Before I Shout At My Lfs

[bitfishy]

For the last week I've been battling with a mysterious drop in PH levels which I couldn't fathom. As a result I've lost my Xenias - which prior to the event were a good 8 inches tall and in my mind absolutely beautiful - they really made the tank.

I was about to top up the levels, when I thought I'd just test the shops RO water - the levels are ridiculous. The PH doesn't really register on the colour chart - its that low, & the hardness is less than 6 degrees. I used all the salt water I bought off them, but I presume its pretty likely they used the same water to make the salt mix.

I jsut want to check before I talk to the LFS that these levels couldn't have dropped since buying the water. I think the RO is 2 weeks old, possibly three. In the past I've not had a problem with storing water, but maybe I just was lucky.

Also any advice on how I should approach this would be gratefully received. This is my nearest LFS and the only one in the area that doesn't make me want to burst into tears when I look around their tanks. They do seem to look after their fish/corals and care about their livestocks welfare, so I don't want to burn any bridges if you know what I mean. That said however, I'm really really angry with them!!

Thanks everyone

 

[Adrinal]

Most the fish stores around here never change their filters on their RO, which means your really buying tap water.

Be nice when you bring up the issue and they may fix it. Be mean and it just doesn't help. Just tell them the facts. "I tested the water and it was low on PH, lets find the issue together" That kind of thing.

Helping each other grow > burn bridges. It is what it is, your xenia isn't coming back. But, hopefully you can avoid the issue again and help others in the process.

HTH

 

[xxBarneyxx]

I could be wrong here but I'm sure the RO/DI water is pretty much neutrul but will stablise to around 5.5-6 no matter what PH the source water is.

Same goes for hardness I assume as you are taking out all of the disolved solids you are basically removing all of the buffer capabilities and stuff that brings the hardness up.

This shouldnt be an issue for salt water tanks as the salt we add then brings these levels up to exactly what we want.

IE. Your RO water is fine. You PH test kit is most likely a high end one so wouldnt register a 5.5 or 6 very well.

Edit: Take a look at this http/www.ro-man.com/faq-pro/?action=arti...id=47&lang=

 

[k.o.d]

RO is pure water so there should be little or no harness reading because that is what you have just removed in the filtering process, it removes almost everything but pure water molecules
Because RO water is so pure, the CO2 from the atmosphere will dissolve into the water and send it towards acid, theoretically it should be neutral but RO is unstable and will drop to acid levels over time.

This is why RO water has to be buffered to make it habitable for fishes to live in.

A TDS meter will tell you how effective the RO purification process will be, it is not worth testing for purity with pH due to the instability of RO water. TDS is total dissolved solids

 

[Lynden]

we have a winner

I agree with the above post. But I would like to add that since RO water does not have a buffer the pH can swing quite widely, but as soon as the water enters a SW tank the buffers from it will stabilize the pH at whatever the receiving tank's is.

 

[bitfishy]

Thank heavens I checked with you guys first - that would've been an embarrassing moment! Thank you!

And I thought I'd found a nice, easy, not-my-fault, solution to my PH problem

back to the drawing board........ thanks again everyone

 

[k.o.d]

A pH drop can be due to excess nutrients decomposing, the water can only sustain so much nitogenous waste before the buffering capacity is exceeded and the water becomes more acid.
There are lots of buffering chemicals for keeping salt water at around 8.3, what you need to do is keep an eye on your dKH levels as higher than NSW water levels can cause problems for other parameters.

We use Salifert buffers and they have been pretty good.

What filtration system do you use, what is the stocking level of the tank and what is your feeding regime?

Steve

 

[bitfishy]

Its a 55gal tall tank with a D-Deltec MCE600 hang on skimmer and live rock (lots). Fish wise I've got a pair of Clarks clowns, a pair of peacock wrasse and a blenny. CUC = urchin, around 8 hermits, pair of fire shrimps, 3 snails, small cowrie, undefined crab. Corals = Xenia (well almost), christmas tree, feather duster, torch, sinularia, undefined 'mouse ear' thats not a mouse ear, polyps, large star colony, large tunicates...... its not exactly packed!!

I feed the fish on a cube of either brineshrimp, mysis or artemia(?sp) once a day, depending on whats to hand in the freezer. I do add a squirt of phytoplankton on a weekly basis, just changed to using 'micro vert'.

I had very serious Phospahte problems for a while (went unnoticed until I lost a head of the torch ) It took months to settle to reasonable levels with Rowaphos, so your mention of excess nutrients struck a chord.

The thing is I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. I've had the tank since the beginning of the year and whilst I've been lucky in that I've had no major disasters I've never got to the point where I feel OK about it all - there's always something a bit iffy. The rest of the torch survived and I think the Xenia might actually pull through, although in a severely depleted state but I'd love to feel confident about it all. I'd just started to feel better about everything and bought some new corals, and this has happened

~I took on board everyones comments in the past and bought extra hermits (lost a fair few lately though), moved my rocks about, did major water changes, put a powerhead behind the rocks etc etc so that's all covered.

Feeling a bit sorry for myself My dKH has always been on the low end BTW. I'm off to the perfectly innocent LFS tomorrow so I'll look into the buffering agent you recommend. Does this fall under the 'don't add anything you don't test for' rule, and if so what should I test for. Sorry to be so ill-informed.

Thanks for the interest K.O.D.

 

[k.o.d]

Phosphate wont cause your pH drop, it is protein based nutrients that break down and go through the nitrogen cycle, thats the idea of a ( very good ) protein skimmer like you have, those lipid wastes are removed from the water so they don't overload the live rock ( Berlin ) system.
Do you defrost your cubes of brine shrimp before adding them to the tank? Believe it or not a lot of people have had problems with excess gunk from the frozen cubes, try defrsting and washing the shrimp before adding to the tank ( though this is only hearsay )
What salt do you use?

Steve

 

[bitfishy]

OK, I think I'm missing something here I think you're saying the excess nutrients that may have caused the PH imbalance are not the same ones that cause the phospahte problem... the ones that cause phosphate build up are the protein based ones, and they should be dealt with by the skimmer (have I got that right?) and the ones that may have an involvement with PH levels are.... something else? like fish poo?

I don't defrost & rinse the cubes, I did for a bit but I got lazy again. I'll do that from now on. Don't things like feather dusters & christmas trees eat this 'gunk' from the food, and if so should I add something for them to eat instead, or will there still be enough from the washed cubes?

With regards the salt mix, I don't mix my own salt I buy it from my LFS. There was so much to take in when I started this that I left that side of things out for simplicity. Should I test his water for something?

Thanks for your help K.O.D

 

[sophos9]

Give your fresh batch of salty from your LFS a test for nitrates, phosphates, calcium and carbonite hardness. You have to bank on the fact that their water is great. Mistakes happen so personally I would test before I add....

 

[bitfishy]

Will do Sophos, have all those tests in the cupboard, so for once, no more expense lol

 

[TammyLiz]

I would ask the LFS what salt mix they use. I have seen quite a few posts where people who were using Oceanic had issues with low pH and when they switched to something else the problem was fixed.