HELP: Low pH and Aragonite Substrate.

[jburke30]

Greetings All,

 

I've been having low pH trouble for a while now (at least 5 months at 7.7). I've tried using chemical buffers, but the pH only stays above 8 for a short time (2 to 4 hours at most). Since I have a tank cycling right now I thought I would try to get to the bottom of the issue while the setup is still simple (only the filter and substrate are in the tank).

 

So here's the tests I've done. I first tried to adjust the pH with the carbon pads in the filter (since someone suggested that the carbon might be absorbing my additive) and it only took 3 hours for the pH to drop from 8.3 to 7.7. Next I took out the carbon pads and tried it again, but I had the same results.

 

The next step is for me to take out the substrate and try it again. If I get the same results then the water could be the culprit (but I don't think it is since I've had no problems adjusting the pH in my 10 gallon which didn't have any aragonite substrate).

 

Any thoughts on this? has anyone else experienced the same thing? And, what other substrate is good to use if not aragonite? Or, if it's the brand I'm buying what brands of aragonite are the best (I didn't have this problem untill I purchased the aragonite, and I've only used the same brand from Petsmart)?

 

This has got to be one of the most frustrating things (well this and phosphate buildup =).

 

Thanks for any insights,

 

Jason

 

PS: My water circulation is good, and I've tried a number of tactics to promote good carbon dioxide exchange (though I've never tested the CO2 levels). Also, the nitrate level is pretty high in the tank (100+), but I can't find any organic material decaying in the water, filter or substrate.

[zumzumn]

are you mixing water? and where are you getting the water? also if you use a PH up type of chemical you need to use a stabilzer to keep it up.

[Dave ESPI]

Originally posted by jburke30

I've been having low pH trouble for a while now I've tried using chemical buffers, but the pH only stays above 8 for a short time tank cycling right now I thought I would try to get to the bottom of the issue while the setup is still simple (only the filter and substrate are in the tank).  

 

The next step is for me to take out the substrate and try it again. If I get the same results then the water could be the culprit  

 

Or, if it's the brand I'm buying what brands of aragonite are the best (I didn't have this problem untill I purchased the aragonite, and I've only used the same brand from Petsmart)?

 

This has got to be one of the most frustrating things (well this and phosphate buildup =).

 

Add a skimmer. a GOOD ONE.

PET SMART BRAND ? it could ne land mined aragonite NOT ocean aragonite. It most likely came from some inland mine in Florida......

THE PHOSPHATE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD......

What salt are u using? any RODI? have you done a standing water ph test on your tap? perchance do you have Well water?

the nitrates may be caused by bacterial action. have you done any HUGE water changes to see what the reactions are?

 

reccomendation...... empty tank, fill with rodi and good salt. dun for 3 hours... test water. THEN let run for one week. Test water.

if the nitrates are up again and phosphates are high, your substrate is fubar.

CARIB SEA aragonite is the only one I trust.

HTH

D.

[jburke30]

Originally posted by Dave ESPI

 

Add a skimmer. a GOOD ONE.

PET SMART BRAND ?   it could ne land mined aragonite NOT ocean aragonite. It most likely came from some inland mine in Florida......

THE PHOSPHATE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD......

What salt are u using? any RODI? have you done a standing water ph test on your tap? perchance do you have Well water?

the nitrates may be caused by bacterial action. have you done any HUGE water changes to see what the reactions are?

 

reccomendation...... empty tank, fill with rodi and good salt.  dun for 3 hours... test water. THEN let run for one week. Test water.

if the nitrates are up again and phosphates are high, your substrate is fubar.

CARIB SEA aragonite is the only one I trust.

HTH

D.

 

 

I'm using Instant Ocean for salt, and my water is RO from the local grocery store (the local LFS sells water, but they're somewhat out of the way for lugging water around on a regular basis). The pH of the RO water is 8.2+ everytime I test it (though I need to test it for nitrate and phosphate - can't tell you why I havn't done it yet though. I guess I just trusted the source).

