My water PH is at 5, why is this so?

[HarleyK]

Key is: What's your hardness (gH, kH), and how old is your pH kit?

HarleyK

 

[Red_Belly_Pacu]

bio media does not wear out nor would it drop the pH even if it did



you have a serious amount of decay going on in your tank coupled with low pH / KH from the water source



maybe add some crushed coral to the filter to buff it up to atleast 6 i'd say. 5 is dangerously acidic (each number down on the pH scale is actualy 10X as acidic as the previous one so think 5 is 100x as acidic as 7 and 10 x as acidic as 6).

I did two 50% water changes to my tank this week, and the PH is still under 6. My ammonia is at 0 and my nitrite is at 0 and my nitrate is acceptable as what the LFS person told me since I do not have a nitrate test kit.

Do you think just doing more water changes will bring the PH up.

Some of my sensative fishes cannot take the low Ph but my green Severums are acutally breeding with this low Ph. Severums prefer 5.1 to 6.5 Ph as what I read in the internet.

 

[kdrun76]

Do you think just doing more water changes will bring the PH up.

That depends on what your KH is.

It is not possible to be a responsible fish keeper with out owning water test kits. Water quality is essential for fish keeping. Unless you can look at the water and know what's in it, go get a test kit.

You should be able to measure pH, KH, GH, nitrite, nitrate, and ammonia at any time. Dip stick kits are less than useless, get kits that use liquid reagents.

 

[kallmond]

Dip Stick kits are more useful than not having any kind of test kit. I'm not arguing that they're better than liquid, just saying if you can't afford to drop the $35 - $40 on the full reagent kit, a $12 'bottle' of strips is better than nothing.

 

[zennzzo]

Key is: What's your hardness (gH, kH), and how old is your pH kit?

HarleyK

 

[kdrun76]

Dip Stick kits are more useful than not having any kind of test kit. I'm not arguing that they're better than liquid, just saying if you can't afford to drop the $35 - $40 on the full reagent kit, a $12 'bottle' of strips is better than nothing.

If you can't afford to test your water, you can't afford to keep fish.

That is like saying you can afford a $400 puppy but not the $30 vaccination to keep it healthy.

 

[Red_Belly_Pacu]

That depends on what your KH is.

It is not possible to be a responsible fish keeper with out owning water test kits. Water quality is essential for fish keeping. Unless you can look at the water and know what's in it, go get a test kit.

You should be able to measure pH, KH, GH, nitrite, nitrate, and ammonia at any time. Dip stick kits are less than useless, get kits that use liquid reagents.

The reason why I don't own a Ph test related kit is because the majority of people would say, never mess with the Ph. It is better to have a stable Ph than a person dumping chemicals in the tank for a Ph which would result in a Ph to be unstable. They say that the fishes are worser off like that being in a unstable environiment where the Ph changes constantly. That is the written rule in the internet and it has always been like that.

 

[kdrun76]

If you don't test your pH how do you know its wrong?

A stable pH is very important. The actual value of the pH isn't important, but knowing that its not changing is.

And what about KH, GH, nitrates?

 

[Red_Belly_Pacu]

If you don't test your pH how do you know its wrong?

A stable pH is very important. The actual value of the pH isn't important, but knowing that its not changing is.

And what about KH, GH, nitrates?

I have a Ph test kit. Hey look, I am not going to respond to you anymore.

 

[knifegill]

Then why did you ask for help in the first place? Those are all reasonable questions.