PH dropping fast each day

Originally Posted by BettaCloud

Soonhong bro, haha. No worries, u asked out of concern, i didnt hv co2 in it. I hv us fissiden tied to dw, moss ball, hornwort floating, us fissiden tied to pipe and mesh..

Avex bro, my soil is brand new gex soil frm lfs. Cycle for 1mth+ hv alrdy.. shrimps are doing well, still molt but nt as frequent as when they first came home. I checked ydae, added ph up and got from 5.0 to 6.5, today dropped to 5.0. I just added ph up to 7.0 now. Will check again tmr.

I think you should get bigger as the water parameter will be more stable compared to your current tank...

Bro betta either your test kit is having error reading or something is very wrong. Gex soil can buffer at 6.5 i think i have it in the tiger tank it still buffer at 6.5 nothing there.

[globalcookie]

Do you know the requirements for different types of shrimps?
- Cherries (and FR) does well with higher pH.
- Soil lower pH
- New soil lowers pH even more effectively than old soil

So since you are keeping cherries, why use soil? So much fluctuation will do a lot more harm than good. Using pH up just to achieve higher pH when soil will lower it again, is just not right.

A small tank like Luigi said, is hard to maintain due to drastic change in water perimeters.

Finally, Don't rush into shrimp keeping!!! If you have not check out the requirements, you better do so before you start killing shrimps.

1. tank too smal = water fluctuation
2. soil still new! its ph lowering effect still very strong
3. to buffer ph add abit of coral chip!
4. water change try to keep it small about 5% as your tank is super small!
5. get a bigger tank & better filtration.
6. get shrimps that are more hardy like cherry/fire reds!

good luck!

Yes bros. Will take note of all these points. I will try to set up a bigger tank asap now and cycle it asap. Meanwhile i will try to add coral chips and try to get a stable ph.

[dazmario]

hi i also have this problem. recently my shrimp of low grade crs and sakura keep dying pcs by pcs one or 2 day. i did a test, my Ammonia and Nitrite is 0 but my ph show in yellow range which in the chart to be 5 , but as it is lowest the chart can shown. My tank come with soil, dw with moss (big pcs) one. running on OHF with biohome.one air stone filter with led light which is not strong. moss growing healthy.

i thought the soil is to maintain the PH but it seem it keep bring the PH down. any advise here?

thanks

Bro dazmario, i think what the experts mentioned is due to new soil. I added bb, removed carbon. Let everything stablize.. My shrimps Died mainly because it got stucked at the surface.. But my poor shrimplets could b due to ph.

[gryphon]

Originally Posted by BettaCloud

My shrimps Died mainly because it got stucked at the surface..

What do u mean by stucked at surface?

Bro,

I had had similar problems b4 although what i had is a guppy tank. For my guppy tank, its used to have some soil substrate and black quartz sand. apart from that, I had a big DW and some other plants growing in it.

During the 1 mth plus of keeping this setup, met with 2 catastrophic disasters with the second one wiping out the whole tank less 3 fishes.

Fm Disaster 1
Water from my tap is ard pH 7.6, after aging the water for a few days, the pH will drop to ard 6.6 however, after intro the water to the tank, within 1 or 2 days, the water pH lvl will drop drastically to ard 5 or 5.4 cos have CO2 oso
Thus with the tank lvl at ard 5 and aged water ard 6.6, after WC, this sudden increase in the pH lvl cause stress to my fishes and a lot fall sick and up the lorry. Read thru the posts and decide to remove the soil

Fm Disaster 2
After having remove the soil, the setup is more or less the same with the initial one(no soil oni), tank was refilled with aged water and fishes was intro into the tank(mistake as i tot the water is aged and filter nvr changed) took a reading and it reads 6.6
Was relieved and do constant monitoring for the nxt few days, however, after nearly 1 week, the pH lvl drop drastically to ard 5 again. Did a major WC and added coral chips and the resultant is a spike of ammonia. All fish less 3 all up lorry.

After asking ard, was told to remove my DW(brought fm LFS with moss attached). After the DW is removed, the water pH lvl had remained constant for the past 8 days. Nw the tank is cycling, had intro another DW (but this time round, I clean and soaked the DW in hot water for days b4 intro)

Sorri for being too lengthy cos i learnt a few lessons the hard way so would like to share with u.

1. WC regularly but at a smaller amt
2. pH lvl for the tank and the aged water shd not be too different. i.e to say, if yr water is soft, u might want to add some DW or larva rocks into yr aged water so that the pH lvl is somewhat similar. if yr tank lvl water is hard, then maybe u want to add some coral chips to ensure the water pH lvl is almost the same. like this, when doing WC, it will not stress out yr fish/shrimps etc
3. Recycle yr tank properly with whatever scape u have in mind. after all is stable and the tank ready(will takes up to weeks to do so), then intro yr shrimps. After which try not to intro anymore other plants/dw/larva rocks etc as this will cause the water perimeters to flatuate again.
4. Lastly, go get a BIGGER tank, water perimeters in bigger tank easier to keep in check

Originally Posted by gryphon

What do u mean by stucked at surface?

My shrimps like to hang up the surface, then the antenna got stucked on to the dry surface when it poke its head above the surface too much. Hence it cant come down... I notice that in the small tank... But not now...