sunken belly

[Beetlebug515]

That puts you at about 2.3 degrees kh. That's fairly low and explains your ph swing, but shouldn't be too low for the jar. I would recommend aging your water in a barrel for a day or so before doing a water change. You can set up an auto filling barrel for about 20 bucks plus cost of the barrel itself.

 

[Beetlebug515]

That should solve the ph shock issue, but you need to feed more. His belly is sunken because you are starving him.

 

[Richard203]

That puts you at about 2.3 degrees kh. That's fairly low and explains your ph swing, but shouldn't be too low for the jar. I would recommend aging your water in a barrel for a day or so before doing a water change. You can set up an auto filling barrel for about 20 bucks plus cost of the barrel itself.

ya I wish I can do that but I don't have that space to put a barrel and age it. I think my only way is to make the ph low before going into the tank.

 

[Beetlebug515]

The other thing you can do is smaller, more frequent water changes. This will help by minimizing the amount of change between each water change. It will also help lower your nitrates, which I would consider a tad high.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

I've read all 6 pages. That's highly unusual ime that the fish reacts to water change like that but it definitely is connected to the WC.

I think jardini could have been fine at ph 8.8 if it was stable.

I don't quite understand why the tank pH is 7.6 if the tap water is 8.8. It's possible but it'd be nice to have a guess or two as to why. BTW, is the tank water pH at 7.6 by both the normal-range and the high-range pH tests?

In any case, I'd make sure that pH is stable, let it be 7.6, or 7.0, or 6.0, or 8.8, during the week, before, during and after the WC.

If needed, take everything that affects pH out - coral, ceramic, seashells (all of these raise pH), accumulated fish waste and peat moss (this lowers pH), set aside buffers and other chemicals (except for water conditioner... you do use water conditioner right?) - in other words start your experiment / study from a clean slate and keep measuring the pH 3-5 times a day during the week and before WC, during WC, and especially several times more after WC.

If the pH is stable and the fish is still doing it, then it's not a pH issue and we need to look further.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

I'll repeat - do you use a dechlorinator water conditioner when doing a water change and do you use it in the right amount?

 

[Richard203]

I'll repeat - do you use a dechlorinator water conditioner when doing a water change and do you use it in the right amount?

I use prime for conditioner, I don't think prime hurts the fish if u overdose it. and I tried having no crushed coral my tank water ph will drop to 6 something ph that's why I added some crushed coral so my tank water ph is high so i can grow aerobic bacteria. without the crushed coral my tank ph will be very low.

 

[Beetlebug515]

thebiggerthebetter , I think that his water company is altering the water to push the ph up. Most likely for taste. Over time, what buffering there is adjusts ph back down to what is should be. Maybe the water company is treating with sodium bicarbonate? That would explain the big difference between the gh and kh. Also, R Richard203 , a ph of 6 is not too low for aerobic bacteria. At that ph, they won't be as efficient, but if you have decent filtration to begin with it won't be a problem. For anecdotal evidence, my 75 gallon tank stays at 5.2 ph. My nitrogen cycle is fully intact and my fish are happy.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Thanks guys.

Again, a lot of these are suppositions, thoughts. I think we need facts, concrete measurements.

If incoming water is at 8.8 but it goes down to 6.0 in the tank, that needs an investigation on its own - that's a thousand times change. Humongous. That's worse buffering than in almost pure RO water which picked up a tiny bit of KH en-route in pipes, etc.

Again, all this guessing may be put away by doing an experiment I proposed.

 

[Richard203]

i have 2 aqura100 and 1 fx6 and when i test for ammonia it shows .25 or .50 of ammonia in the tank. so after some research people say its low for the bacteria to survive or grow. after that i tried using crushed coral and raise the ph and now it don't show any ammonia in my tank.

biggerthebetter i have tried using that before. i washed my filters with tankwater and pour tetra start, 90% water change and when i pour the tap water in the tank the ph is the same ph as the tap water then drops each days. i only have a small pieces of drift wood in the tank and i don't think 1 driftwood will affect the water ph to a low 6 ph. so my 2nd test is do 50% water changes and test the bucket of clean water in the bucket for ph. bucket of water is tap water ph and tank water is at 6 ph. when i fill up the tank the tank ph still stay the same. its like when i pour the clean water in the tank the ph don't change.

so from there i just put crushed coral in the tank and it never drop to 6.0.