Hi This is my first post to this site and i'm hoping to learn how to raise the pH in my 29 gal as slowly and naturally as poss!

Right now its sitting at about 5.

I live in Scotland and the water here is very soft.

Our tap water is pH 7, GH 3, and kH2
Tank water is PH 5, GH 6 and kH 1

I have a few rocks of limestone but don't know how to put them in. Will they just sit on the bottom of the tank or would that cloud up the water too much?

Also have some stuff called 'sea rock' that the aquarium shop recommended. Big rocks of it.

And some bicarbonate of soda. ... is that the same as baking soda??

Thanks!

~foxxie

As a wee addition, I was looking for crushed coral, but none of the aquarium shops sold any, so the stuff I had to get was larger rocks of the stuff they recommended (they called it 'sea rock' and 'taffa' or maybe tapha? . Will this work ok?

Yikes, your pH is low. as in pH crash.
Yes.. sodium bicarbonate is baking soda.

The first thing I'd do would be to raise pH to 6 now. With a 29 gallon tank, 1 teaspoon of baking soda should raise pH to around 6. Predissolve in tank water and then add slowly to a high flow area. If that doesn't bring pH up to 6, you can add 1/2 teaspoon at the time till you get to 6.
I'd then take it up by about .4 per day.
Here's a calculator that will let you see how much baking soda to add based on your tank size and how much you want to increase KH. You can also estimate how much a change in KH will affect pH.

I'd be worried about crushed coral or limestone or oyster shell moving the pH up too fast. If it were me, I'd use baking soda to gradually raise KH to around 7dh and then add one of the crushed minerals to keep it stable. Even with the crushed minerals, you still may need to buffer with baking soda when you do partial water changes, cuz your tap water KH is so low.

I don't know if the sea rocks are coral. You really need the suface area you'd get on crushed coral. big chunks wouldn't dissolve as well. Here's a great thread on carbonate sources. I use crushed oyster shell. They sell it at animal feed stores here.

Let me know how it's going.

PH at 5 is very deadly already.. it starts to destroy your bacteria colony, which means your cycle will crash any moment..

once crashed, ammonia will rise so dramatically and that's the end of all fishes.. and it can happen within minutes..

baking soda is a good solution to raise PH efficiently and quickly.. but it is not a good buffer and PH will fall after sometime.. buffer are like crushed coral or crushed oyster shell.. why crushed?? it is for better effect, and if you are worry about raising the PH too fast, then consider coral and oyster shell as whole (uncrushed)..

usually I prefer crushed, as they are easily to managed and can be placed in a used stocking.. then I will place the whole bag into my filter and ensure it is fully soaked..

baking soda should be used with a test kit.. as you add, you check.. and be sure you add bit by bit as baking soda raise PH relatively fast and you dun want to overdo it.. but do take note, the effect of baking soda does not last long.. it is only a temporary solution while you get better buffer like coral or oyster shell..

another good thing to add to your tank is calcium carbonate.. get those pure calcium carbonate pills with no other addictive from local pharmacy.. it is a good ph and kh buffer that helps to retain water hardness which will help to retain ph..

hope this helps

Even if ammonia was at 6ppm. it won't be a problem till pH gets up to 7, cuz almost all of it would be ammonium (NH4+). But that's a good point you will need to keep an eye on ammonia as you raise pH.

Thanks for the advice I was so worried about my fish!

Well, I added a wee bit baking soda last night and tested the pH late tonight and its up at 7 and the fish are looking much happier.

The GH is 7 and the KH: 2.

Will see about hunting down some crushed coral or oyster shells to put in the filter, thanks for the tips.

Hopefully the bacteria colony didn't die off, my tests for ammonia don't give good results cause i use ammolock for a water conditioner.

if you have good supply of fresh air bubbles, it will help in such crissis too..

as PH drop, fishes will have breathing difficulty too.. so good supply of air is important.. it helps to maintain your fish as well as your bacteria colony..

most of the time, it is the death of bateria colony that will wipe out the entire tank or pond.. saw my avatar?? The picture I am using?? funny thing is that noone ever questioned me what is that picture.. that picture actually is a picture of dead koi.. the whole load of them from a pond that died over night when PH was not closely monitored..

I actually heared egg-shells can also effect ph. Is it true? and to what extent?

re eggshells... dunno!

fi5hkiller: Oh my. Can't see it well enough to tell.

Foxxie: you'll want to raise KH up some more unless you find the crushed minerals soon. KH of 2 is still very low.

crushed egg shell worked to certain degree, but how do you get them to sink is one problem... in fact several things that can be Buffer, things like bones, teeth, shell, etc.. but still, coral and shell are more appropriate..

I know the picture is rather hard to see.. no choice, has to be at its lowest resolution to keep the file size small in order for me to upload it here..

data... i misread your earlier post, thinking the baking soda was to raise the pH to 7 instead of kH

will adding more baking soda raise the kH without raising the pH too much?

Raising KH from 2dh to 3dh should raise pH by about .4
Raising KH from 3dh to 4dh should raise pH by about .3

So how large are your limestone rocks?
Here's a good thread on using minerals to leach carbonates. need a lot of surface area and they need to be in a high flow area.

I'm trying it as of this moment.

the egg shell seems to sink probly due to the fact i made a soft boil eggs first

hey everyone

am keeping up with the baking soda for now cause i haven't been able to get the other stuff yet. the pH is 6.5 - 7

bad news though, nitrites are testing positive so the bacteria has crashed and i'm cycling again

I'm doing a water change right now to help a bit. the tank is full of fish though and they can't all go through a cycle

I'm thinking of giving the fish to a fish shop and starting the tank over. its full of tropicals at the moment: some cories, some tetras, two cute otos and some platies. I've been thinking about starting it over as a tank for my wee goldie, cause he's in a eight g and will need something bigger eventually.

what do you guys think?

thanks

~foxxie

So how's your ammonia reading?
I don't know enough about your tropicals to know if they're hardy enough to make it thru cycling.

If you did that, you could finish it with a fishless cycle. After it's cycled, you could move your goldie into the 29. and get one more goldie (who you should quarantine in the 8 gallon for several weeks to make sure he's healthy before adding him to the main tank).

Yeah, that was the plan, data.

I don't think my tropicals are hardy enough to make it through a cycle especially with so many of them in the tank.

I haven't been testing for ammonia, because the water conditioner in the tank is ammolock so the ammonia readings are always false :3

Maybe you can get store credit for them.

The fish shop accepted my wee tropicals. Its a good store, it was sad to see them go though. They did give store credit too, £15.

I'm going to see if i can fishless cycle this tank and get the pH stabilised before moving the fantail in.

Thanks for all the help!

~Jen

Cool! Keep us posted.