 

I'll give your recommendation a whirl, thanks for the info.

 

Jason

[jburke30]

Originally posted by zumzumn

are you mixing water?  and where are you getting the water?  also if you use a PH up type of chemical you need to use a stabilzer to keep it up.

 

Yes, on mixing. Water is RO from local grocery store. Never heard of pH stabilizer. What is it?

[tinyreef]

do you mean the RO after salt mix is 8.2+ because otherwise that's pretty hard water. try a different brand or distilled before you do anything drastic imo.

 

also have you tried a different pH test kit?

 

i agree with dave's assessment for swapping out the substrate if those readings are true. it'll give you the chance to see if there's anything rotting too.

[BCOrchidGuy]

pH can be stabilized by raising your dKH, I agree try another test kit, they do get unstable after time. Any chance you have a source of CO2 in your tank? My understanding is calupera is a plant and like other plants it uses CO2 during the day light hours but at low light or lights out it consumes O2 and releases CO2. Try adding some good coral gravel or good aragonite and see if that helps, Red Sea is one good brand of aragonite.

Your phosphates are probably from your pH buffer you are trying, with out adequate KH though the buffers will not work for long. Phosphate sponges can be added to your filter and they work pretty good but they can get hot and damage thin plastic so use caution if you know you have high phosphates.

[jburke30]

Originally posted by BCOrchidGuy

pH can be stabilized by raising your dKH, I agree try another test kit, they do get unstable after time. Any chance you have a source of CO2 in your tank? My understanding is calupera is a plant and like other plants it uses CO2 during the day light hours but at low light or lights out it consumes O2 and releases CO2. Try adding some good coral gravel or good aragonite and see if that helps, Red Sea is one good brand of aragonite.  

Your phosphates are probably from your pH buffer you are trying, with out adequate KH though the buffers will not work for long. Phosphate sponges can be added to your filter and they work pretty good but they can get hot and damage thin plastic so use caution if you know you have high phosphates.

 

The phosphate issue is in another tank of mine (my 10g), and I believe the problem was that I had too much macro algae and some of it died off a bit which released phosphate into the tank (though nitrate control in that tank was fantastic - it just didn't look all that great). I had miracle mud as my substrate in that tank. it was an experiment of sorts (I was trying to turn the tank into a nitrate filter) much more trouble than it was worth though, and when I tried to remove some of the macro algae it had grown into the mud so much that it couldn't be removed easily (I ended up removing it all and replacing it with Caribsea live sand - I just can't seem to stop myself from experimenting with these strange and expensive substrate materials =).

 

As far as the 20L goes (the one with the pH problem) I need to get a CO2 test kit so I can see if that's part of the problem. The high nitrate reading would suggest that something was decaying in the tank but I can't find anything. However, I've had this problem in every tank that I've put this particular brand of aragonite into so it could be impurities or organic material. Also the individual pieces are pretty large (6mm+), so perhaps it's not buffering because it's just not disolving. In any event, I think this is the last time I buy any of this stuff again.

 

Thanks for the comments.

 

Jason

[BCOrchidGuy]

Obviously you are coming to the conclusion that a change in substrate is needed. One thing to try out is to take a small ammount of the substrate, rinse it really well, put it in a bucket of High quality salt water, and aerate it for a couple days. Measure your Nitrates often and see if they go up. Rememer most substrates will absorb and then release nutrients back into the water column once they are saturated. If your substrate was exposed to hi nitrates it could just be releasing the excess which means it is un suitable for aquarium use.

 

Email me these paramaters and I have a chart to calculate your CO2 levels. I need to know your tank dKH and pH.

[Pikelet]

Get yourself some RO/DI or distilled water with 0 TDS, add your salt, mix it up for 24 hours. Measure you pH and alk of the mixed water at home and take a quantity to the LFS for a second opinion. Record the results. Transfer to a clean bucket, add powerhead and a layer of your CLEAN aragonite sand. Let it run for about a week. Re-measure pH and Alk as before and compare. The way you are doing it sounds inconclusive to me because there are too many variables.

