High pH

[hollyh]

Hello. I'm usually a forum lurker, but thought I'd post on the nice new forums! I'm pretty new to shrimp, although I've had fish in the past, so have some aquarium experience. Although its been many years and my last tank was salt. Sorry for all of the information, but wanted to try to get as much info about my tank as I could to see if those with some experience might see something obvious.

 

I have a 2 gallon Fluval spec with about a dozen CRS in it. Its been running about 5 months. I use RO water remineralized with Salty Shrimp GH+ and have a bunch of plants, java fern, java moss, hornwort, anubius, and some other little thing and a couple pieces of wood. The substrate is Floramax. Otherwise all stock setup, plus an air stone. The tank has been fairly healthy, I've only had 2 shrimp losses since I've had it, and have fairly recently had some little ones born. No idea how many survived since they're impossible to see or find!

 

This morning I found a dead shrimp in the tank and decided to check all of the parameters. Ammonia, nitrate, nitrite were all zero. GH 10, KH 2, pH 7.6. This was using the API drops, previously I was using some strips and the pH was always low to mid 6's. I did check my remineralized RO water this morning as well though and it was 6.4. It has been a few weeks since I've checked the pH, so no idea when it started going up. Temperature of the tank is in the mid to high 60's.

 

A couple of things that are different in the past month. I have planeria, yuck, and have been treating with Planaria zero. My dosing could be a bit off as I don't have a scale that can handle that low of weight and its really fine trying to divide it. So I guess best I can. I have removed the purigen that was in my filter. I had a dried almond leaf in there that was placed a month or so ago. They've not seemed interested in it, so I removed that today as well, just in case. No other changes to the tank, besides cooler temps since summer.

 

So is it the planaria zero bringing up my pH or something else do you think? And what do you recommend I do to bring it back down? I figured I could just do some small water changes daily to bring it back down. Changed out a couple of cups today, figured I'd do that a couple times a day for a bit.

[Soothing Shrimp]

Welcome hollyh.

 

I see a couple things you may be able to correct in your water to help.  You are on the right track slowly changing the water for RO. *thumbs up*

 

The kh is working to keep your ph from dropping.  Ideally for CRS you'll want to aim for 0 or as close as you can get to it.

 

The GH is considered too high for CRS as well.  Ideally it should be 5ish or below. 

 

What is your TDS?  If too high, that can cause casualties as well.

 

Strips often are not as sensative as liquid tests.  Keep using the liquid tests if you can, as strips can really lead a person astray when keeping shrimp.  Can't tell you how many times I've heard "but the strips said everything was fine." when it wasn't.  Not the person's fault they didn't work correctly.

 

CRS are beautiful shrimp, but more sensative than neos- and thus less forgiving about water params.

 

As for No Planaria, I was cautioned against it by other shrimp forums because of shrimp deaths.  Instead Fenbendazole is recommended.  .1g per 10g  After 2-3 days you may have to repeat teh dose depending on how many planaria are there.

[OblongShrimp]

If you are using RO water and only using Salty Shrimp GH+ then your KH should still be 0.  I am also surprised that your GH is 10 instead of the 5 that is generally recommended.  What do you target when you add the Salty Shrimp GH+?  It sounds like something could be leeching stuff into your water.  Do you have any rocks in the tank?  What is the GH and KH of the water before you add it to the aquarium?  You can lower your pH by adding some sort of acid.  Mosura mades a product called pH down that will lower your pH (let me know if you are interested, I sell it).  You can also add pool acid (muric acid or hydrocloric acid).  You want to me very careful though because that stuff is really strong so if you try it I would try adding a drop or two to the new water before adding it to your tank and slowly increase it from there. 

[OblongShrimp]

Fenbendazole also works on Hydra...I have a tank I need to treat in the next couple days for hydra myself.

[Soothing Shrimp]

Oblong, have you had experience using vinegar to lower ph?

[hollyh]

I do have a TDS meter, tank is at 210. I do remineralize to 200 though, the gh+ says 200 +/- 50. So I went with 200. I'll check my RO tomorrow, see what it's kh is. Sounds like I should be shooting for lower gh to start though.

Just ran out of strips, so I'll be sticking with the liquid drop tests.

There are a couple of tiny colored stones my daughter liked in there, I can remove them. Didn't really think of them since they're tiny.

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[OblongShrimp]

I haven't used tried using vinegar before.

 

I remineralize to more like 80-100 TDS and that gets me to 5GH.  I would test your GH as you add the Salty Shrimp and find what TDS corresponds to 5GH.  I would start lowering your GH by adding pure RO water for your waterchanges.

 

If you have pool acid or some strong acid you can try dripping some on rocks and if they don't bubble or fizz they should be inert. 

[Soothing Shrimp]

The 200 is in microsiemens. I think that means roughly around 140 TDS.

 

Multiply microsiemens by .7 to get roughly TDS value (ppm)

 

so 200 x .7 = 140 TDS

 

As oblong said, you want to drop your TDS lower.  His 80-100 is a good param and gives you some play room if it starts creeping up.

[hollyh]

Thanks guys. Luckily they've been hardy enough to mostly survive my mistakes so far.

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[OblongShrimp]

I have been adding the Salty Shrimp GH+ to get to around 80 TDS (whatever is 5 degrees) and then adding Mosura TDS Up to get up to 150 or so. 

[Soothing Shrimp]

Lots of different ways to do it.  The big thing is to find one and stick with it.  Babies will grow in that param and each generation will be more used to it.