I was wondering if Plants could cause PH to lower in the tank?

I'm having a bit of trouble with one tank going acidic a bit too frequently and I don't like that at all.

I've removed the plants in an effort to help determine the cause.

Ammonia has been low (either zero or .25 depending on when I test/water change)
Nitrites are 0
and Nitrates are in the 45-ish range (I find that test hard to read)

My thought was that perhaps the plants (which have not looked healthy as of late) have been slowly rotting, bumping up the ammonia and making the water acidic.

Not sure though...

-Alex

Alex, I am not sure of the specifics but I do know rotting plants can effect the water. Common sense would mean it changes the PH. I would remove the plants and test daily see if it balences back out. Keep an eye on it though, you don't want it to fluctuate to much or the fish will have problems.

Hi,

Rotting plants is caused by microbes doing their thing to decompose organic material. The increased microbe activity will reduce the amount of dissolved oxygen available to other plants/fish and suppress pH from carbon dioxide produced (I think). I forgot the exact mechanism on how pH is supressed, I suppose I was a bad student!!

Slugger

Thanks Laurie and Slugger--

I decided to remove everything from the tank and go 'bare bottom" (no way for that to sound right) in the tank until I can level out the water quality.

I feel like the fish don't like it unfortunately...nowhere for them to play! But in the long run I think they'll like clean water more...

-Alex