 

IME there are all sorts of things that affect pH, the sand is just one of them. Circulation, presence of a skimmer, macros, sand, water, salt, rock, additives(food, Calcium, carbonates), WC's, and time all make a difference. BTW ...... have a look at Reef Central sometime. There are an awful lot of people complaining of chronic low pH out there so don't feel as though you're the only one with this problem.

[MrConclusion]

Do you have a KH (carbonate hardness) test kit?

 

If not, they are cheap and easy to obtain. If your KH is low, you have no buffering ability and your pH will always tend to drop.

 

If your KH is lower than 10 mg/l, there are many chemicals that will increase it. One good one, if you don't want to effect anything else, is Kent Superbuffer DKH. Many others such as B-Ionic and C-Balance will add KH and other substances.

 

You can dose kalkwasser, but I have no experience with kalk on smaller tanks. kalkwasser is not for those without good test kit habits. Kalkwasser buffers like mad, adds much bio-available calcium, and it knocks out phosphates too!

[Dave ESPI]

MrConclusion posted mis informed BAD advice.

You can dose kalkwasser, but I have no experience with kalk on smaller tanks.  kalkwasser is not for those without good test kit habits.  Kalkwasser buffers like mad, adds much bio-available calcium, and it knocks out phosphates too!

 

yeahmmmmm , BUT it also makes PH go crazy as well as lowering your alkalinity. Alk is dirrectly linked to carbonate hardness which controlls your Total Hardness or DKH.

simply adding Kalkwasser (pickling lime) will compound his problems.

 

get some B-Ionic A; B use more side A untill your dkh levels out at around 12. chcek your Ca at that time. your PH should also buffer up to that.

 

JBURKE....

Instint Ocean hydrates to a PH of 9.0 upon initial mixing, but its ph holding capacity drops off signifigantly after a day or so.

Humor me and try some TROPIC MARIN or Bio Sea just for a week or 2.

[BustytheSnowMaam]

No ingenius solutions here, but I wondered if perhaps your test kit could be faulty? Have you had your water checked say at an LFS?

 

I have found adding a bit of baking soda (@ 2 tsp) to the new water each time I do a water change (I have a 10, and I change a gallon each time) seems to stabilize my pH fairly well. I only add the baking soda about once a month. I also use CaribSea Aragonite and pH hasn't been much of an issue.

 

My third thought- are you using activated carbon frequently, or were you just trying AC to see if it would help? Because AC will cause your pH to decrease (it adsorbs DO).

 

Just mentioning these FWIW. BTW, do you know how your mandarin fish fared? What other kinds of critters do you have now?

 

Good luck,

Tasha

[BCOrchidGuy]

Sorry but, Baking soda is not good for your Marine tank. Calcium dissolved in seawater is limited by chemical competition with magnesium for carbonate ions, and by rapid uptake by coraline red and green algaes, hard corals, and any other calcerous invert. With out the high concentrations of magnesium all the calcium would combine with cabonates and precipitate out of solution.

 

Okay one other idea and I can't believe I didn't think of this until 1am last night, DOH I hate that.

 

Take a sample of your tank water and put it in a clean bucket, test the pH and add an airstone and aerate it over night and test the pH after 24 hours. Remember pH fluctuates from night to day so make sure you do the pH test 24 hours later, plus after 24 hours if there was an excess of CO2 in the water it will have been expelled and your pH should come back up. If you find your pH in the bucket increases after 24 hours of aeration simply increase the surface agitation in your tank with either an airstone, or a powerhead to ripple the surface more.

[jburke30]

Originally posted by Dave ESPI

 

yeahmmmmm , BUT it also makes PH go crazy as well as lowering your alkalinity. Alk is dirrectly linked to carbonate hardness which controlls your Total Hardness or DKH.

simply adding Kalkwasser (pickling lime)  will compound his problems.

 

get some B-Ionic A; B use more side A untill your dkh levels out at around 12. chcek your Ca at that time. your PH should also buffer up to that.

