Acid Levels

[butterfly]

Can anyone help me my tank has a problem with going very acidic frequently, how do I stop this? Could it be I'm feeding them too often, temp sits at 27 degrees. I change water when I'm meant to and adjust the PH back to neutral whenever its acidic. Dont usually realise its acidic till I start losing fish. Please help

Ness :oops:

[dimebag]

how acidic are you talking? and what kind of fish do you have? i wouldnt bother adjusting it, it will probably do more harm than good. have you tested the tap water? it is not essential to have a ph of 7

[herefishiefishie]

The water will be crashing as there is no carbonate & or general hardness in the water. What can cause it? It can be the water supply?

This is a problem with a water supply in parts of Brisbane. Very soft water.

Can also be from overfeeding, peat, wood.....

How much wood do you have in the tank?

How long does it take for your water to start dropping?

A simple thing of adding some calcium carb to your substract or as part of your filter media. Also a piece of limestone can do the trick.

Another simple trick is adding a little bicarb soda & magnesium salt to your water when you do water changes. I do this because I need hard water.

When raising the ph, only do so when doing a water change.

How do I change water hardness?

First because nitrification is continually removing alkalinity it is important that hardness is monitored on a regular basis – say about once a month. If either alkalinity or general hardness falls below the optimum level it can be reversed by either adding a calciferous source such as crushed oyster shell to the filter or adding more buffer to the water. If alkalinity is too low then add a carbonate buffer. If general hardness is too low then add a calcium or magnesium buffer.

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/hardness.php

For more reading, here are more topics.

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/chemistry_list.php

Frenchy