driftwood addition

[lpiasente]

Hi everyone. Just a few question if I may. I have just added a huge pce of driftwood to my 3ft community tank(looks beautiful). I have just done a ph test and it was only 6. Tap water is 7and the ph always sits a 7. I gather this is from the driftwood. I have just done a 25% water change. The water was very yellow from the tannins. I also purchased a gh and kh test kit and did a test today. I have no idea how to read it. kh took 2 drops to change colour gh took 14 . What does all this mean. I have some tropical water condtiner that says it raises GH and I have geo liquid. I was told the geo liquid will raise the ph. :dontknow:

[Herbydad]

Hi everyone. Just a few question if I may. I have just added a huge pce of driftwood to my 3ft community tank(looks beautiful). I have just done a ph test and it was only 6. Tap water is 7and the ph always sits a 7. I gather this is from the driftwood. I have just done a 25% water change. The water was very yellow from the tannins. I also purchased a gh and kh test kit and did a test today. I have no idea how to read it. kh took 2 drops to change colour gh took 14 . What does all this mean. I have some tropical water condtiner that says it raises GH and I have geo liquid. I was told the geo liquid will raise the ph.

I also had similar problems. The chemicals in the driftwood was responsible for a dramatic change in my PH level and killed all my swordtails.

Now I fully submerge the driftwood in an old kids plastic swimming pool and leave it there for about a month. It also attacts mozzie larvea which provides a varied diet for the fish. They love those little wrigglers.

This will neutralise any unwanted chemicals and waterlog the wood so as it won't float when placed in the tank.

I do the same thing with rocks I find on the side of new road works (new Eastern freeway). Once again you need to neutralise any nasty chemicals that maybe resident on the rock.

Like you I have a 3 ft tank and it looks good with the different coloured stones plus the driftwood (old tea tree). Cost = $0

Hope this helps.

[lpiasente]

I bought this from an aquarium and told it would be very soothing for them the release of tannins and could just put it in the aquarium straight away. I can't get it out of the tank as it is too big.I hope a 25% water change evey couple of days wil help. Also I have a huge canister fiter and hope this helps. Fishies all seem ok at the moment. Still not sure about hardness

[Bettarazzi]

There are additives you can use to increase hardness. You should be able to get these at the LFS. If you increase the KH the pH will rise as well. Just make sure you do the change gradually over several days. So just aim to increase the KH by about a degree then wait for it to settle for a day before the next increase. Not sure if water changes only will suffice but keep testing the water and see how it goes.

[lpiasente]

Ph is now at 6.6 but I still need to get it up. I will try and find kh conditioner. Small town and not many chemicals at my pet store. So now I have the answer without understanding the puzzle but that is ok. Thanks Hi. Michael ow was Thialand?

[mjd271169]

Hi

I am not an expert at all but you can get heaps of info on the KH/PH relationship on the net. essentially the KH acts as the buffer for the PH level, low KH can mean you have larger swings in your PH value, higher KH means the PH will remain much more stable but the downside is the rasied KH will also give you a raised PH value. If you have something reducing your PH like DW or CO2 injection i think you can actually find a happy medium to get KH high enough to stabilise and PH where you want it. As I said I am only just delving into measuring hardness myself.

I actually used bicarb of soda to rasie my KH, it seems to be OK to do so and if anyone else on here as done it they can probably shed more light on that, all I got from the net was that it has to be pure with no additives. It worked really well, a little too well and I took my KH from 1 to 4 in my tank but the PH values rocketed up. everything I read seemed to suggest it would not go that high but it did and I had to a major water change to get the PH back down, stressed the fish in the process but luckliy did not lose any.

I would the say the benefit of the off the shelf products is that they will detail exactly how much to use so that you avoide any problems.

Cheers

[Herbydad]

Ph is now at 6.6 but I still need to get it up. I will try and find kh conditioner. Small town and not many chemicals at my pet store. So now I have the answer without understanding the puzzle but that is ok. Thanks Hi. Michael ow was Thialand?

Well I also wanted to raise my ph level, and used 2 white shells. Not only do they look attractive in the tank it is a very simple and cost effective way to raise you PH level.

Now my PH level now is exactly where I want it.

