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About my setup: 5ft tank, about 115G but holds about 100G of water. Mix of Malawi cichlids.
Water out of the tap is KH 3 GH 3 PH 7.4
The tank has crushed coral as substrate and I use Seachem Cichlid Lake Salt to up the GH to 8 and KH to 8 which leads to pH of 8-8.2 consistely BUT ... and it's a big issue, everytime I do a partial water change (25% or about 25G) my pH crashes to 7.6-7.8 PH or so and my favorite fish who happens to be the tank boss (cobolt blue zebra ..mellowest dude!) suffers badly ..he starts shaking his head, flashing a lot ...clearly in distress. Breaks my heart to watch him suffer like this ! None of the other 15 or so cichlids (other than maybe the red zebra) show any discomfort once the new water goes in.
How do I add the new water ? Well I have a 25 G barrel that I fill with the tap water and as the barrel is being filled I put the appropriate amount of Seachem Prime AND Seachem Cichlid Salt and Malawi buffer (about 2tsp of each) - I dissolve the seachem cichlid salt and malawi buffer in a 1G bucket and pour it into the 25G barrel as its being filled. Then I run a power head inside the barrel for a few minutes to let it all mix properly...
However when I measure the pH in the barrel the pH shows 7.6 at best ... so once I start pumping the barrel back into the fish tank clearly my fishtank's pH must drop from 8.2 once the fresh 7.6 PH water starts pouring in. This is where the problem arises...my zebra hates it!! I know the tank's pH will stabilize to 8-8.2 within a day or so but obviously this sudden drop on the water change days (twice a week) is distressing my zebra.
What am I doing wrong? Should I be adding more Zeachem Malawi Buffer to the fresh water in the barrel to raise the pH ? I am worried that would result in my tank's KH levels going to 10-12 after 24 hours or so ,..would that be harmful ? Or ...less harmful than these sudden pH changes? Why does Seacheme Malawi buffer take such a long time to raise the pH to the target 8-8.2 PH is what I dont understand
Right now I'm running an experiment where I've filled the barrel up again but I will let the water circulate (via powerhead with a hose) for an hour to see if the pH raises to > 8 like it should.
Just for the record I've been keeping cichlids for about a year and have not had a death ..yet (knock on wood) so I must be doing something right, but I still want to resolve this water change pH drop issue as its clearly distressing at least one or 2 of the fish
Water out of the tap is KH 3 GH 3 PH 7.4
The tank has crushed coral as substrate and I use Seachem Cichlid Lake Salt to up the GH to 8 and KH to 8 which leads to pH of 8-8.2 consistely BUT ... and it's a big issue, everytime I do a partial water change (25% or about 25G) my pH crashes to 7.6-7.8 PH or so and my favorite fish who happens to be the tank boss (cobolt blue zebra ..mellowest dude!) suffers badly ..he starts shaking his head, flashing a lot ...clearly in distress. Breaks my heart to watch him suffer like this ! None of the other 15 or so cichlids (other than maybe the red zebra) show any discomfort once the new water goes in.
How do I add the new water ? Well I have a 25 G barrel that I fill with the tap water and as the barrel is being filled I put the appropriate amount of Seachem Prime AND Seachem Cichlid Salt and Malawi buffer (about 2tsp of each) - I dissolve the seachem cichlid salt and malawi buffer in a 1G bucket and pour it into the 25G barrel as its being filled. Then I run a power head inside the barrel for a few minutes to let it all mix properly...
However when I measure the pH in the barrel the pH shows 7.6 at best ... so once I start pumping the barrel back into the fish tank clearly my fishtank's pH must drop from 8.2 once the fresh 7.6 PH water starts pouring in. This is where the problem arises...my zebra hates it!! I know the tank's pH will stabilize to 8-8.2 within a day or so but obviously this sudden drop on the water change days (twice a week) is distressing my zebra.
What am I doing wrong? Should I be adding more Zeachem Malawi Buffer to the fresh water in the barrel to raise the pH ? I am worried that would result in my tank's KH levels going to 10-12 after 24 hours or so ,..would that be harmful ? Or ...less harmful than these sudden pH changes? Why does Seacheme Malawi buffer take such a long time to raise the pH to the target 8-8.2 PH is what I dont understand
Right now I'm running an experiment where I've filled the barrel up again but I will let the water circulate (via powerhead with a hose) for an hour to see if the pH raises to > 8 like it should.
Just for the record I've been keeping cichlids for about a year and have not had a death ..yet (knock on wood) so I must be doing something right, but I still want to resolve this water change pH drop issue as its clearly distressing at least one or 2 of the fish
