SL Aqua Soil pH problems

[aqua_che_scapes]

Long post warning about SL Aqua experience so far:

 

I am now 1 1/2 months into my new SL Aqua soil.  I have been having the WORST time with it.  It cycled great at ph 5.5-6 range and eventually all the ammonia and nitrite and nitrates were zero for several weeks and I was using small drops of Dr Tims ammonia once a week to keep my cycle going.  I decided to buy my first taiwan bee shrimp on Monday (just a couple cheap ones so I can learn how to keep them alive) this week to put in there and after two days into the shipping waiting time my parameters decided to go to crap and now I am waiting for my shrimp to be delivered today and the tank is no longer suitable for them.  My GH/kh and TDS and temp are perfect.

 

The ph was stable at 5.2-5.4 for a long time and now it’s sitting at 4.8 and not budging,  I started getting .25-.5 ammonia readings and nitrates up to 10.  One or two of my buce plants died as a result of whatever is happening.  I feel like this soil is putting me through more drama.  Nobody else I talk to seems to having these issues with it. I’ve talked to several people about what type of water to use.  Several even said they breed shrimp at that low 4.8 ph just fine (gh+ remin and RODI, same as me) and it’s their business so they can totally rely on it too.  Everyone says absolutely NO to adding kh to this tank.  Plus every time I’ve used a drop of baking soda to buffer of the soil up to ph 5.5 the soil strips it out and the ph/kh drops back down overnight so what’s the point of trying that (it would cause constant major ph swings)?  I bought the SL Aqua soil after several hobbyists said it was the BEST soil out there and it will perfect buffer my tank between 5.8-6.2. I’ve swapped the soil out of this tank three times since I set it up in July trying to get it ready for shrimps. 

 

I did 6-8water changes the last three days just attempting to lower the ammonia back down, i even used API ammo chips for 10 hours last night to drop it down quick (removed them already) and added enough floating plants to cover the entire top of the tank and dosed seachem prime.  I’m at a point where I’m not sure what to do.  Afraid I’m going to kill these shrimp already. 

 

I literally have done nothing but once a week water changes on the SL Aqua soil tank and making sure the cycle stayed healthy before this happened.  Looks like my shrimp will be in a plastic tub with an air stone until I can solve the problem and hopefully they will survive.  The only other option is keep dosing prime into my tank every 24 hours to neutralize the ammonia/nitrates with the new shrimp in the tank and hope the pH isn’t an issue if I drip acclimate them for 10 hours/all day long.  

 

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.  

[aqua_che_scapes]

I forgot to mention I’ve done a lot of reading about how BB doesn’t work well and the tank cycle can be considerably disrupted in a ph between 4.5-5.0.  But plenty of people breed taiwan bees in these parameters.  I have had plenty of people tell me RODI and gh+ remineralizer at that low ph is fine and plenty of other people saying that’s a bad thing.  It’s confused me a lot and I’ve just been trying to find what works for me.  The tank seemed fine with the RODI water at ph 5.2-5.4 for so long and when the ph dropped below 5 is when I started seeing the ammonia spike this week.  

[EricM]

Can you post any photos and list all the products you are using during this time?

 

[aqua_che_scapes]

23 hours ago, DiscoBee said:

Can you post any photos and list all the products you are using during this time?

 

 

tank is 5 gallons: 

 

SL Aqua fine soil

older aged cholla wood (practically inert now)

inert lava rock 

stainless steel mesh moss mats (x6 small ones)

ceramic decor

small mineral rocks

Small buce plants  

TONS of red root floaters after I noticed the high nitrates and ammonia the other day. 

 

(I had two catappa leaves and an alder cone in the tank for about 1 day before I noticed the ammonia rise and ph plunge and so I removed them so they wouldn’t contribute anymore to it.) 

 

products:

 

seachem prime

seschem stability 

bacter ae (glasgarten)

Beta glucan (glasgarten)

Bee shrimp mineral gh+ 

(I did use a tiny sprinkle of baking soda to bring the ph up the other day when it dropped as low as 4.5.  I didn’t want to kill my plants.  I had a lot of buce plants die earlier this year from a similar ph crash in this same tank and didn’t want a repeat). 

 

Eheim 2211 Filter media:

 

Aged seeded eheim bio ball media 

from an older tank

seschem purigen bag

 

tank has been running since July but I swapped the substrate mid October to SL Aqua and let it sit and cycle itself.  The cycle has been completed for a few weeks now.  

 

I was able to get the ammonia down to zero for the past two days but the nitrates are still too high for my caridina shrimp at 10 ppm.  The floating plants haven’t soaked it up yet after three days.  (No shrimp yet but trying to get it ready for them).