[Jess]

Whilst I am a big fan of tannin stained water... put some shell grit into your cannister filter or sprinkle some in the gravel as this will help buffer the water to stop the pH dropping down so low. It will also raise the GH. To get the water crystal again, some carbon in the filter will help clear it.

Some points to remember; is to careful if you want to medicate the tank, carbon will strip it from the water, so remove while your medicating.

Change the carbon every 8 weeks or so. It can only absorb so much and you don't want it leeching back into the water.

With the water values being so different since we are having some tough times with no rain across Australia etc, along with the water utilities pumping all sorts into the water. I would just stick to what your water is out of the tap after aging it. Unless you have overly sensitive fish (which a lot aren't as they are mass produced these days in water that is far removed from their natural habitats) try not to alter your pH in your tank - unless it is overly hard and the pH is in the ridiculously high 7s i.e 7.6-8.0 for general community fish or vice versus. Drift wood is a great natural way to lower the pH and soften the water (so is Peat). However, I always use a little shell grit in my filters to stop any unwanted pH swings after a water change.

Besides, it makes life easier for you and the fish won't be knocked around with all the alterations done to the water to get a desired neutral 7.0 etc. As long as you keep the water stable and clean and the fish will be just fine :giggle:

[lpiasente]

Whilst I am a big fan of tannin stained water... put some shell grit into your cannister filter or sprinkle some in the gravel as this will help buffer the water to stop the pH dropping down so low. It will also raise the GH. To get the water crystal again, some carbon in the filter will help clear it.

Some points to remember; is to careful if you want to medicate the tank, carbon will strip it from the water, so remove while your medicating.

Change the carbon every 8 weeks or so. It can only absorb so much and you don't want it leeching back into the water.

With the water values being so different since we are having some tough times with no rain across Australia etc, along with the water utilities pumping all sorts into the water. I would just stick to what your water is out of the tap after aging it. Unless you have overly sensitive fish (which a lot aren't as they are mass produced these days in water that is far removed from their natural habitats) try not to alter your pH in your tank - unless it is overly hard and the pH is in the ridiculously high 7s i.e 7.6-8.0 for general community fish or vice versus. Drift wood is a great natural way to lower the pH and soften the water (so is Peat). However, I always use a little shell grit in my filters to stop any unwanted pH swings after a water change.

Besides, it makes life easier for you and the fish won't be knocked around with all the alterations done to the water to get a desired neutral 7.0 etc. As long as you keep the water stable and clean and the fish will be just fine

Thank you, I was worried about the fish.

[lpiasente]

I just aded a couple of large shells to the tank, the clown loaches are loving them. I will just keep an eye on levels now until things stablize. Thanks

[Jess]

Hey, good luck :)

[Herbydad]

I just aded a couple of large shells to the tank, the clown loaches are loving them. I will just keep an eye on levels now until things stablize. Thanks

How is your PH level now. Did the white shells have an effect?

[lpiasente]

The shells didn't make a difference with the kh but I think this is a long term thing. I added a little helper and everything is fine. No ph swings so far amd kh and gh are fine. I have kept the shells in there anyway.Thanks

[Jess]

Good to hear it is stable

What is your TDS readings? mine are less then 200 here, hence why the kh is not keeping the pH stable enough even with shell grit.

Is the shell grit in the filter? I find this helps more so as the whole tank water is being filtered through it x amount of times per hour.

If the addition of driftwood is causing such a change over a short period of time, I would add more shell grit, labout a whole big handful into the filter (in a stocking!)

If is is dropping over a course of a week or so then it is not so bad providing you can do mini WCs to keep it from dropping so much as the longer you leave it and do larger changes the pH crash.

Or.. you can spend money buying kh buffers, which IMO is just to much fiddling as it then can affect the pH in the other way :unsure:

[lpiasente]

I only added the kh buffer once. I haven't had a problem with ph since I first posted and you all helped me out. I did think it was the driftwood as I had never had it drop before but seems to be fine now. Sorry not sure what tds is. You know I thought that keeping an aquarium wasn't so hard but been proven very very wrong. It is gettng better but there is sooooooo much to learn. No wonder so many fishies die and so many people give up. I really love it and want to do the right thing. THANK GOD for everyone here. ALL aquariums need to stick stickers on their bags with this web address so we all get it right.