Acidic ph test result...

[lynzmk]

hi all
i have an established community aquarium, we've been very lucky with deaths so far - only lost a few guppy fry (that was probbaly thr angel fish tho!) and half a shoal of neons which as i've said before, we shouldn't have boughtbcos the conditions in the shops tanks were not ideal.
So when i came home today to find one of my new dalmation mollies dead i was worried and did a nitrate test and ph test. nitrates - fine. But the p.h read as 6.0 (thats as low as my test kit goes so i dont know if that's the actual reading or just as far as it goes.)
Could this b the cause of the death of my One Hundred (that was her name... the other was called One... hehehee)

Or could that just be bad luck? i've read they prefer a p.h of 7.5, so slightly alkaline if anything.

I've got some stuff that claims to return ur ph to 7.0 ... but am dubious about using it - is it a good idea?

L x

 

[sinistral]

Hi lynz!

The first thing I'd recommend is to hold off on adjusting pH for now. If the fish have experienced a rapid pH drop in their environment recently, the last thing you'd want to do is switch it back in the opposite direction. Not only is this stressful, but if the titration isn't done properly the pH can subsequently swing back to where it was...so I think your instinct not to adjust pH is correct!

This leads me to my next thoughts...How has the pH been looking recently? Has it been reading low all along? I'm interested to hear also how kH has looked, if you've had the ability to test it.

 

[lynzmk]

hiya,
well when we've tested before it has showed as neutral or around neutral, it's never been this far from 7 before.

Whats kh?

And should i now just leave the water as it is ... or do a partial water change... ?
L x

 

[lynzmk]

just a bit of extra info - our tap water tested as neutral or even very slightly alkaline.
nitrite test came up as 0.
typed nitrates by mistake in my orig message.
L x

 

[sinistral]

Hi lynz~

Water change is a good idea. kH is a measure of the buffering capacity of water; in other words, the ability to protect a given quantity of water against changes in pH. kH is also sometimes referred to as alkalinity or carbonate hardness, because the predominant ions that comprise it are bicarbonate and carbonate.

If the kH of your tapwater is low, it might be difficult to prevent drops in pH. However, there is typically a root cause of a drop in pH. Not to suggest any of these things are the cause in your case, but some generic causes are: overfeeding, high biological load, using reverse osmosis water, materials in the tank like driftwood, certain substrates, etc.

A 25% water change is a good idea, with a retest afterwards. I wouldn't do anything too dramatic at this point as you may risk compounding the problem with too many changes, which itself might stress your fish.

Any chance you may have an aberrant test? Sometimes it's helpful to test-retest with another kit if you have access to one. One of the most important things is to try to figure out what's causing the low pH swing, so testing most of your water parameters is a solid idea (and test kH if you can). I had another thought, but I've just gotten something to do at work and have to run, more later!

 

[lynzmk]

thanks sini

in the meantime i shall do the 25% water change, that can't do much harm in itself.
I'll retest and post here what happens

thanks a lot for taking the time!
L x