PH and co2 question *new here*

[vbow]

Hi im new here! got me around 20 cherry shrimp in my 10 gallon tank. planted and 5 other various tanks


Ok in my area the water 6.5-6.6ph. I want to dose my 10 gallon shrimp tank with a diy co2 recipe. I have a piece of coral in there and using Aquarium Pharmaceticals 7.5ph.

Just wondering if i dose with co2 will the ph crash? after my one try with co2 i stopped using it and just used Excel.


i tried dosing co2 in an older tank and i think there were to many bubbles and my ph crashed from 6.8-5.5 but i had a huge chunk of coral in it aswell.

could i stop using AP 7.5ph and just allow the coral do its job at maintaining the ph at 6.8 while dosing co2.



sorry for the scattered thoughts.

[Robert]

Hi,
is there really a need to add CO2? In such a acid water most of the CO2 won't get solved. I guess you water is quite soft. What is the KH of it?

The coral doesn't really seem to raise the KH and pH. So if you add CO2 there will be no puffer and the pH will drop even more.

How large is the tank, how many and what plants do you keep in it? If you would have a lot of plants, the pH should raise by itself after a week or so. If the pH of your tab water and your tank is the same, there is no big influence to of the plants, which means that they are fine with the amount of CO2 solved in the tap water.

Try to avoid chemicals which raise or stabilize the pH. Shrimps don't really like them. Crushed coral is a much better choice.

At the moment I would not add any CO2.

regards

Robert

[vbow]

well right now i have only low light plants. java ferns riccia and some long stemed plant(i forget the name) i am dosing with excel and want to stop and just use co2. its only a 10 gallon.


how do plants naturally raise PH? i know in my 75 gallon the ph is 7.5 and i do not add any chemicals but i have A LOT of plants in it.


so there an alternative to using excel?

[retardo]

If you add CO2, you may have to start adding other plant fertilizers. Simply increasing/adding CO2 will not automatically turn your tank into a planted garden. Plants require both CO2 and nutrients to thrive. The more available nutrients that there are in the water, the faster and better the plants grow. If you simply add CO2, your plants may grow a little faster, but you will not notice any really noticeable growth.

[vbow]

o i got that part covered. ive been dosing with seachem flourish since day one of getting plants.

[nacra99]

Just wondering if i dose with co2 will the ph crash? after my one try with co2 i stopped using it and just used Excel.

i tried dosing co2 in an older tank and i think there were to many bubbles and my ph crashed from 6.8-5.5 but i had a huge chunk of coral in it aswell.


Note that the addition of Co2 will not change the kH of the water. So unless your kH is very small to begin with (about 1-2) you don't have to worry about pH crashes.

Your pH decrease is technically not a "crash". It is simply a huge decrease in pH due to increase in CO2 (Carbonic acid). i.e if you stop injecting Co2, the pH will bounce back to original. When we talk about "Crash" we are saying that the kH has been overwhelmed by the acid and there is no more buffering capacity and if this happens, even if you remove the CO2, the pH will not bounce back.

Looks like you simply have to regulate your CO2 injection (i.e bubbles per min) to achieve the correct pH. This is rather difficult to do with DIY setups. If you want to do inject CO2, i would reccomend pressurised and solenoid controlled setups.. although this can get pretty expensive.

Unless you have very low KH, i wouldn't play with crush coral etc to try to buffer kH while trying to inject co2, because the higher the kH, the more CO2 it will take to decrease the pH by the same amount.. and if your kH is too high... your shrimp might die of aphyxiation before it dies of acid poisoning.

I tried to be as succint as possible and not overwhelm anyone too much with chemistry. Hope that it helps.

HTH
Marc

[nacra99]

how do plants naturally raise PH? i know in my 75 gallon the ph is 7.5 and i do not add any chemicals but i have A LOT of plants in it.


Sorry.. i can't reisit addressing all these water chemistry questions... blame the discus keeping hobby that turned me into a water chemistry nerd.... :joking:

Plants raise the pH by removing CO2 from the water and creating O2.
Remember that CO2 + water --> Carbonic Acid
If you remove the CO2 then (by chemical equilibrium) there will be less Carbonic Acid, and hence the pH will rise.

That is why it is not uncommon to see large pH swings due to heavily planted tanks during the day compared to the night.

Also.. i wouldn't reccomend AP buffers.. they are phosphate based.. which means that unless you are very careful when using with a planted aquarium... you might be in for some algae trouble.


HTH
Marc

[vbow]

thanks for being so helpful! that last post sure taught me a lot. thanks! im gona go test my water and give you guys the kh and gh

[vbow]

my kh is 70ppm

wait thats my tank water thats has ap7.5 in it. let me check my tap



edit: my tap water is 6.7ph and 0-1kh

[nacra99]

HI vbow,
Your kH is very low, and because of that, it makes sense that your pH is equally on the low side for most municipal tap water. You are going to need a bit of Coral in there to buffer the water a bit.


IMO, the less you have to mess with the tap water, the better it will be in the long run. (Try bringging yourself to mix chemicals after a long day at work). Perhaps others might disagree, but i would just stick with Excel and do away with the fuss with the Co2. Because it is hard to maintain co2 concentration with an unpredictable piece of coral.
I have had good results with Excel, and although plants don't grow as fast as with CO2, but the results are still good. Besides, if it is only a 10 gal, fast growing plants might easily overtake the tank.