Ammonia In Tap. Weird Situation With Ph

[thenavigator]

Okay, so there is slight ammonia .25 that reads in tap. I have one tank that's cycled or supposedly cycled nitrites are at 0 tank was running for 2 weeks now with seeded material. There is still a slight ammonia reading of .25 no matter what. Since my tap has ammonia and I use "PRIME" to condition I was told two different things. Since tap has ammonia I will always get an ammonia reading of .25 even if it's cycled. True or False??

Now another tank I set up hasn't fully cycled yet. For some weird reason the PH went to 6, MY tap is at 7.2... the other tanks PH is fine. I had to get stabilizer to bring it up over 2 days and it's finally almost at 7.. No fish have died yet, not over stocked, not over feeding..

The one tank thats cycled is a 6 gallon nano cube. The other tank is a 5 gallon set up with sponge filter...

Am I better off buying water from the fish store that has a ph of 7 and is declorinated with no ammonia present.... It's not that much money, but I'm looking for advice am I better off using the fish stores water free of ammonia. Or can I use my water with the slight ammonia showing in the tap. I use "Prime" to declorinate was told that was the better stuff to use. Any advice or info on this? And what would cause that ph to drop so law baffles me, and I'm just glad the PH is getting higher so the bacteria can grow more and finish the cycle quickly.


PS - the other tank the first one that's cycle is at a ph of 7.2 the normal ph that my tap is so that's what weirded me out about the other tank getting this PH problem.

 

[Paavn]

its been said that when your tank is cycling you can get a pH crash. so i would presume that is what it was, unless you had recently added any decorative materials in there - i think wood is acidic as well.

if you're tank is fully cycled and your tap water has some ammonia in it it shouldn't be a problem because an established tank should be able to easily reduce that to 0

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Navigator.
Having a bit of ammonia in your tap water is only a problem during a cycle when you are trying to get water to stay below 0.25 ppm. At that time you can only expect a water change to get you as low as your tap water after all.
Once your filter starts to process ammonia properly, you won't be able to measure the effect of the ammonia in the tap water an hour after a water change. Mine runs close to 1 ppm from the tap and it is always zero in my tank, even an hour or two after a 20% water change. The filter can and does remove the ammonia that came in with my tap water and that 1 ppm from the tap is only 0.20 ppm in the tank before the filter works on it. It is diluted by the tank's ammonia free water as it goes into the tank.
I would not start buying water from anywhere else unless you are ready to do that forever with your tank. Chances are good that the water at the LFS is the same as what comes out of your tap but has been dechlorinated and may have had buffers added. You should be using a dechlorinator and should not really need the buffer except in rare and very extreme water conditions.
The pH drop won't happen in a fish-in cycle because of all the water changes you end up doing. In a fishless cycle, pH can drop because the nitrites and nitrates are allowed to build up. Both the nitrites and nitrates are acidic in nature so the pH drops as they build unless you have a high KH.

 

[thenavigator]

Thanks. And it is a fish in cycle. The entire thing is weird, luckily this stabilizer brought the PH up. My tap PH is fine but every time I added it to the tank it dropped to 6. Strange.. I only added some filter floss and some gravel from the other tank. I am thinking of removing the gravel and filter floss... I don't know what else could of caused it. Unless it's the cycle which should almost be completed sooon as the pH has finally gone up to where it should be and the bacteria will colonize and thrive more now.

 

[OldMan47]

If you have filter floss and gravel from a mature tank, you will probably get through the cycle fairly quickly. The bacteria will grow better at a higher pH but the ammonia will also become more toxic at a higher pH. If you actually try to control and move the pH, that becomes a trade off that you would need to consider.

 

[thenavigator]

Well I used this stablizier PH 7.0 to bring the PH up and it did rise up it's at about 6.6-6.8

I plan on hopefully having future water changes fix the PH problem. Will that be the case? It's cycling quickly now, nitrites are dropping immensely after altering the PH and adding the referidgerator live bacteria (that I was a little hesistant on) But I was trying to give this one last ditch effort rather than re-starting all over. Things seem to be moving a bit smoothly now, I just hope I can get the PH to be normal once the cycle completes and I do some water changes here and there... Rather than have the PH Drop again and have the cycle start back up.... Or am I being fed bs? Supposedly bacteria can't live well in a ph of 6? Or is that just during the cycle?? It's still a bit weird that the PH would be so different in both tanks. Although this one giving me issues is run by an air pump and a sponge filter. Don't know if that had anything to do with it.. Phew the world of aquariums!

