Water Issue?

[turtlez]

So, I did a 40% water change in my 110gallon Geophagus tank after a few weeks of neglect (exams!), and for some reason, after refilling/treating etc, the fish stayed on the bottom a lot longer than they usually do after cleaning. Usually they are up and about in about 15 minutes after refill, but this time it took them an hour to get back to normal activity.

So I went down to some pet store near my house, got the water tested and it was "6 or below" (if anyone uses those liquid pH testers, it was light light light yellow)!!!

What's going on? I use salt in my tank, but it's pretty much the same every week. The fish are doing fine now, but I don't really know if this is some sort of measuring error or if I should add some buffer. I use equilibrium every water change, just a cap-full (the flat cap).

Any advice would be great!

[j2daff]

when you say "6" I think you are talking about ph. I could be wrong but equilibrium affects gh general hardness and not kh Carbonate hardness or ph.

gh has no direct effect on ph and is simply a measure of specific minerals in the water, some of which are essential for the biology of your fish for things like absorbing oxygen.

kh essentially controls your water columns ability to neutralize acid. With out some kh your water can have ph crashes as there is nothing to neutralize the acid build up.

Depending on how low the ph is and the type of fish you have you may be okay. I recommend getting a gh/kh test kit and possibly an alkaline buffer to raise your kh if necessary. It will also raise ph.

Hope this helps and I am sure if I am incorrect some one will jump in and correct me.

As for the fish staying on the bottom I am not really sure but if I had to guess I'd say that with the few weeks of neglect you mentioned they may have lost some of the conditioning they had in terms of dealing with the stress of you cleaning the tank.

[Dunbar_Painting]

when you say "6" I think you are talking about ph. I could be wrong but equilibrium affects gh general hardness and not kh Carbonate hardness or ph.

gh has no direct effect on ph and is simply a measure of specific minerals in the water, some of which are essential for the biology of your fish for things like absorbing oxygen.

kh essentially controls your water columns ability to neutralize acid. With out some kh your water can have ph crashes as there is nothing to neutralize the acid build up.

Depending on how low the ph is and the type of fish you have you may be okay. I recommend getting a gh/kh test kit and possibly an alkaline buffer to raise your kh if necessary. It will also raise ph.

Hope this helps and I am sure if I am incorrect some one will jump in and correct me.

As for the fish staying on the bottom I am not really sure but if I had to guess I'd say that with the few weeks of neglect you mentioned they may have lost some of the conditioning they had in terms of dealing with the stress of you cleaning the tank.

This is all good information.

Other things that could have affected the fishes stress level is if the tank was extremely dirty that the pH was 5 or below prior to water change, so even going up to 6 would be a huge increase considering the scale.

Also, temperature... did you check the temp in the tank and the water you were adding to see how similar they were?

[April]

bioload will crash your ph . maybe your filter wasnt keeping up..or needs rinsing.

[turtlez]

Thanks, yes it was 6 as in pH 6.

My ammonia after the water change was "very high" according to those color liquid indicators, dark green, but I don't know how, since it was right after a large water change and the water is crystal clear.

My FX5 was still keeping the tank really clean even after not water changing for a long time.

I have Geophagus Red Head Tapajos, Jurupari, Heckelii and Surinamensis. Luckily these all like a pH of around 6-6.8ish or else I'm pretty sure everyone would have been dead by now :|

I retested just now, pH is at around 6.2.

For the high ammonia though, not really sure what to do. I'll see if I can get it tested again tomorrow I guess

[hp10BII]

What was your pH normally? Good thing is that ammonia at those low pH levels aren't nearly as toxic, but something is out of whack with your bio filters.

[turtlez]

I have never tested my water before haha surprisingly. My geos have laid eggs just about a month ago (which got eaten by the turtle), but nonetheless, the pH/water quality seems/seemed to be good enough to breed :|

[Chronick]

water changes and tank maintenance should solve the problem

[Rastapus]

I have never tested my water before haha surprisingly. My geos have laid eggs just about a month ago (which got eaten by the turtle), but nonetheless, the pH/water quality seems/seemed to be good enough to breed :|

With the BC conditions, breeding is not necessarity a sign of good water quality, only of low pH. When the pH drops suddenly it will induce certain fish species to spawn. Equilibrium will have a minor effect on KH which will raise the pH. Need to check for more water parameters.