 

JBURKE....

Instint Ocean hydrates to a PH of 9.0 upon initial mixing, but its ph holding capacity drops off signifigantly after a day or so.  

Humor me and try some TROPIC MARIN or Bio Sea just for a week or 2.

 

That's good to know Dave. I was considering using Kalkwasser, but all I could find were conflicting views on it. The B-Ionic A sounds like a better solution at this point and I'll give it a try in my 10g first (the ph is a bit low there also).

 

I'm still going to do that gravel check before I do anything with the 20L.

 

Jason

 

PS: The Caribsea aragonite is not bad at all, I'm pleased with it so far in my 10g.

[Djm9288]

hey Jburke whats yur LFS??

[jburke30]

Originally posted by tashayar

No ingenius solutions here, but I wondered if perhaps your test kit could be faulty?  Have you had your water checked say at an LFS?  

 

I have found adding a bit of baking soda (@ 2 tsp) to the new water each time I do a water change (I have a 10, and I change a gallon each time) seems to stabilize my pH fairly well.  I only add the baking soda about once a month.  I also use CaribSea Aragonite and pH hasn't been much of an issue.  

 

My third thought- are you using activated carbon frequently, or were you just trying AC to see if it would help?  Because AC will cause your pH to decrease (it adsorbs DO).  

 

Just mentioning these FWIW.  BTW, do you know how your mandarin fish fared?  What other kinds of critters do you have now?  

 

Good luck,

Tasha

 

I normally use carbon in my filter, but I took it out to test the pH in the 20L. I've been looking for some type of spong-like material to do mechanical filtering in my penguin HOB filter, but none of the LFS's in my area seem to have anything that I can cut down to fit.

 

As far as the mandarin fish goes, I never did hear back from the guy I gave her to (which I've taken to mean that she didn't survive). I'll have to admit that I've regretted giving her away since the moment she left my tank. She was the most interesting creature I've ever kept.

 

Anyway, everything else is doing fine. I lost a few creatures (2 bumblebee snails, a chiton and a stomatella) when my 20L was poisoned by water dripping into the tank from bare wood (a mistake I wont make again). And 2 weeks ago I noticed one of my hermit crabs was sporting a brand new astrea snail shell (I couldn't tell if the snail died naturally or with hermits help - I really need to get a bunch of empty shells in the tank for these guys). I'm feeling pretty luck though in spite of these few losses since I've gone through 2 major disasters with the tank (both my fault for messing with things) and the majority of my creatures are doing great.

 

Here's a pic of the tank I took a couple of days ago.

[jburke30]

Originally posted by Djm9288

hey Jburke whats yur LFS??

 

I've been going up to Reef Systems on hwy 96 north of 70 west in St. Charles. I used to go to Reef Tanks on Natural Bridge Road, but they went out of business (they had great LR though).

 

Reef Systems has some really nice fish and show tanks, but the latest batch of LR they got in is completely infested with Aptaisa.

 

Any recommendations?

[Djm9288]

Salt water City, it is seriously has been voted best store in the midwest

[jburke30]

Originally posted by Djm9288

Salt water City, it is seriously has been voted best store in the midwest

 

Where's it at? Is it here in St. Louis?

[jburke30]

Originally posted by Dave ESPI

JBURKE....

Instint Ocean hydrates to a PH of 9.0 upon initial mixing, but its ph holding capacity drops off signifigantly after a day or so.  

Humor me and try some TROPIC MARIN or Bio Sea just for a week or 2.

 

Oops, miss-read this before. I actually purchased the Bio Sea salt mix last Monday and used it to do a water change in my tank on Tuesday (I ran out of Instant Ocean last weekend). We'll see how it works out (it certainly desovled better than Instant Ocean).

 

Thanks for the tip.

[BustytheSnowMaam]

Ok, if baking soda is bad, why do all the books recommend it? Not disagreeing, just wondering why the conflicting information. Then again, there is a lot of conflicting info in this hobby, I guess your mileage may vary no matter what.

