Lake Malawi Species • Ph dropping please help

[ajiisss]

I have a new 40 gallon breeder which I am doing fish in cycle... I have 7 small fishes in it . The ammonia levels are always .25 ppm,nitrites and nitrates are at 0ppm. I do 10-20% water changes every
2 days .. planning to do that until the tank cycles... The fish are active and eating good .. feeding only once a day..

What I have noticed is my tap water has a PH of 7.4-7.6 and y fish tank water ph is 6.4.. anyone help why my ph is dropping ????

[ajiisss]

[DJRansome]

If anything the opposite should happen. What are test results for GH and KH?

Are you sure you are doing your nitrate test correctly? Organics like nitrate can cause pH to drop. The directions call for vigorous shaking both a full 30 seconds before you add the reagents and a full 60n minutes after they are mixed in the test tube. If you don't shake enough you will get a false zero result.

[ajiisss]

Thanks for the quick reply... you got me I was doing the test wrongly I was following the same way we test ammonia....
I redid the test now again and its showing 5ppm. I did a water change this morning though...

Any thing else could affect???

[ajiisss]

I didnt check the GH & KH ... should I check those too? I have to buy a kit though

[ken31cay]

And if the fish are ok with the pH flucuations don't attempt to raise your pH as that level ammonia will remain non-toxic at the low pH even with small fish. As DJ said I'd sort out the zero nitrate test results.

[ajiisss]

Yeah my nitrate test was wrong ... I overlooked teh instructions.... I redid and nitrates are at 5ppm... attached the picture above

[ken31cay]

Ok, glad to hear.

[DJRansome]

It's one thing to have a low but stable pH. It is another to bounce the pH by more than 0.2 whenever you do a water change. 5ppm of nitrate should not be enough to change the pH. I would buy the KH kit. Mine came with the GH kit.

[ken31cay]

This is what I would do: after you see cycle working (nitrates steadily rise and ammonia level drops) and test KH & GH levels - if very low I would utilize a buffer recipe to gradually bring those to at least KH 7 and GH 10 to keep your tank pH steady with you tap pH. Make sure you use the same buffer recipe in the water you are replacing during your weekly partial water changes.

[ajiisss]

Thanks.. I will test the KH and GH ... will buy the kits today