HI PROF please could you help me here.. i would like my tanks to have a ph of 7 - or upper 6's but i can not seem to get them there. or keep them there. i know you can add bicarb of soda to increase the ph - but it does not seem to last. admittingly i dont know how much to add and how often. i have a community tank with lots of tetra's, clown loaches, SAE, swords and few gourami's.. the funny thing is all my tanks seem to have the same PH - 6 can i can get them up..... Please help thanks:bigsmile:
Hi Julie, I think that if you were to measure the pH in your tanks accurately, you would find that it would be a lot lower, in my discus systems I can easily measure as low as pH 4. Yes you can increase the pH using bicarb, but this drops again and again as you indicate. However you can use what one would refer to as a solid buffer in order to stop this pH drop, by this I mean you can add some shells into your filters and because these are made of Calcium carbonate, they will be eroded away as the pH drops and release carbonate, CO3=, which then pushes up the pH again. You should add about two tablespoons of shells per 100 litres and you can increase or decrease the amount to stabilize the pH to where you want it. Use some beach washed shells, white mussels from Bloubergstrand do just fine. Some folks will immediately say that this will harden the water and this does release the Calcium as well. Well it does by a tiny amount but this is still far too little to make the water hard as you would require for Malawis or Tangs. Kind regards, Dirk
thanks prof sounds like a plan. so i can just pick up some shells off the beach and wash them... then put them in the filter.... or could i put it in the actual tank? so i crush them first - if i find mussel shells can i use them whole - if so - how many i have some "periwinkel" shells - whole big ones.... wil that work? thanks prof.
