pH changing from 8.8 to 6.4... Help!

[wodesorel]

I'm trying to figure out why this is happening. Here I was worrying about the pH being too high, and it's actually too low, and it's continuing to drop.

I had to switch over from bottled water to treated tap water. The tap water here is at a pH of 8.8, maybe higher. (It's as high as my tester goes.) It tests that high even after being treated with water conditioner and allowed to sit out for three days.

So I started to slowly add it to my tank day by day, which was at a steady 7.2. The pH isn't going up, it's going down. On 4-15 it was 7.0. On 4-22 it was 6.8. And tonight 4-29, it's 6.6.

I add three drops of liquid calcium daily for the snails, fresh cucumber every night, and one drop of iodine for the ghost shrimp every Sunday. The tank is still cycling. The Ammonia is at .25, but the Nitrites are at 2.0 every night. The Nitrates were at 5.0 from 4-12 to 4-15, droped to zero, and have been at 5.0 from 4-17 to today.

Please don't yell at me for cycling a tank fully stocked. I didn't have a choice. My last one broke and the filter burned out.

Any ideas or advice would be appreciated. I've always had problems with high pH, never with low.

[ultasol]

DO you know the gh/kh? With an adequete buffer, and please correct me if I'm wrong, shouldn't the PH swings be minimized? Do you inject Co2?
What is your media?

[toadstoool]

If your water coming into the house is 8.8 or higher have you of haveing a waterconditioning system installed it would be better for you and you fish.

[Georgia Peach]

You need to check your KH and GH - sounds to me like your water has no buffering capacity. Here is a good article that explains it..

KH and GH

[Carl]

All of the above should be checked out, along with your test kit as sometimes they are faulty. If your fish show any signs of illness you will know somethin is wrong but if they seem fine, try another test kit. I have just experienced this, my test said that the Ph was 8.0 in my biggest tank, so i bought some ph buffer and my motoros dead coz the ph went so low and the kit was faulty. Its a bit long winded but i thought id xplain myself lol.

[wodesorel]

Double checked with a different kit:

Tank is:
pH 6.4
kH 0
gH 120

2 day old treated tap water:
pH 8.4
kH 80
gH 120

7 day old treated tap water is:
pH 7.0
kH 80
gH 120

So what do I do now? I'm pretty sure that the Nitrogen cycle has stopped. I have no idea what's going on with the tap water. I can't afford to go back to bottled....But, everything in the tank is healthy and active.

[emc7]

If the kH is 0, something is eating all your calcium. You can add buffering capacity with something like "cichlid salts" or "cichlid chemistry". You could try a different water treatment product. What is your pH of untreated tap water, one week old. For those fish, what is your target pH? Your water is unusual, most high pH tap water is very hard too. If you get your kH up, your pH should stabilize.

[emc7]

Your nitrates aren't going up? Do you have a lot of plants and/or algae?

[wodesorel]

I've never tested old untreated tap water. After a few hours it tests at somewhere over 8.8 (that's how high the test goes and the color is nowhere close to 8.8), but I think that's from the cloramines reacting with the testing chemicals. Once it's treated, it drops to 8.8.

Target pH is around 7.5. It might be a little high for the loaches, but I'm more worried about the snails. They're growing like weeds. In a month, the blue one has put on an inch and a half of shell growth alone. They have perfect shells though, I think because of the added calcium.

I don't have any live plants, only pieces of cucumber, zuccini, or spinich. No green algea, only diatoms on the tree root decoration and the plastic plants at the surface.

We have hard water deposits on every sink in the house. It was so bad in the bathroom it ate right through the chrome on the faucet and we had to replace it. Once a month we have to flush the screens on the faucets because they get plugged. I just don't get it. The water should be the exact opposite of what it is.

Are there buffers available without salt? The loaches won't tolerate salt.

I've never messed around with water parameters before. Is it safe to do?

[fish_doc]

What kind of gravel are you using. Is the same stuff you had in the old tank? Have you added any other decorations in the new tank that were not in the old tank?

[wodesorel]

Same gravel, with 5 pounds new added (Estes "bit o'walnut"). Same plastic plants.

New ornament, though - a painted resin tree from Top Fin. And new metamorphic rocks for decorations. (They're nothing but marble and quartz.)

Looking back through my notes, the problem only started when I added the tap water. I don't think it's the stuff in the tank, seeing as how the pH drops when the water is sitting in plastic jugs for a week.

[fish_doc]

quartz will not affect pH and Estes is usually epoxy coated and nontoxic. So that should not be a issue.

Marble on the other hand is a highly calcareous rock and could cause issues with raising your pH. It ranks right behind Limestone as far as raising pH. Try pulling out the Marble and see if that helps hold the pH a bit more steady. I know you say the water seems unstable even before putting it in the tank but it dosent hurt to eliminate problems all the way through.

[wodesorel]

Okay, I took the rocks out. But I need the pH to raise, so shouldn't they be good to have in the tank?

[fish_doc]

How often do you do water changes and how many airstones and filters do you have on the tank? Do you use a gravel vac when you do clean the tank?

The ultimate trick is to figure out what is causing the problem not just throwing more stuff in the tank to fix it.

[ron v]

If we can solve this problem and market the technique, we can make a fortune! Turning hard water into soft is very difficult to do and that is exactly what is happing here ( by magic ). Tap water KH is 80. When it goes into the tank, it becomes 0. I can't explain it!

[wodesorel]

Okay, I had completely forgotten about this. About a month ago I broke one of those little glass aquarium thermometers. The interior tube with the red dye didn't crack, but the bottom where all the weights were did. They sank right through the gravel, and I had no way of getting them out. I called the company and they said that they were non-toxic. So I just left them in there. They're probably lead. Would that have an effect on the hardness? (I've never taken chemistry, can you tell?) If it is the problem, can someone tell me how to get them out? They're so tiny and heavy, I can't get them off the bottom of the tank!

edit to add:
I have a one Tetra Whisper, with the floss and carbon insert. No airstones.
I've been changing out one gallon of water a night since the nitrites aren't dropping. I vaccume every second or third night.

[jwddboy]

lead wont affect it. Keep up the water changes. Try some bog wood as a buffer?

[fish_doc]

Sounds like you have had quite rough time with the tank overall. I dont think the lead will affect the pH but it might give your fish brain damage. Kind of like eating paint flakes. Tasty...

Dont use Bog wood or any other driftwood. That will only lower your pH more.

[emc7]

When you add calcium, what is it exactly? Calcium carbonate?

[ron v]

If you want more buffering capacity, add sodium bicarbonate ( baking soda ).