New home, new water

[Fran]

Hi.

I've been in my new home for approximately 3 months. Had the fish professionally moved and it went flawlessly. I did a big water change before the move always siphoning gravel and four more since I've been here. This week I lost my yoyos--two. Found them as I started a water change yesterday. Lost the other one last week. They had no look of illness. I blame nitrates. I have a 55 gallon with two med sized clowns, five large silver dollars, eight cherry barbs and one Siamensis. Oh, and a betta in a custom made acrylic enclosure. Tank has been in operation for at least ten years. I use a power filter and always rinse media. I rarely replace. I also have bio beads too.

I've never done water tests regularly. The tank had been stable for years. But yesterday I bought test strips (which I didn't really care for ) to check the basic parameters. Nitrates after a nearly 50% water change were 30 ppm. But the pH in both tank and tap is 5.5! So low! The tap had no nitrates. Does the low pH affect the nitrates? I do tend to over feed because the clowns harass the silver dollars. The low pH concerns me because I want to keep another 55 with goldfish. I've always loved the goldfish but I could never keep them healthy. I blamed the soft water at the old house (but also had a pH of 7.5)

So my question is should I leave the pH as is since it's stable from tap to tank, and does the low pH raise the nitrates?

Thanks.
Fran

[Fran]

I should add that the water, according to the test strip, is very soft and "total alkalinity" is moderate to ideal.

[NancyD]

It sounds like you need to do more frequent water changes with gravel vacuuming & maybe feed a bit less. The nitrate & other organics will cause pH to drop. You want to aim for a nitrate level of under 20ppm.

[Fran]

As I said Nancy, the pH out of my TAP is also low--same as tank, so it's not just the nitrates that are lowering pH. I'm also aware of trying to keep the nitrates below 20 ppm. At my old house, our tap did not need chlorination, but interestingly the tap had 10 ppm of nitrates flowing.

[NancyD]

Oops, sorry Fran, I missed that it's your tap pH too. I wouldn't worry about the pH as long as it's stable. Just do more water changes to lower nitrate.

[MandaMunky]

Aww... Nancy, I'm so sorry you lost your Yoyos. =(

I'm also confused as to why this is happening 3 months post move, because I'm not personally aware of how pH & Nitrates could have anything in common? Do you have any live plants? You may want to consider adding some of them to help with the Nitrates, but I'm not sure how well they'd do with such an acidic pH? Also, you may want to consider those more frequent water changes. I have a wonderful little apparatus called a "water changer" by Aqueon. Check it out: http://www.aqueonproducts.com/products/ ... hanger.htm

I just barely learned about those & I'll tell you what... I'm much happier to do water changes because this has eliminated buckets!

I'll be following your thread to see what comes of your situation. I sure do wish I had a miracle answer for you. Please, update us when you can if you learn anything new!

[Fran]

Water changes became a bigger pain in the a-- because I couldn't attach the Python directly to the new faucet. So I had to get a water pump and fill the bucket in the sink with the pump suctioning out the water. It takes an extra ten-fifteen minutes to complete a water change now. I have silver dollars so I'd expect them to devour any plants I'd put in the tank. I never had luck with real plants anyway. Do you think those peace plants--the ones that look like bamboo and grow in water, would have any impact on nitrates?

I'm happy that the PH doesn't take any large swings, I just think it's too low.

Thanks for the input, ladies.

[Loachloach]

Well, my reply is a bit too late. Hope the fish are doing fine.

In a ph of below 6.5 there is little to no denitrification going. The bacteria starts getting inhibited. However, ammonia is non-toxic in such environment but still not handy if one doesn't do enough water changes because it will build up in a non planted tank and if for some reason the ph rises above 6.5 all of a sudden(as in a large water change with harder water), ammonium will turn into toxic ammonia and the tank won't handle it because the bacteria needs to recover too, fish die or get sick.

A ph of 5.5 looks very low for a tap water, it's not healthy to humans being that low so I wonder if your tap water Ph is really 5.5. The best way to test ph is to leave the water in a glass overnight, not testing straight out of the tap. It evaporates any possible gasses that your water company may use to lower it down. For example mine is 6.6 out of the tap and 7.4 in the tank once it settles. So the real Ph is 7.4.

You should check the Gh and Kh readings as well. If your Kh is very low or 0, the ph could be dropping or fluctuating. I understand the tap water is the same when you tested. But it could be a coincidence. I did have a crashed PH tank once and it showed a Ph of around 6.6 so if that was a new house I would have thought tap and tank are the same but they weren't.

If necessary, you can increase some of the Ph, gh and Kh by adding crushed coral to the filter slowly. A Kh of 4+ is best to buffer the Ph and not let it drop over time.

The biggest reason for Ph crashes is the ammonia to nitrite conversion, not the presence of the nitrates. Ammonia to nitrite process is highly acidic. The more stocked the tank, the more ammonia per day, the better changce of the Kh getting used up too quickly and thus crashing the Ph.

[NancyD]

Yes, loachloach is right, I forgot, or didn't say, when I lived on the East coast, I had very soft water with low or no KH (seasonal) leading to pH instability. Diana helped me get a grip on it. She said to add either crushed coral to the filter or baking soda each water change (or more often if needed). ~2 Tbsp crushed coral added just enough KH & GH to keep my 55g & 75g params more stable, happier plants & fish! Stability is key!

I too, doubt you have 5.5, many muni water companies temporarily "adjust" pH to keep "stuff" building up in pipes (I thought it was the other way though?). They mostly shoot for "neutral-ish" (near 7 +/- pH). Snow melt, deep wells...no limestone, New England! So different than in DE & now on the west coast...soft again.. but higher pH...It's always a new set of values to get used to! Just avoid a pH or KH/GH "bounce"...that's what is really harmful to fish IME.