Ph

Ever since a couple of days ago, my ph has been extremely low. Like 7.5/7.3 and i tried everything to bump it up. Chemicals, water changes... any suggestions? Please help! my water has been very cloudy those few days too. My cycle was over! the ammonia spiked and then it went all the way down. currently there is no trace of ammonia in the tank.

 

It sounds like you had a bacteria bloom in your tank and their respiration is causing CO2 to rise and pH to drop. Not uncommon in a new tank.

 

anything deadly to the fish?

 

It can be. That's a very low pH if you have fish in there already. Their respiration will be adding to the CO2 buildup too. Do you have a powerhead rippling the surface of the water? Can you add an airline to your powerhead to pump in Oxygen? Do you run a protein skimmer?

 

i have 2 powerheads, i can pump oxygen through them they are the penguin ones it has an airline tube and you can chose how much bubbles come out. Should i do that? I dont have a protein skimmer, and yes, the surface area of the tank is very agitated.

Thanks,
Ryan

 

Yes, do that temporarily until the bacteria bloom subsides.

 

So when does the bacteria bloom subside? Just an estimate hour? day? 1/2 hour?

Thanks really appreciate it,
Ryan

 

Could be a couple of days, could be a week.

If you know someone with a UV sterilizer you can borrow, it will be gone in a day.

 

so this will make my ph go back up?