Ok, I Give Up...

[ShinySideUp]

My new tank has had the occupants of my old tank transferred to it for three weeks now. The ammonia still reads 0.5 ppm, Ph is 6.2, nitrites are 0 and nitrates are about 15 ppm. I have been trying to get the ammonia down and the pH up (tap water is 7.2) but it isn't happening. Ammonia drops and pH rises after 70 percent water change but within three days it's all back to the way it was.

Since I have been testing my new tank such a lot I decided to more frequently test my old tank, which is still in use with some new fish that won't outgrow the tank and has been running for seven years and guess what?...the chemistry is exactly the same!

I'm not losing any of the old fish in the new tank and none of the new fish in the old tank and whatever the reason my fish are thriving and I have now given up fretting over the ammonia levels. I can only assume that the low pH is preventing the full formation of nitrifying bacteria but is also keeping the ammonia in a non-toxic state. It seems to work.

Martin

 

[Juggler75]

It could be like you say or just a faulty test kit?

 

[ShinySideUp]

I use the the same ammonia test but I have used two different pH tests and they are both the same. I truly think that it has to do with the soft water here in Cornwall. Kettles here eventually just fail through age whereas where I used to live in Maidenhead I had to replace the kettle every year due to limescale buildup despite descaling regularly.

 

[Geoff-]

You can buffer the pH with crushed coral or baking soda. Raising pH (hardening or buffering the water) is easy.

API master kits are known to give ambiguous readings at the low end of the ammonia scale, it's hard to tell 0ppm from 0.25ppm ammonia. Although if you're showing 0.5ppm ammonia then you definitely do have some or your test kit is faulty.

Assuming you have ammonia DO NOT raise the pH. Ammonia and Ammonium exist in a closed cycle and the proportion of each depends on pH. High pH means the majority is present as Ammonia which is TOXIC to your fish. With an acidic pH most is present as Ammonium which is relatively harmless.