 

I am glad your tank is doing well, I bet you do miss that mandarin fish. Maybe if you're thinking of going to a bigger tank you could prep a 40 with a refugium, let it get established for awhile and then add another mandarin. I was fascinated by them too at my LFS. He had a male and a female in his display tank.

 

Just by looking at your pic, how much LR do you have? It doesn't look like you have very much, but the picture could be misleading. I have 20 lbs in my 10. Any thoughts on whether adding more would help?

 

Tasha

[BCOrchidGuy]

Baking soda is recommended for African Cichlid tanks to help raise the pH, the thing is that there are not coral or inverts that need the calcium in the water the fish and perhaps plants need calcium but in doses 100 times less than in a marine environment. If you are finding white salty, granular stuff around the top of your aquarium you are witnessing the calcium being precipitated out. The way to fix that is with CO2 injection which oddly enough turns carbonates into bi carbonates but in the correct molar ratio with magnesium. This is also why we don't just add bulk salt to our aquariums, we need the other good stuff, sodium, calcium, magnesium, even copper in absolute tiny doses. The other bad thing about Baking soda is even when it does work to raise pH, it doesn't buffer the pH so you end up with pH swings which can be harder on your tank inhabitants.

[jburke30]

Originally posted by tashayar

Ok, if baking soda is bad, why do all the books recommend it?  Not disagreeing, just wondering why the conflicting information.  Then again, there is a lot of conflicting info in this hobby, I guess your mileage may vary no matter what.

 

I didn't say anything about baking soda, and I didn't really understand the reasoning since I've read a lot of sources that recommend it also.

 

I am glad your tank is doing well, I bet you do miss that mandarin fish.  Maybe if you're thinking of going to a bigger tank you could prep a 40 with a refugium, let it get established for awhile and then add another mandarin.  I was fascinated by them too at my LFS.  He had a male and a female in his display tank.  

 

Well, it's doing okay (I wouldn't call it "well" =). One of these days I'm going to get a good handle on this hobby and wonder why I did all those stupid things to my tank =).

 

Just by looking at your pic, how much LR do you have?  It doesn't look like you have very much, but the picture could be misleading.   I have 20 lbs in my 10.  Any thoughts on whether adding more would help?

 

Tasha

 

I have 10 lbs in the tank (which was what I kept reading was recommended 1lb/gallon), but you're probably right that more rock would be better. I'm starting to think that 2lbs/gallon are necessary (the pieces I have are also pretty big, and difficult to aquascape with). I think I finally got enough sand in the sandbed (though another 10 lbs would probably put my just over 3 inches in the sandbed - which is what I was shooting for).

 

I'm also refusing to get anymore creatures untill I get a grip on balancing my water chemistry and tank parameters. After 9 months it's just starting to make some sense to me. =)

 

Jason

[BustytheSnowMaam]

I think after awhile you have to stop micro-managing (stop constantly testing, adding things, etc.) your tank, do your water changes, and otherwise just kind of let nature take its course. I used to always run a bunch of tests every week and now the test kits are sitting up in the cupboard. Part of it is laziness and part of it is I think it causes more stress to the critters if you tweak and add things all the time than if you just let them be. Do your critters seem healthy? My nitrates are a little on the high side (about 35 or so) but my corals and other critters seem ok. So, I just leave it alone. I don't trust all the chemicals out there, nor do I know how long it takes for my tank to metabolize whatever it is I added, and I think spikes of any kind of additive are stressful.

 

 

I had big chunks of rock too- essentially I had two big pieces each weighing 10 lbs. One day I cracked up, took them out, took them to my husband at work (submersed in a bucket of SW), and he whacked them with a sledgehammer (I thiink it was a sledge, screwdriver is about the only tool I'm familiar with). That broke the rock up into about 5 pieces each and I was able to do a lot more with it. I was worried about it having to cycle again but I just stuck it back in and it was fine. I used marine epoxy to stick them together but there's probably a better way to do it.

 

I think I have too much time on my hands for posting today...

 

Tasha