 

i also decided to raise the lily pipe above the water a ways to maybe help de-gas any co2 that the plants were giving off at night and building up (maybe contributed to the ph plunge).

 

todays parameters:

 

ph 5.2-5.3 (lots better)

kh 0 (despite the baking soda added)

gh 4

TDS 125

nitrates 10 ppm

ammonia 0 ppm (lots better)

nitrites 0 (haven’t had any since the tank cycled)

temp is 68-70 F

 

Low light photoperiod is 8 hours on a timer

i do not dose fertilizers, excel Or co2 

 

i plan on doing another big water change later today to hopefully help remove more of the nitrates because the floaters aren’t removing it all (why I coated the top of the tank in floaters).  Not sure about leaving the floaters there long term because it’s blocking a lot of light to my moss and buce but they should be fine.  Hoping after the water change the ph won’t drop again.  

 

(There is an hob on the side but it’s currently not running.)

[aqua_che_scapes]

Side note:  I am definitely not new to running nano sized aquariums.  All my tanks are nanos and I am aware of the responsibility and the work required to keep one stable.  

[madcrafted]

The only issue I can see being a potential issue with cycle is the use of purigen. I believe Seachem even recommends adding it after the cycle because it can slow it down or even stall it. pH will be all over the place until tank stabilizes. How are you measuring pH? Drop test? pH pen/monitor?

[aqua_che_scapes]

27 minutes ago, madcrafted said:

The only issue I can see being a potential issue with cycle is the use of purigen. I believe Seachem even recommends adding it after the cycle because it can slow it down or even stall it. pH will be all over the place until tank stabilizes. How are you measuring pH? Drop test? pH pen/monitor?

 

 

I setup this tank back in July,  but had issues with the previous substrate.  I’ve had purigen in the filters the whole half year the tanks been running.  I guess I didn’t think to quit putting it in during the cycle.  The ammonia-nitrite-nitrate cycle only took about a week or two in this tank at the beginning of November so it doesn’t feel like the purigen has stalled it at all.  I also haven’t added fresh purigen in months so it’s probably way past the exhausted point by now.  It doesn’t remove ammonia or nitrates either I thought, just organics/debris and polishes the water to make it sparkly clear and clean.  I’m not saying it hasn’t caused problems but had never considered it.  I have a neo tank right next to it with purigen in it when I set it up too but the cycle in that tank was fast.  I’ll definitely have to read more into the purigen.  Thanks for the insight.

 

it could simply just be that at less than 2 months old the tank isn’t quite predictable yet. 

 

I use a real ph meter with a probe not the pen type.  It’s been recently calibrated at ph 4 and ph 7 just the other day.  It’s never very far off but I always wonder if super acidic water gives the meter false readings.  I ordered two different brands of low ph range liquid test kits to compare results.  

[madcrafted]

I've used purigen in a tank from day 1 with a betta and never saw any ill effects but do remember reading something on their tech forum a few years back about holding off until after cycle, not sure why the reason. I figured it would act similarly to carbon... which ADA actually uses during their cycle to remove unwanted organics. Wouldn't hurt to rule that out by digging a little into it. I re-charged that little pouch maybe once and never used it again, so I'm by no means an authority on it. 

 

As for your pH, it's probably pretty close if probe has been properly maintained and stored. I don't think they have an issue with accuracy at lower pH range, most are 3 point calibration and 4 to 7 gets you pretty close, as long as you trust the reference solution and it hasn't expired. 

 

I wouldn't worry too much with ammonia levels, especially under .25 ppm. Ammonium is way less toxic than ammonia and you're pH isn't even close to neutral, where bad things start to happen. I would just make sure shrimp have enough natural food sources and the GH and temperature remains consistent. "Cycling" a caridina tank is more about maturing it for stability and natural food sources than it is about building a large colony of nitrogen converting bacteria like you would in a fish tank. That's why they call it "fishless cyling" when they add ammonia in higher levels to rapidly build a large enough colony of nitrospira-like bacteria to a tank before adding fish. With shrimp only tanks, the bioload is really low, so the demand for such a large colony is unwarranted and would likely die off or go dormant once shrimp are added, leaving nothing but a cloudy bloom in the end. Whether you are doing it the SL-Aqua, Vin or your own way with products that "seed" the substrate along with the use of remineralized RO water, it's not fishless cycling anymore, it's "shrimpless cycling" and should be called such. lol

 

[aqua_che_scapes]

1 hour ago, madcrafted said:

I've used purigen in a tank from day 1 with a betta and never saw any ill effects but do remember reading something on their tech forum a few years back about holding off until after cycle, not sure why the reason. I figured it would act similarly to carbon... which ADA actually uses during their cycle to remove unwanted organics. Wouldn't hurt to rule that out by digging a little into it. I re-charged that little pouch maybe once and never used it again, so I'm by no means an authority on it. 

