asap help AGAIN

nightfire

nightfire

New member
ok guys i woke up to once again my clowns acting badly in the tank...i tested my ph and it was like 8.2 or so and my alk was only around 2.0.....i dumped some marine buffer in there to raise the ph and alk .....ive done that before and it seems to help........my big clown is swimming all sorts of ways and she is struggling to get up right....what the crap is up and how could i fix this asap...this is stressing them out and me.....i have picking lime here if i make a make shift ATO gravity fed for right now with that picking lime in it wont that help it? yes ill post this to the main forums
 
mario, the low alk wont effect the fish except that it can allow for PH swings. dumping it in is not good. and rapid adjustments are even worse.
 
i didnt mean to say i domped it in cause i didnt...i did as it instucts and i know low alk makes ph swing and that is the only thing i can think of that is the problem....so wouldnt pickling lime/kalk help that....it already has higher levels of those things and it will stablize things wont it?
 
Mario, stop buffering the water. Change 15% of the water, make sure the ALK reading is correct.

Most likely the unit is meq/L, which is 5.6DKH. Plus the regular test kit has more error than let say Salifert or Hanna, so your ALK should be in the normal range.

Judging from your PH, most likely your ALK is normal.

Remember, you want your water to be stable, don't try to pull the number all the way up or down when you have creature in there.
 
thanks the alk was in meg/l and as far as the ph im almost possitive the problem is my ph because the fish are fine now....as i stated in the main forum my ph hardly ever goes above 8.0 so then at night it might even drop below 7.8.....and i want to stop buffering it but if i dont have water made up then thats all i can do......im gonna make up some pickling lime later so we will see i suppose....thanks for the links :D
 
it's normal for PH to swing like that for day time and nite time. mine is usually between 7.9(nite) to 8.1(day). I learned not to care about the number pretty soon. lol
 
yes but what im saying is that my ph could be dipping below the "normal" level at night so when i turn the lights on the fish are how they were today.....there is nothing else that seems like it could be...if ya saw my tank right now it looks awesome...well compared to ya'lls tanks not so much since ya'll have so many nice corals and full of rocks and such but my corals actually look awesome...they are all open and my frogspawn is like getting bigger by the day lol.....the fish are colorful and swimming and the blennie is eating like a pig and my clowns want me to feed em lol all normal now...so again i can only come up with the problem being the ph level which in turns means my alk is not high enough and maybe my calcium is a tad low i guess......those 3 things would be helped by pickling lime/kalk i would assume
 
Mario! STOP adding more chemicals seriously!!!! You might be doing more harm then good. Get some water made up, if something is seriously wrong with your water, do 30% water change, wait a day then do another 25% water change. Don't keep on adding more chemicals, you would just stress out the fish even further!!!! You should only need to buffer with Marine Buffer once a week. I don't even worry about buffering my water anymore, I used to do it on a weekly basis. I do water change on a weekly basis and it works better for me. Even with PH swinging at 7.8 it really isn't that bad! Did you ever get some of that prime reef flakes??

I don't really worry too much about my fish anymore, they're all healthy and happy and growing.... In the coming months I'm gonna be making a lot of changes, decided not to go with a big tank but go to a 120 instead so I don't have to jack up my floors. Going to find new homes for some of my fish and consolidate the rest together into the 120. I've been getting back into my bird hobby again so I need the room to build my walk in aviary instead of a big tank.
 
i can understand not doing so much with my water in one day and of course i understand doing water changes but this is why i want to do kalk and why i think my ph is all screwed up and even my already made up water waiting for me to use is at a ph of only 8.0 so maybe it's this crapy instant ocean salt im using or maybe it is something here in the houses air....either way kalk would help with calcium....alkilinity and ph so why not.....many apon many of use dose stuff to our tanks....from vatimin c to vodka.....if kalk will help raise my levels a bit and help hold em more steady then why not?.....maybe this coming month when i buy salt ill get a better brand....anyways here is what i wake up to from time to time and this was happening before i was using buffer
 
Exactly what is happening? Clownfish swim kinda weird sometimes anyway. From that picture he looks normal. If your pH is 7.8 first thing in the morning that is normal. It will be lowest first thing in the morning. Like was already said, quit dumping things in until you understand what is happening. Most reef problems can not be fixed by just dumping something in.
 
Mario that fish is normal. It looks like he has just found a place that he can play in the current. He's having a good time. Best advise would be to stop dosing based on what you think is normal or abnormal fish swimming patterns. Do the water changes and get some BRS two part dosing solution and start using that and get away from this buffer you are using. Just my opinion take it or leave it.
 
i agree that i need something better then the buffer but how is that normal swimming when she could hardly right her self and the other day along with swimming and moving like that she was racing in the tank banging the holy crap out of her self and the sand bed......maybe i need to take vids wider out
 
Maybe it is something to be seen in person because from that video it looks like how my clown swims some times. They don't just go back and forth in front of the glass. Having said that alk or ph swing should not really effect the fish the way you are describing. Maybe a huge swing but the ph swing you mentioned above would be about normal for night time unless you setup your system to drip alk at night or have a fuge with a light going. Maybe the fish has a bacteria infection or something. Not real sure
 
I don't see anything wrong with that fish. Percula clowns swim like that quite a bit. In 20+ years of keeping marine tanks I have never worried much about pH. I sure wouldn't trust pH to a test kit. IMO the only way to check it is with a properly calibrated monitor.
 
My current tank's PH runs from 7.7 to 7.9 on some day's and on other day's it goes way higher up to 8.2 it depends on the amount of Co2 in the house. But i do not run and get buffer and mess with it because that is not the solution nor is dripping Calk. PH will find it's own equilibrium over time in the tank and you are most likely doing more harm than good by artificially changing the PH with buffer all the time which will drive your KH too high. Most important of all is none of this really matters to your fish much at all, Your doing more harm than good, Just leave it alone for a week or two only doing your water changes.
Bill
 
i'll do water changes for it.......and i will get more vids too that one was on a good day......no explaining why one day she was knocking the holy H*%$ out of her self one morning and the smaller clown can not control him self in there cause of his size and thus gets tossed around against rocks and such at times......the thing about the ph....i might be chasing a ghost there but there is some kind of problem in there and i have not done anything different with the tank before all this started to happen......one thing though i will be doing a water change today.....not as big as i would like because im limited to how much i can make at once but a water chance nonetheless and tommorrow also
 
I agree.. Less is always better. Mario, for the last 4 years, I barely tested my old 75 let alone dosed or added anything to the tank. Heck, I didnt even change the water in 4 years! Now let me be clear, THAT IS NOT FOR EVERYONE, but for me it worked. Lesson is, the less you mess with the levels, the more the tank will find its equalibrium. a few weeks ago, my KH was at 15! a little high. instead of a drastic measure to bring it in line, I let it ride out. it dropped over a week's time.

I know you want to do everything you can for your little babies there, but get your test kits and hands and additives out of the tank for a few weeks and see what happens.

My PH normally hangs around 8 with maybe a fluctuation of less than .1 to either side. I was shocked last night for it to be at 8.16! but im not gonna touch it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

F
Starting tank again
Replies
6
Views
519
Dr. Reef
Dr. Reef
J
Attaching coral
Replies
16
Views
813
JCOLE
JCOLE
griss
High pH / Low Alk
Replies
6
Views
875
griss
griss
griss
pH - Thought I'd Share This
Replies
4
Views
688
Dustin07
D
A
Please help reef tank
Replies
2
Views
280
SantaMonica
S
Back
Top