 

[OldMan47]

The bacteria are better off at the higher pH for sure. Water changes will help a lot with stabilizing pH if there is any buffering capacity to the tap water. Buffering capacity is what is measured by a KH test kit. As long as you have a significant reading for KH, the water changes will help a great deal. If your KH is very low, pH can plummet unexpectedly as nitrates build up. Nitrates that we see in the tank are acidic in nature so will drive down pH if given the chance. I run about half of my tanks with sponge filters and some of them even have an air stone. The sponge should not affect the pH any more than any other filter. Wood will drop pH and so will peat moss, but the filter rarely will. If your water is very soft and low in buffering capacity, one cure is to use some crushed coral in your tank to slowly dissolve and buffer the pH. Crushed coral is basically the stuff they sell for a substrate in a saltwater tank and it will raise the pH.

 

[drobbyb]

Agree with OldMan47. I have to run crushed coral in my tanks, and it works very well.

 

[thenavigator]

But my other tanks PH is fine... It's still weirding me out. Hoping the cycle finishes and I don't need to do anything to the PH anymore and it starts being what it should be. As soon as nitrites go to 0 I'm going to see if I can get away with not using anything for the PH.

 

[thenavigator]

I did a 20% water change after nitrites were at practically 0. This time didn't add ph stabilizer. U guessed it, my PH went way down towards 6 again. My ammonia and nitrites both rised. Not above 1, but I had to add the PH 7.0 stabilizer again and do a slight water change. This is ridiculous and does not make sense at all. Why do I have to do this for this one tank and not the other, why is the PH going so much lower than what it should be. This is so frustrating, I guess I have to alter this PH for this tank any time I add new fresh water. Or else my cycle will die and I will have to start from scratch. I hope the fish make it through this crap again, this is ridiculously making no sense. It's upsetting, cause I almost think I'm done with this, and then it pops up again.

 

[OldMan47]

Take a look around the other tank Navigator. Your substrate or rock decor or something else in that tank may be helping to stabilize it. As we have already said, using a little substrate designed for a saltwater tank is all it would take to stabilize the pH. You don't need to buy the expensive pH stabilizer in a jar.

 

[waterdrop]

I suspect the reason that the difference in the pH of the two tanks is confusing you so much is that you're underestimating the degree to which an active cycling situation can use up buffer and push the KH and pH downward. The downward pressure on these two measures is going to be greater on the cycling tank than the one that is more or less finished with active initial cycling I believe.

I agree with drobbyb that a mesh bag of crushed coral in the filter is the method of choice for stabilizing the buffer and raising pH if you have a fish population in the tank. Using chemical pH movers, even if they are largely composed of similar materials, is usually not advised. I believe the concern with it is that the pH movement it causes is usually quicker than that of crushed coral (crushed coral can take a couple of weeks to show effect, its reportedly that slow sometimes, although most reports I've seen here have it moving faster than that but maybe bobby could comment.) Any chemical that moves pH (or really KH, as that's the underlying more important thing for the fish I believe) too quickly is subject to causing problems if the fishkeeper loses vigilance!

Hang in there and keep trying to learn how to do it better! You have a number of tough things you're working against. The tanks are small, which means quicker changes, sometimes quicker than are good for the fish. You're in a "fish-in" cycling situation and its often hard to save the lives of the fish when they go in before the biofilter is operating like this. You have ammonia in your water, but as OM47 has outlined, thats really not a problem. I think the cycling period with the low pH is your worst problem and you'll get through that eventually, as fish-in cycling rarely takes more than two months.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[thenavigator]

I don't mind adjusting the PH. But it's annoying... Just want this to be done and over with soon. Tank has been running for 3 weeks and it's done this 2 times already when it otherwise would've cycled a bit quicker and not of run into this mini cycle all the time.