Hello, I’m very new to the hobby and it was an emergency rehoming situation to which I obtained the fish.
Long story short, I have the fish in a 54 litre but I am currently cycling a 105 litre for them. The 54 litre with the fish is currently cycling too
The problem is my pH levels are not stable. In the tank they are in, it reads 6.0 pH (I use the API Freshwater Testing Kit)
Which I know means it can be lower. I did add a Seachem Alkaline buffer to rise it and got it to 6.6 but the next day it was 6.0.
I obviously had to do an emergency fish in cycle which is progressing well, I’m just waiting on the appearance of nitrates.
My tap water pH reads at 7.4, GH/KH are about 6-8
The tank I’m cycling confuses me more, the pH is reading 8.4-8.6 which I know means it could be higher.
I feel really overwhelmed, feel like I’m failing and I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. I can’t obviously put the fish into the larger tank when it’s done cycling due to that high pH.
In both tanks I have a sponge filter and a Nicrew sponge filter in the 54l which includes carbon filtration.
In the bigger tank I used the tetra filter which came with it.
I use an airstone in the 54litre too.
Both tanks I think get plenty of aeration because of all this.
I do daily testing on both tanks.
Yellowish algae seems to be growing on both of the tank’s airline tubing too.
I guess I’m just really pessimistic because I want a good environment for all these fish. All them can do well in lower phs except one Molly I have.
I have neon tetras, cardinal tetras, rummy nose tetras (5 total) panda corydoras (2), otocinclus (4) and a Molly. I didn’t want to overwhelm the smaller tank when it is a fish in cycle and I wanted to definitely add more cories and a tetra so the group numbers are okay in the larger tank. These were the fish given to me so I didn’t choose the original group numbers.
Are pH fluctuations normal during a cycle?
Any advice would be very appreciated. I feel so upset about all this.
Long story short, I have the fish in a 54 litre but I am currently cycling a 105 litre for them. The 54 litre with the fish is currently cycling too
The problem is my pH levels are not stable. In the tank they are in, it reads 6.0 pH (I use the API Freshwater Testing Kit)
Which I know means it can be lower. I did add a Seachem Alkaline buffer to rise it and got it to 6.6 but the next day it was 6.0.
I obviously had to do an emergency fish in cycle which is progressing well, I’m just waiting on the appearance of nitrates.
My tap water pH reads at 7.4, GH/KH are about 6-8
The tank I’m cycling confuses me more, the pH is reading 8.4-8.6 which I know means it could be higher.
I feel really overwhelmed, feel like I’m failing and I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. I can’t obviously put the fish into the larger tank when it’s done cycling due to that high pH.
In both tanks I have a sponge filter and a Nicrew sponge filter in the 54l which includes carbon filtration.
In the bigger tank I used the tetra filter which came with it.
I use an airstone in the 54litre too.
Both tanks I think get plenty of aeration because of all this.
I do daily testing on both tanks.
Yellowish algae seems to be growing on both of the tank’s airline tubing too.
I guess I’m just really pessimistic because I want a good environment for all these fish. All them can do well in lower phs except one Molly I have.
I have neon tetras, cardinal tetras, rummy nose tetras (5 total) panda corydoras (2), otocinclus (4) and a Molly. I didn’t want to overwhelm the smaller tank when it is a fish in cycle and I wanted to definitely add more cories and a tetra so the group numbers are okay in the larger tank. These were the fish given to me so I didn’t choose the original group numbers.
Are pH fluctuations normal during a cycle?
Any advice would be very appreciated. I feel so upset about all this.
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