Hi everyone! I have a 55gal tank it has 3 jevie sev's 3 jevie silver dollars and a med chocolate pleco. all of my levels were great until i added a couple small pieces of driftwood at which point my pH went from 6.2 to 8.4!! My babies are all still doing good but I know that this is too high of a pH level for them. I'm not sure what to do. Any help would be great. Thanks in advance.
I think the answer if easy - take the wood out, do a water change and test the pH after the water change. Leave it a week and re-test. If the pH has returned to what you know as normal then you know it's the wood.
You could also try adding the wood to a bucket and soaking it in hot water, testing the pH from the bucket once the water has cooled. It's possible it's leeching something and what ever that is it might stop eventually but if it is the wood leeching something altering and the pH and it won't stop you might have to give up on it
You could also try adding the wood to a bucket and soaking it in hot water, testing the pH from the bucket once the water has cooled. It's possible it's leeching something and what ever that is it might stop eventually but if it is the wood leeching something altering and the pH and it won't stop you might have to give up on it
This is intriguing to me, as driftwood normally serves to LOWER pH. So, the fact that the pH spiked when the wood was added means that there is something more going on here than the presence of the wood alone.
Perhaps the wood was soaked in a salt of some sort...
Did you soak the wood before adding it to your tank? I'd suggest giving the wood a good rinse... then a long soak, then change the water the wood is soaking in, and soak it again. Check the pH of the water the wood is in and see if there is a change like in the tank (being a smaller volume of water, it will likely show up rather quickly). Eventually, if the wood has minerals soaked into it, that should leach out during this rinsing and soaking process... and not cause a problem for you in the future.
Incidentally, its always a good idea to presoak any wood being added to the tank before hand, just to be safe.
Perhaps the wood was soaked in a salt of some sort...
Did you soak the wood before adding it to your tank? I'd suggest giving the wood a good rinse... then a long soak, then change the water the wood is soaking in, and soak it again. Check the pH of the water the wood is in and see if there is a change like in the tank (being a smaller volume of water, it will likely show up rather quickly). Eventually, if the wood has minerals soaked into it, that should leach out during this rinsing and soaking process... and not cause a problem for you in the future.
Incidentally, its always a good idea to presoak any wood being added to the tank before hand, just to be safe.
I rinsed it really good but did not soak it...first time using driftwood. I have taken all the wood out as of now and pH seems to be going back down. I'm not sure what the wood was soaked in before I'm going to call the fish store I got it from and ask him. I've currently got the wood soaking in a bucket and did a partial water change last night. That's all I seen too is that driftwood lowers pH so when it raised it, it threw me through a loop. Thank you again for your help.
Eagles is right - wood normally does the opposite and can soften the water too. I also always soak any new pieces of wood in a bucket of boiling water, changing the water for more boiling water daily. I'd normally do this for up to 2 weeks. Some wood leeches more brown tannins that others. Some will grow some mould in that time other bits do nothing much. It seems to vary
Glad you've pulled it out and things are returning to normal
Glad you've pulled it out and things are returning to normal
Jax0311 said:
It might have been from an area with much harder water... so, its hard to say.
I did not think about that, my husband rinsed it in our kitchen sink which has harder water than our bathrooms. Thank you I never would have thought about that! I got all the driftwood out of both tanks (55gal and 5gal) and have them all soaking in boiling water. You guys rock!!eaglesaquarium said:
We're assuming "wood" to be real wood, but I have seen petrified wood, and of course artificial wood. Petrified can increase the hardness and raise pH. But otherwise, if this is true natural wood, it could only raise hardness/pH if it is leeching something.
A pH shift from 6.2 to 8.4 will seriously impact fish; these numbers indicate the acidity has decreased and the alkalinity has increased by more than 200 times (the pH scale is logrhythmic).
A pH shift from 6.2 to 8.4 will seriously impact fish; these numbers indicate the acidity has decreased and the alkalinity has increased by more than 200 times (the pH scale is logrhythmic).
The wood had been in the tank for about 2.5-3 hrs when I retested, as soon as I seen where the levels were I removed the wood and have been doing every 1.5-2 hr rechecks. As of the last testing about 1/2 hr ago it was down to 7.4 this drop has been over the course of about 15 hrs. Currently the wood is soaking in boiling water like advised above. Fish are all doing great no signs of stress everyone still eating (and following me as I walk past lol) as normal. I didn't see anything about them being petrified and the boiling water in the bucket is now brown does that mean they are leeching something?
So thank you everyone for your awesome advice I'm happy to report that the pH levels are now back down to a normal range. I did a 25% change after removing the driftwood it is now soaking (the water its in looks super nasty) so glad with help from y'all I caught it in time and it didn't hurt any of my babies and I now know how to properly acclimate driftwood in my tank. Again thank you all so much.
Jax0311 said:So thank you everyone for your awesome advice I'm happy to report that the pH levels are now back down to a normal range. I did a 25% change after removing the driftwood it is now soaking (the water its in looks super nasty) so glad with help from y'all I caught it in time and it didn't hurt any of my babies and I now know how to properly acclimate driftwood in my tank. Again thank you all so much.
The driftwood is leaching tannins, or more specifically tannic acid. This is a brownish material that will turn your tank water yellowish, to a sort of 'tea' color eventually. This is PERFECTLY SAFE for fish, and is actually beneficial to many species of fish, specifically "BLACKWATER" fish from South America and parts of Asia.
Have you tested the water in the bucket for pH to see if its raising the pH in there as well? This would be highly beneficial to confirm that the wood caused the spike (though the removal of the wood and the subsequent drop in pH is pretty convincing itself).
This is still a bit baffling, as driftwood normally (as in, almost always) would cause the pH and hardness to drop slightly rather than increase. So, I'm still confused and (more so) curious as to what really happened... So, if you could test the water in the bucket for pH (granted, the stained water could change what the reading is).
Wait.... the stained water in the tank could actually have led to the reading you got from the tank for the pH as well... What test kit did you use to determine the new pH?
wouldn't that be alkaline Eagles? Acidic means it should drop the pH/gH/kH - Alkaline would raise it? I admit to being confused by this too but suspect Byron may have hit upon something in that it may have been used previously and had soaked up something that's causing it now to leech it back out
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