Just Toby;4831904; said:
exactly right, and vice-versa at low pH ammonia is converted to ammonium
PH problem....solution?
- Thread starter fishman646
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exactly right, and vice-versa at low pH ammonia is converted to ammonium
Within reason of course. CO2 is not gonna be responsible for a ph swing from 8 to 4 for example. Anything like that is most definitely hardness related. And freshwater fish can adapt to a wide ph range. The common range you see is anything from 6 all the way to 8s. A fish will live in these waters just fine, as long as they are acclimated to the hardness.DavidW;4831865;4831865 said:well, I wouldn't quite go that farto call it myth but as long as the change is gradual usually it is not a problem, sudden changes can be catastrophic and acidity can affect your biofiltration efficiency ( lower pH less efficient bacteria 5.5pH is biostasis for most bacteria)
remember that the pH scale is logarithimic. 6 is 10X more acidic than 7. 8 is 10X more alkaline
Quickly dump them in water that has a gh of 10 when they came from water with a gh of 2, and I can guarantee you you'll have a fish going belly up in a matter of minutes.
Everyone! I have read each and every post! These are all great answers and I am feeling a little better about this. I have a little more info and I also suspect it is co2. Is it really harmless if co2 is causing the swing? I can not measure gh as I do not have the kit. I use a digital PH meter and probe to measure ph. I know kh has something to do with hardness and buffering and I measured my tank kh and water straight out of the tap kh. I got identical results of about 9dkh or 161.1ppm kh. I do not know if this matters but in a reef these are good numbers lol. I also retested the tank and my aged tap. All my tanks are still at 8.2 - 8.3 as with the aged tap and will not go higher. I am almost 100% positive co2 is causing this. Is co2 a bad thing and are these swings horrid? Jcardona suspects no! anyone else. Also what is a good GH number? My rays alll look fine eat like pigs and are rather happy! Even freshly imported 4-5 inch hystrix are all fine! Keep chiming in thanks aton. I am very happy with the people who are trying to help me and your guys REPUTATION!
fishman646;4832788; said:
Yes, it's completely harmless. I speak from my experience with co2-injected planted tanks, and doing water changes directly from the tap where the ph isn't always the same. When injecting co2, my ph can swing by A LOT, within a very short amount of time, even by a full 2 points. I know this by using a co2 drop checker. If co2-induced ph swings are harmful to fish, none of us planted tank guys would be able to keep fish alive, they should be flopping over dead. And we keep delicate fish like angels, discus, etc. When the co2 turns off at night my ph rises. When it kicks on the next day it falls by a lot. It's a constant up and down. The fish are never fazed and are healthy as can be. And we're not talking normal equilibrium co2 levels of 3-4ppm. A co2-injected planted tank will be running 20-50ppm of co2.
For the same reasons I described; co2 is not a salt nor a buffer, and doesn't affect your water's hardness. Therefore, no osmotic shock to your fish.
The reason this "myth" even came to be is because many moons ago fishkeepers weren't able to test for salts and minerals in their tanks (kh/gh), and they only had ph test kits available. When fish suddenly died, they blamed it on ph. Hence, the ugly 'ph shock' myth arose!!
So sending lil Pbass from the amazon to RO would be OK but then when they go to a tank that runs straight tap water even if dripped they could still be belly up within hours due to this "shock"?
Got a phone call asking if I could explain it. I guess this is a much better explanation then "I don't think you can do that with baby fish cause the water is different" LOL
Very informative J. Thank you for the enlightenment!!!!!
Got a phone call asking if I could explain it. I guess this is a much better explanation then "I don't think you can do that with baby fish cause the water is different" LOL
Very informative J. Thank you for the enlightenment!!!!!
This is definetly not a topic I would know alot about but I do work on a filtering system for the local pool and they use co2 injection for ph regulation and when the ph sensor faulted it caused the co2 injector to stay running too long dropping the ph down to around 5 burning the rubber out on all the solenoids in the system. I know your not talking of a drop this far but if this was harmless then the rubber on the solenoids would not have melted.jcardona1;4833434; said:
I will also have to retake or look back to find my old kh/gh readings since I haven't tested for awhile but I know they are some of the highest readings I've read about and have had the best luck acclimating wildcaught rays with a 15 minute acclimate or when necessry a dump method and no belly up rays. The only time I lost wildcaught rays is when I used a ph down in my normal tap water without putting it into a r/o system first and then acclimated my rays into that water. The next day the rays died when the water bounced back up to the normal tap ph.
Ph bounce to me is for sure not a myth.
Still very much doubt it was pH, Sky. Much more likely osmotic shock, might've taken a day to finish 'em off but pH doesn't affect fish. If affects filters and affects ammonia, which in turn affect fish.
I've bounced pH down and up 2 whole points or more in the space of a few minutes (while breeding discus) and the fish didn't even flinch.
I've bounced pH down and up 2 whole points or more in the space of a few minutes (while breeding discus) and the fish didn't even flinch.
PeteLockwood;4834179; said:
On the other hand I have done this by mistake when I was breeding discus and seen them shed their slime coat or go bat-S-crazy crashing into the glass etc.
I would not recommend sudden big changes to pH.
