Dunno!
I think he left it overnite then took it out.

well, so far the ph is still about 7.8, but just in case, today I bought a bag of stuff called 'coral sand' and filled one of my baskets with it.

Cool.
Keep an eye on pH and KH and let us know how it does.

ok...today the PH has dropped to about 7.2
the kh is at 3drops... which is down by about a half a drop from before

-should I add some baking soda in there now or should I wait to see if the coral sand does anything?

I'd wait and see. How much of the coral sand did you add? Can you tell if water is flowing thru it well?

I added it into one of my media baskets...I'd guess about a cup.

and today my ph is about 7.9
how does it go up that much in less than 12 hours

Weird. the coral sand shouldn't be able to raise pH that high, cuz it doesn't dissolve unless pH falls below 7.5. What's your KH?

Did you do a test with your carbon yet to rule that out?

as of right now, my PH is somewhere between 7.4 and 7.8.
My KH for the first time is above 3....
now, when I added the 4th drop, the water turned green...when I added the 5th drop is when it tuned yellow....so the KH is definately going up.


-I'm sorry, I didn't do the carbon test. I will try it tonight. Should I use an old filter (one currently in the tank) or a new one? and do i use tank water or new water?

Cool. Dunno about you, but I have a difficult time reading the pH color chart. I'd bet you're on the low end near 7.4.

I'd use new carbon and the water you already had drawn up. wasn't pH in it around 7 after sitting out?

when it was airated, it was 7, but just sitting there, 7.5
-I have some water that has been sitting in a jug for a few days now, I'll check that ph and then i'll use that water and see what the filter does.

ok...so it looks like carbon is to blame!!

I had a filter sitting in water overnight. The water was 7.5 before i put the filter in, and now it is well over 8.8....
-I didn't use a whole gallon of water though, does that matter?

should I start taking the carbon out of my filters?

Looks like it!
I think removing the carbon would be a good thing. What kinda filters are they?

they are just generic filters cartriges for my penguin biowheel 330 that they sell at the local pet store...I have been using them for a while, but the last time I bought them, they looked a little different than they usually do, so maybe they are a different kind than the others were. That would explain it because that's when the ph problems started is when I started using the "new" generic filters.
-I will try to go back to brand name for a while, but I will test those filters in the bucket first to see if I need to empty the carbon or not.

Cool.
If you do want to add carbon, according to Dr Tim, bituminous coal based carbon is the best cuz of its pore sizes.

Ok, thank you for all your help Betty

-from what I've read, carbon isn't an absolute necessity, right? I do have some carbon incase I need to add it, but I may just leave it out for a while and see how that does.

I don't routinely add carbon to my tanks.
From time to time I do... e.g. Coco was acting antsy last month, so after I checked water params and they were ok, I added a bunch of carbon cuz I figured it couldn't hurt.

Here's a good article on what it absorbs.
http://www.wernersponds.com/Activated%20Ca...for%20Ponds.htm

Thank you