Is My Low Ph Preventing Mini-Cycle Recovery?

[Gvilleguy]

And I learned yet another lesson about filter upkeep...don't let a carbon filter build up colonies and then discard it without letting some other media build to replace it first! (that's in addition to the lesson of "don't use carbon in the first place to cycle your filter")

 

[waterdrop]

lol, just came to your thread straight from a beginner who is setting up to do exactly that..

 

[drobbyb]

I live very close to you Gvilleguy as you know. My water reads the same as yours minus the ammonia. The only way that I have found to keep the pH stable is to use crushed coral in the filter. Many people will say that it's not good to do so, but in our situation it can be an asset. While your bacterial colonies will adapt to the lower pH, they still will grow and function more slowly than if they were in a higher pH. A pH of 6.0 seems to be the magic number. Adding a bag of crushed coral to your filter will slowly buffer your water keeping it at around pH 6.0 raising slowly the longer you go between water changes. If you add crushed coral you will need to set a concrete water changing regimen so that you can change the water before the pH (hardness really) raises too far from your tap to prevent hardness shock. If there are no minerals in the water for a long period of time, your fish could suffer from bone and scale deterioration. Adding crushed coral adds calcium and magnesium, the very minerals that are the building blocks of those. I understand that fish get a lot of the nutrients they need from their food, but they also absorb some of them from the water that they are in. This is particularly important for fish that did not come from soft water ie: African cichlids and other hard water fish.

With all that said, you can also keep your hardness stable by performing many water changes. This method is much more labor intensive than adding crushed coral though.

Check out the link in my signature.

 

[Gvilleguy]

Thanks, Robby. I have crushed coral on my "to do" list for the tank. I already do 25% water changes every week to maintain nitrates at 5 pmm, so I would think adding crushed coral would not be a problem. I would just have to monitor to make sure 25% is adequate to prevent the pH from going too high.

 

[LilyRose Tank]

The pH isn't the problem. You could run a tank at 4-5 pH, probably even less and it would be fine. Its only a problem when cycling... not with fish.

Are you adding anything to the tank like ferts?

It doesn't really sound like a minicycle if its lasting for so long... so not quite sure. Are the fish showing signs of ammonia problems? is no nitrite appearing? it should be if the ammonia is real.
dosing things like TPN+ make ammonia show up even though its not actually ammonia

if the nitrite bacs are working, the nitrite will be 0 on a cycled tank!

and Nitrates can go up to 20ppm. so dont worry as long as ammonia and nitrItes stay below .25ppm its ok