Problem with my PH

[Paul Steawrt]

Hi i recently bought a 260 litre fluval vicensa, with fluval fx6 i took out all the media from it and went the pondguru route and added pond foam and biohome ultimate. i put in pets at home silica sand 26kg which i think raises the PH by 0.3. my water from the tap is 6.6 PH. with just the water and the sand in another tank it raises the PH to 6.8. in established tanks this lowers to 6.0 - 6.5 PH (same sand)

But in the vicenza the PH rises to 7.6 PH 4 weeks it's not lowered. i spoke to the pondguru he says biohome is inert. and the PH will lower after a few days, (it didnt) i put in roughly 15 almond leaves and 8 pieces of bogwood to try and lower it. still 7.6. so because my other tanks were around 6.0 i decided to put some of that water in to see if the PH would reduce. it didn't it rose to 8.2. the only other things i have in my tank is bicarbonate for the KH. the KH gets put in a bin and it treats all the water for the tanks i have, same goes for the seachem prime. i don't know how to fix it. any help would be welcomed.

 

[seangee]

Have you tried without the bicarb? KH is a pH buffer and if its too high no amount of bogwood will bring it down.

 

[Paul Steawrt]

Have you tried without the bicarb? KH is a pH buffer and if its too high no amount of bogwood will bring it down.

I have a tub that i put water into and dose the water to put in 11 tanks. only the vicenza is 8.2. the rest at between 6.0 and 6.5

 

[Alliesten]

The bicarbonate is raising your pH. Remove it or remove half of it. See if it lowers. What is your kH before the bicarbonate?

Every single tank will be different. If your kH is above 4 drops or 72ppm, I wouldn’t add any bicarbonate at all. As long as your pH is stable, then that is the most important thing. Doesn’t have to be perfect.

 

[Byron]

You also need to know the GH and KH of your source water. This will tell you/us what "should" occur respecting pH as these are closely linked. You also need to test the GH and KH of the aquarium water, and I would test each tank so you can see exactly what the levels are. Something in the vicenza is clearly increasing KH and maybe GH too. Without pinning this down and then removing it, no amount of attempts to lower pH will work, and if you have fish in this tank they will bee seriously affected by fluctuating pH.

 

[Paul Steawrt]

Haven't tested GH, but the KH in the tank is 3

 

[Byron]

Haven't tested GH, but the KH in the tank is 3

In all tanks? And what about the tap water alone?

 

[Paul Steawrt]

Well after 1 month it finally went down the tap water PH of 6.6. it must have been the biohome ultimate which is supposed to be inert. i tested everything else.

 

[NickAu]

it must have been the biohome ultimate which is supposed to be inert.

I use Biohome ultimate and it has never affected my PH.

 

[Cichlid4life]

what are you using to test your pH? Test stripes are not reliable most of the time, and the liquid test is when the instructions are followed properly.
EDIT: ...the liquid test is accurate only when the instructions are followed properly and correctly.