# Ph is dropping in my 30 gallon. Need help



## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

i have a 30 gallon tank that has been set up for about 7 months. For months the tank stayed at 7.2( doing all the required water changes of coarse)and starting dropping as expected with an aging tank. At around 6.4 in ph i decided to add crushed coral to stabalize the ph. I added a 1/4 cup and it barely moved. I then added a 1/2 cup and it came to about 6.8. I decided that was reasonable so i left it at that and when i did my 25% water change with water of 7.2 it came up to about 6.9 and by morning it had dropt way down to 6.2-6.3. How has this happend and did i not add enough crushed coral.A couple days later so not to stress the fish. I have added another 1/2 cup \ and history has repeated exactly how i have said before.It came to 6.8 , when i did the water change it drops to 6.2-6.3. So what is happening? Do i need more crushed coral ? There is about 1 1/2 to 2 cups of coral in now.


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

Strange. What test kit are you using? What are your hardness levels? Your other alternatives are marble chips, plaster of Paris blocks and limestones.


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

My hardness level is 75-100 ppm and the alkalinity is 40 ppm if not lower. The test kit is API ,aquarium pharmaceuticals . I dont understand. If the tank reacted to the coral how could it drop below the 6.8 it had been buffered too.


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

Your hardness level is soft. What's the hardness of your tapwater? Add more crushed corals. If this does not help, go over plaster of Paris blocks or marble chips.


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

My tap water is hard ,but i have been using store bought water, which is soft. So i hopefully wouldnt get the big ph swing that i have been getting. Is 1 1/2 cups not enough. Someone told me that was hardly enough to do anything.


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

do the paris block or marble chips work better than crushed coral


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

55bldparrot30 said:


> My tap water is hard ,but i have been using store bought water, which is soft. So i hopefully wouldnt get the big ph swing that i have been getting. Is 1 1/2 cups not enough. Someone told me that was hardly enough to do anything.


Tapwater should be fine. It buffers pH easily. What is your reason for using RO water? This is a waste of time and a tedious process to begin with.



55bldparrot30 said:


> do the paris block or marble chips work better than crushed coral


 Both of the things I mentioned can last for a long time and can also help stabilized the pH. Plaster of Paris is cheap and you just make several blocks as desired and add once they dissolve quickly but from your first post, you have no reason to use RO water. Just use tapwater.


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

My tap water has about 20 to 25 ppm of nitrate present and i do not have a planted tank. so this is why i decided to use store bought.I am not using RO water but store bought spring water in hopes that it is not missing all its major properties.


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

Is this why my tank has this low ph and struggles to come up? Because of the softer store bought spring water i have been using in my tank. If so , when i use my well water, the ph in the tank rises for a couple hours then drops because of the tanks buffering capacity which i thought would be bad for the fish. What do you suggest? Mayb add corals to bring it up to about 7.0- 7.2 and then do a water change?


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

Hornworts are your best bet. They do not taste well so most fish ignore them completely.


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

55bldparrot30 said:


> Is this why my tank has this low ph and struggles to come up? Because of the softer store bought spring water i have been using in my tank. If so , when i use my well water, the ph in the tank rises for a couple hours then drops because of the tanks buffering capacity which i thought would be bad for the fish. What do you suggest? Mayb add corals to bring it up to about 7.0- 7.2 and then do a water change?



 I'd suggest using tapwater again, drop hornworts to consume the nitrates and let the corals remain there just to help stabilize the pH.


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

Lupin said:


> Hornworts are your best bet. They do not taste well so most fish ignore them completely.


 That doesnt seem to match what i was asking. Was that a mistake, if not could you explain what you mean.


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

Lupin said:


> [/color]
> I'd suggest using tapwater again, drop hornworts to consume the nitrates and let the corals remain there just to help stabilize the pH.


 scratch the last thing i said what are hornworts and where do you get them.


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

55bldparrot30 said:


> scratch the last thing i said what are hornworts and where do you get them.


 Hornworts (_Ceratophyllum demersum_) are floating plants that are undemanding. They have brittle stems and do not grow roots when planted so they are best left floating.


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

Do you think parrots or plecos would eat and tear apart this plant? Most fish store in my area have poor water condition and i wouldnt trust buying anything from them. The small family owned business i have been going to, they have healthy fish but not so many plants. So i would not know where to get these plants also.


