very quickly, so go easy with it. use plenty of crushed coral though. it's not nearly as soluble as baking soda.

[edit] this is my take on nitrates lowering ph. Now, I'm probably not totally right, but bear with me. and nobody flame me. I already said I'm probably wrong:)

but I believe nitric acid is.. HNO3. NO3 is, of course, nitrate. so H2O+2(x)NO3-->2HNO3+(x)2O. something like that. might be totally wrong. but with no Kh to buffer the ph, even with the addition of a TINY amount of acid, the pH will plummet. that's what the crushed coral is for. As for the nitrates, I would do several larger (>20%) water changes, maybe once daily... monitoring the ph before, during, and after each to make sure it stays low. If the tap water you're using to change the water really has 0kh, it shouldn't move the ph too fast. after the nitrates are down to a manageable level, like say 100ppm, add the crushed coral and wait a couple days.
 
Last edited:
That's just it, the KH in the tap is high. That's what I don't get. That's why I'm asking the question of the nitrates somehow effecting it. I can't believe that this many changes hasn't changed the kh. I;m trying to tell someone who doesn;t understand and at the same time not have him swing the tank into a fish fry. :confused:
 
hmm well if the tap kh is high, I'd go with the crushed coral and keep doing water changes, but maybe bump it to 5 gallons daily. Eventually it will swing... that's inevitable... but it probably won't be too fast.
 
That atricle confirms what I thought. Small changes at first til the peramaters get closer to normal, then large changes to get the nitrate out. But his changes don't seem to be having too much effect. By the way this tank is way overpopulated.

I'm going golfin for a few hours and when I get back we're going to do a change using the RO water, unless someone gives a good reason not to. Plan a 15 gallon change.
 
Last edited:
Using RO may likely drop the astronomic titers faster, but it will equally magnify the chances for osmotic shock problems with the fish and do nothing to replenish all the burned out buffering capacity of the water. I'd stick with tap.
 
Well, I figure the tap might be too much of a shock, the RO will be easier in kh and gh and closer to their preference, and we can get a big chunck of the nitrates out. What do you think?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom