I have a freshwater aquarium that has high alkaline and high ph. how do i fix it?
We’ve had a 10 gallon fish tank with 2 goldfish and a catfish for about 5 years. We finally decided to upgrade to a 40 gallon tank, so we transferred the rocks, decorations, and even some of the water into the new tank with the goldfish (who i might add are very resilient goldfish) to promote bacterial growth before getting a few more fish.
Fast forward 3 weeks, we go fish shopping. decide on a few more corydoras and 2 dwarf gouramis. 1 week after adding the new fishies I have safe nitates, safe nitrites, safe chlorine, and around 300 alkalinity, and 7.8 to 8.4 ph. My ammonia reading comes back as stress level. my buffer solution is doing nothing for it.
At the suggestion of our local petsmart, I bought a seperate test kit than the original simple kits i had and added some bottled bacteria. I changed out 1/4 of the water.
My question is, if this doesn’t fix the issue–what CAN i do?
First off if you have fish in the tank do NOT add bottled bacteria it isn’t needed here. All it is going to do is raise your ammonia levels. For the PH to jump that high in the tank there is something in the tank causing the problem. Omit all salts from the tank first off. Secondly test your tap water. It could be the start of your problem. If your tap water is testing at 7.8 your tank should be the same. Sea shells or other calcium items will raise the PH level in your tank. Be sure you do not have rocks that should not be in the tank. When you say buffer solution what do you mean? PH down? Get rid of it. All it is going to do is bounce your PH up and down creating more stress on your fish leaving the doors open to ich.
You need to figure out what is causing the problem. Certain rocks, shells etc. will raise the PH level in the tank naturally. To lower it naturally you need to add bog woods or even peat (net baggie in the filter) to naturally lower the ph to a level fit for all your fish.
You also want to do your water changes weekly of 25%. Doing a weekly cleaning and water change not only stabelizes the PH but replaces much needed minerals in the water while removing the toxic ones like ammonia, nitrites and nitrates.
Do a water change and wait a few hours. See where your ph is. Test your tap water these two should be the same.
Test strips aren’t the best way to test your water. If you want an accurate reading, use liquid. As for ammonia coming back at “stress” level… any ammonia in your water is going to stress your fish.
The reason you have elevated ammonia has nothing to do with your alkalinity or pH. And a buffer solution isn’t going to do anything to ammonia either. If it says it removes it, it’s misleading you. They don’t remove ammonia, but detoxify it. It will still show up on tests, but it’s less harmful to fish.. still harmful, but less so.
The reason you have elevated ammonia is because your tank has not fully cycled, and adding more fish is going to make this worse. Bottled bacteria is debatable.. Some says it works, most say it’s useless. Pet stores want to sell you stuff.
What you need to do. Watch your ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels. You will get ammonia first, nitrite second, and nitrate third. Keep ammonia less than 1 ppm. If it gets more than that, do a water change. You may have to do a larger water change as 25% may not be enough. The stress from big water changes will be less than prolonged exposure to toxic levels of ammonia. Once you start getting nitrites, shortly after that you ammonia levels will drop to 0. Keep your nitrites below 1 ppm if you can. After a while of that, you’ll start to get nitrates. Keep your nitrates below 40 ppm. Soon after nitrates start to show up, nitrite levels will start to drop on their own. Once they reach 0, your tank is cycled. Continue to do water changes to keep your nitrates in check.
Are you using the correct test kit for the water conditioner used. If you use Amquel, you do need a different test kit for ammonia.
The water is a difficult one. If your tap water is hard and the new fish are bought locally (same water), the water should be fine. A buffer cannot remove the calcium from the water, it only acts for a short period of time. You can purchase a reverse osmosis system to filter the water. Usually it is easier just to get fish that can tolerate the water hardness.
Good luck!