Some dead some hanging on.

My ph is 8.6 or higher the kit only goes there. The nitrates are 20 and I need to punch a tank sitter in the face. I cant find anyhting other then the high ph and nitrates. How to get the ph down and are the hightened nitrates from the dead fish?

 

did you remove all the dead fish??? 20 ppm isn't that bad but I would do some water changes...

 

doublecheck with your LFS that the pH is really that high.

If it is, it can be brought down with seltzer water (from a restaurant soda machine) or a grocery store.

 

How much do you use if it is? I am going to the lfs in the am but I tested with 2 kits and both said the same?

 

It's a pain if you don't have a pH meter. You have to put some in and test, put a little more in and test, put a little more in and test.

Seltzer water is just water with CO2 bubbles injected into it. Since CO2 depresses pH, adding this water can bring down pH fairly rapidly.

 

Wow, I had the exact same thing happen to me a couple weeks ago with our tank sitter. He didn't read the instructions I left him and I came home to an 8.6+ pH as well.

I used some pH Down, made by API, to bring it down. We went from 6 fish to 3 =(

Good luck with yours.

 

Dare I ask, what did they do to get it that high?

 

For me, he left the lids closed and added a lot of buffer. When the pH didn't go down, he added more buffer, and more...

 

I am trying to figure that out also? The skimmer had malfunctioned so I dont know if that had anything to do with it.

 

Adding Lemon juice or vinegar will lower your ph too. You will have to do it like Inwall mentioned, since you dont have a ph meter. Have you test your Alk/Dkh lately? As far as your No3 is concerned, if you have dead fish in your tank, I would get it out asap. To be honest, your clean-up-crew should have taken care of that mess for you. When was the last time that you cleaned out your filtration system out? Luna