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

Your fish will not eat them. Maybe try Aquabid for these plants but they're often given away rather than sold.


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

well thank you for your help. I am going to try to fix this over the next few weeks . I thought about making/or buying a refugium for my tank to get rid of nitrates before because i thought the fish would eat them. Also, do certain plants absorb nitrates better then others and are the hornworts good at doing this? How many should i use?


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

I went onto aquabid. Do fish eat at water sprite?


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

55bldparrot30 said:


> well thank you for your help. I am going to try to fix this over the next few weeks . I thought about making/or buying a refugium for my tank to get rid of nitrates before because i thought the fish would eat them. Also, do certain plants absorb nitrates better then others and are the hornworts good at doing this? How many should i use?


It's usually the fast growing plants such as duckweeds that can consume nitrates better than slow growing ones. Start with a bundle. Your hornworts will grow in no time at all.



55bldparrot30 said:


> I went onto aquabid. Do fish eat at water sprite?


 Your blood parrots may slightly damaged it but feed them veggies to distract them. Your plecos will not.


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

I purchased hornworts today. Do I have to worry about special lighting? Do I need to add anything to my water and what do i have to watch out for as far as danger signs of the plant not thriving?


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

Nah, like I said they are undemanding.:wink:


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

Thats good because i know i dont have any special lighting. I was kinda worried when i got home. I looked up some things and read some articles that said the same thing you tell me. Then others say it does not like soft water, which i have. Some say it needs bright lighting. Maybe they flourish more in brighter lights.


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

They do look better in high lighting but all the same, you don't have to spend much for that plant.


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

Great thats what i am hoping for. My parrots pick at it here and there but they have other important things to do. Parts of the plant where a little dark when i got it from the store. Just bits here and there. Is that bad? There are also little pod.seed like structures growing from the stem. What would that be, a flower?


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

Most likely flowers but I had never seen mine do that except my _Egeria densa_ which does flower but only during summer season. Your plant is fine.


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

thanks for the information once again. I try to do my best with the aquariums but sometimes information is either wrong or cloudy . Then things start to get mest up .Learning everyday........... any other low light plants i might try that wont be food to my fish? I like the look of the real plants.


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

Amending the last post...It could be new plant shoots.

Java ferns and anubias are tough. Try them but these are also slow growing plants so don't expect them to grow much. Java moss is another one but keep a spare and test if the blood parrots will eat them. Java moss can grow rather fast though.


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

Could I replace the 30 gallon hood light with another light that might benefit plants better?The tank is a 30 long.


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

Fluorescents are much better than incandescents. If yours is incandescent, then definitely replace it.


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

I have a fluorescent bulb. Im pretty sure? Incandescent are your stantdard house bulb. Flourescent are long tube like bulbs filled with gas that reacts to electricity. Correct? If so that is what i have.


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

I have never been in depth over the properties of each light.:shock: I just use the plain ol' daylight fluorescents for my plants.:wink:


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

Sorry , i am more of a gear head. Fish is just another hobby i stumbled on along the way. My new house im renting did not allow pets. So that is how i got started. But i think i have Fluorescent light. Time will tell i guess....... What kind of tanks do you have up and running at the moment?


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

Plain ol' river tanks full of loaches and then several snail tanks.:lol: I used to have plenty other fish but I no longer have them. Still have the angels, starry woodcat which I saw for the first time in 6 months, raphael, plecos, gold severums, bettas and the plain ol' guppies.:wink: I have a few others but can't remember them on top of my head having been focused on snails lately.


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

I had thought about snails before but i have a small amount of salt in my tanks. I read somewhere that snails and claims dont really care for this. So i figured i wouldnt try it. Plus, some snail tanks seem to be over powering the whole tank. Maybe that only goes for some snails. Clams seem to be real interesting though. I read they like to borrow in the substrate and do just as good of job as snails when it comes to filtering the water.


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

Lupin said:


> Plain ol' river tanks full of loaches and then several snail tanks.:lol: I used to have plenty other fish but I no longer have them. Still have the angels, starry woodcat which I saw for the first time in 6 months, raphael, plecos, gold severums, bettas and the plain ol' guppies.:wink: I have a few others but can't remember them on top of my head having been focused on snails lately.


