ph woes

[eli371]

so heres is my first and loooong post:

ive kept my 55 gallon freshwater tank set up and established for years until it came time to move to my new house a few weeks ago. unfortunately, this move was just the beginning to a hugely stressful experience. firstly, my fish came down with ich, then my tank had a blue-green cyanobacteria outbreak, and finally, ive determined that the water out of the tap is crap compared to the water that i had in my previous house.

while i already knew that i had a huge silicate and phosphate content in my tap water, it was recently that i found out that with a gigantic dissolved carbon dioxide content in the water, my ph would come out of the tap at a lovely ph of 7.4 and over the course of a few hours with the release of the dissolved carbon dioxide, the ph would shoot up to 8.2!!!!!

my question is what would you recommend for taking care of this changing ph problem? i don't really want to just have the water sitting in a bucket for days b/c i usually do water changes of 15 gallons, and also, i just don't have the time to let water sit for a while, before re-heating it to a correct temperature.

i was thinking of adding "correct pH" 8.2 or something to balance out the ph lowering effect of the CO2 right when the water comes out of the tap, and therefore since the water will eventually get buffered back to 8.0 or so, the CO2 will just never get a chance to push the pH back down.

i really don't care about the ending pH of my tank... i have had cardinals flourish in 8.2 pH water, apistogramma cichlids breed in 8.0 pH water, and african cichlids spawn in 7.0 pH water. as long as they were slowly acclimated to such pHs, these fish did fine. i DO care however, that the pH isn't fluncuating and bouncing around and wreaking havoc on my fish enzyme functionality.

any hints, suggestions, appreciated. im pretty much looking for something that might destroy the CO2 in the water very quickly, allowing the pH to rise to it's correct level. or is there anything to KEEP the CO2 in the water to allow it maintain the lower pH?

sounds like im asking for a miracle drug, so im pretty much prepared to simply set the water aside in a 50 gallon trash can and get water from there...

if im going to go through THAT hassle i might as well simply start up a salt water tank!!! argh!

anyways thanks in advance for any help you might offer.

 

[wayne]

I tihnk you're absolutely crazy if you're going to chuck in pHup or whatever, jut to avoid waiting a few hours. Get the big tub. Rereading your article I note th phrase reheating - do you use the how water out of the tap to get the mix to the right temperature - I would never do that! Are you sure the crap isn't just in the hot water part, not the source cold water. Have you tried getting readings from the hot and cold taps. I use cold tap water only, and raise the temperature with water from a kettle. One kettle every 4 gallons is close enough for me (I do 10 gall changes twice a week on a 1 metre by 40 cms, which would be like a 40 breeder)
Have you gone to an area of higher kH - that's a big control on cyano growth I believe, and that's a rule that works for me... I have none in my softwater tanks, but always get it inmy deliberately hardened water (with oolite substrate)
Did your cardinals breed? How many 'emerged'. How about apistos - some never hatch above pH 6 for me

 

[eli371]

my cardinals never bred, so i can't say that they are doing amazingly well, but they are eating well, and, well, theyve been ALIVE for some time haha... in my experience, cardinals don't take to stress well, and if they don't like a certain aspect, then they don't deteriorate over a long period of time... they just die =P

my apisto's are actually doing very well; they breed every few weeks and i get about 60-70 fry per batch of eggs. i think thats not amazingly high, but its decent enough to assume that these fish are doing well.

yes, i am using a correct temperature right out of the tap using a mixture of hot and cold tap. is there really a difference in hot and cold???? i actually never knew that. ive always mixed hot and cold in the past years with no problem, but ive never had cyano problems, ph problems, CO2 problems, etc etc. damn this new house!!! >=(

i am not a fish breeder by trade, and i am not retired, i have school, work, family, and a lady to take care of, so that is the reason i really dont want to spend a huge amount of time on the tank. i do, however, care about my fish greatly, and i do want them to have a stable environment.

sounds like the big tub is gonna be the answer, huh? say byebye to the python! =T

 

[AndyL]

Blue green algae is an easy one to treat, a simple erythromyacin treatment will kill it off. Thats the easy answer

Now for your water quality problem... Thats a bit harder to deal with... Ageing the water is pretty easily done, and although its nice to have water at the perfect temp for the water change... May not be so simple.

In my 55 I do w/c's with aged unheated water (room temp) I keep that tank at 84 degrees, and after changing 20g the temp in tank drops to about 80 degrees... Fish don't seem stressed and its not long before the tank is back up to 84 degrees.

My method for changing the 20g every day in my 55 is made pretty simple, I use 5g water jugs (the ones you get for your cooler) filled with tap water, then aerated for 24 hours.

The phosphate problem is a bit more of a pain, There are several 'carbon like' products out on the market that claim to remove phosphates (AP PhosZorb comes to mind). You may want to look into them. I believe fresh activated carbon also would remove the phosphates, but you'd have to change it every 5 days... That would get pretty expensive.

Andy

 

[FroggyFox]

on the hot/cold issue I think that is more of a problem in houses with really old piping or really new piping. If you're having troubles though you might just try a check between the really hot water that has gone through the pipes for a minute, and the really cold water, could be worth your trouble. I live in an old house and use a warm/cool mixture for my tanks and havent had any major issues yet though.

You could always look into a peat moss type solution, but I think the most predictable/reliable solution is going to be aging/aerating the water.

 

[eli371]

thanks for all your replies guys!

i just went out and got a 30 gallon big ole trash can and well i guess thats gonna be my water container now!

pH is actually still rising since the last water change! i tested again today and its almost at 8.4! i don't know if it was some sort of push, but now my harlequin rasboras are doin thier mating dance haha... the apisto male looks a little fat... i hope he didnt eat his fry argh...

anyways, ive tried phosphate removing resins, but i think im just gonna go the good ole way and rely on strong plant growth to suck up the phosphates.

ive already treated with erythromycin a week ago so the blue-green cyano seems nice and dead... the ick of course was taken care of long ago, so seems like the only problem i have NOW is to upset everything once again when i move my tank into the garage in a few days ARGH damn remodeling...

its a shame to hide a nicely planted 55 in the garage don't you think?!?!?

thanks for all your replies once again!