One day i would love to keep gold severums. Do they have the bold ,human like personality the parrot fish have? I have a thing for intelligent fish.8)


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

55bldparrot30 said:


> One day i would love to keep gold severums. Do they have the bold ,human like personality the parrot fish have? I have a thing for intelligent fish.8)


A lot of cichlids actually are similar to parrots, various personalities. I grew my gold sevs from an inch to 6 inches in less than five months. They're intelligent fish and follow me around whenever they beg for food. They've spawned at least four times to my knowledge but I am not the least bit interested in rearing the fry so I just leave them to spawn and the loaches just thank me for free caviar.:roll:



55bldparrot30 said:


> I had thought about snails before but i have a small amount of salt in my tanks. I read somewhere that snails and claims dont really care for this. So i figured i wouldnt try it. Plus, some snail tanks seem to be over powering the whole tank. Maybe that only goes for some snails. Clams seem to be real interesting though. I read they like to borrow in the substrate and do just as good of job as snails when it comes to filtering the water.


 You do not need to use salt. Anything about salt being beneficial in the long run is bunk. All you need is table salt and the only time when you can use it is when ich outbreak occurs. The snails I am raising are not the pest snails that we often see. They're _Pomacea canaliculata, Pomacea diffusa_ and _Clithon corona_ along with some MTS that have blue and pink pastel colors that I am wanting to breed just for aesthetic reasons.

Clams aren't exactly the easiest inverts to keep and so are mussels. They need green floating algae to feed on and this algae isn't exactly the one you want to have in your tanks. Snails also do not filter out particles in the water. Only clams, mussels and most shrimps do. Any inverts will not do well with blood parrots though so you need to consider another tank if you want inverts.


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

Do your severums have alot of red in them? I did not know they grew this fast. I am deffinantly keeping this fish in the near future. I like the parrots alot and the gold severums are simular in many aspects and they actually are from the wild. Thats seems much better to me........ I am planning on making a refugium for one of my tanks. Which I have posted under freshwater aquariums. Sounds dumb for freshwater but this way my parrots wont attack my inverts or delicate plants. I dont know much about inverts so sorry on what i am wrong about. I only know what i read since i have no experience in inverts. I was kinda hoping there was no pest snails in the plant i bought today. I checked closely and didnt see any. I guess the salt would knock them off if there was anyway?


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

55bldparrot30 said:


> Do your severums have alot of red in them? I did not know they grew this fast. I am deffinantly keeping this fish in the near future. I like the parrots alot and the gold severums are simular in many aspects and they actually are from the wild. Thats seems much better to me........ I am planning on making a refugium for one of my tanks. Which I have posted under freshwater aquariums. Sounds dumb for freshwater but this way my parrots wont attack my inverts or delicate plants. I dont know much about inverts so sorry on what i am wrong about. I only know what i read since i have no experience in inverts. I was kinda hoping there was no pest snails in the plant i bought today. I checked closely and didnt see any. I guess the salt would knock them off if there was anyway?


 Hmmm..I had to look my sevs again.:lol: The male has red wiggle marks on its face and red dorsal and anal fins. The female is plain ol' gold. They're golden sevs nevertheless. If you want sevs with more red colors, get the reverse strain called red or red fire severums.

Most snails can tolerate salt well but only temporarily. Salt grains can burn their skin and kill them in the process. The same thing can happen with loaches, catfish, etc which is why when you treat them with salt, please make sure to thoroughly dissolve the salt and add slowly. I made a mistake of dumping salt directly before and killed 80% of my loaches and cories.:evil:

If you have any more questions about inverts, post them in FW Invertebrates section and I'll help you from there.:wink:


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

No that is just for one day in the future as far as snails go. Do you know where to find pictures of the red fire severums? Or even know where to get them. I have never heard of this fish. Fish stores around this area seem to have a limited selection on fish. I wonder why that is? Seems to be more of the novice type fish in stores. I wish i lived near some of these places where these different kinds of fish are sold. Shipping fish doesnt seem like that great of an idea? What do you think.


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

Here's the cutie. Not mine.







http://www.sunshine-aquarium.com/image/Red_face_golden_severum.jpg


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## 55bldparrot30 (Jan 12, 2009)

any thoughts on shipping fish?


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