 

As for your pH, it's probably pretty close if probe has been properly maintained and stored. I don't think they have an issue with accuracy at lower pH range, most are 3 point calibration and 4 to 7 gets you pretty close, as long as you trust the reference solution and it hasn't expired. 

 

I wouldn't worry too much with ammonia levels, especially under .25 ppm. Ammonium is way less toxic than ammonia and you're pH isn't even close to neutral, where bad things start to happen. I would just make sure shrimp have enough natural food sources and the GH and temperature remains consistent. "Cycling" a caridina tank is more about maturing it for stability and natural food sources than it is about building a large colony of nitrogen converting bacteria like you would in a fish tank. That's why they call it "fishless cyling" when they add ammonia in higher levels to rapidly build a large enough colony of nitrospira-like bacteria to a tank before adding fish. With shrimp only tanks, the bioload is really low, so the demand for such a large colony is unwarranted and would likely die off or go dormant once shrimp are added, leaving nothing but a cloudy bloom in the end. Whether you are doing it the SL-Aqua, Vin or your own way with products that "seed" the substrate along with the use of remineralized RO water, it's not fishless cycling anymore, it's "shrimpless cycling" and should be called such. lol

 

 

 

Thanks so much for such awesome feedback and insights.  Yah I wasn’t sure how much ammonium at the low ph that shrimp can tolerate or what level of nitrates is safe for caridinas and taiwan bees.   Some people say 0 across the board but some say some is ok.

 

i will probably wait another month before recharging my purigen then.  Just to give the tank some time.  

 

My bee shrimp I got from VIN are in a gallon size bowl with API ammo chips, oxydator and moss, plants and leaves right now since my tank had problems before they came in the mail and it was too late and there was no way I was going to put the new shrimps in the tank quite yet. 

 

Today I checked my parameters and the nitrates are finally closer to 0 and ammonium has been 0 for three days now.  pH has been 5.2-5.3 for three days consistently now without dropping.  Debating how much longer to wait before acclimating the shrimp over.  A few more days to make sure nothing funny happens again...  

 

I like the “shrimpless cycling”.  Makes perfect sense. Two of my other sand bottom tiger and neo tanks i never cycled honestly.  The shrimp bioload is basically sucked up by all the plants so it’s never an issue.  I think the plants do a lot for keeping shrimp alive.  The low bioload of shrimp is making me love shrimp tanks.  My two fish tanks have such high bioload and are a pain sometimes and have algae issues a lot more.  

[madcrafted]

While it is known that wild caridina types come from shallow streams with plenty of leaf litter, nearly undetectable nitrate levels and super soft (nearly pure) water, this doesn't work well in a closed loop tank with live plants. Keeping some nitrates, as well as other macro and micro nutrients are essential in a planted shrimp tank. I think the whole "0 across the boards" mentality probably came from breeders that focus on maximizing fry numbers. Such tanks are usually pretty bare with just a clump of moss here and there. It works in these cases but not so much in planted shrimp tanks. I'm not suggesting to run and dump a bunch of inorganic salts into your tank and aim for "EI" dosing levels, but some nutrients are needed that aren't provided by the livestock or GH products. I aim to keep nitrates below 10 ppm but a majority of my tanks rarely exceed 5 ppm, with 2-3 ppm being more typical.  If the shrimp waste,  excess food or whatever can't achieve these levels, I dose KNO3 or seachem nitrogen (1/3 of that is in form of urea). Many of my tanks can maintain such levels on their own with shrimp and feedings alone but phosphate and micro nutrients are always needed to keep my plants healthy.

 

I'd be willing to guess your tank is fine for adding shrimp if it cycled for 6 weeks or so and parameters have been steady for a few days. Just acclimate them a little slower if parameters in bowl are drastically different. My cycle with sl-aqua (the sl-aqua method with heaters and magic powder/purify) ran for 32 days before I added shrimp. 0 casualties and quite happy shrimp, despite the cold winter water temperatures. I cycled 4 tanks at the same time and they all are behaving similarly after stabilizing. My pH with this soil is quite a bit higher at 6.3. I'd say a pH of 6-6.4 would be more common with this soil from what I've seen others report. Nothing wrong with it being even lower. Some taiwan bee keepers would love to have pH in lower 5's.

 

[aqua_che_scapes]

3 hours ago, madcrafted said:

While it is known that wild caridina types come from shallow streams with plenty of leaf litter, nearly undetectable nitrate levels and super soft (nearly pure) water, this doesn't work well in a closed loop tank with live plants. Keeping some nitrates, as well as other macro and micro nutrients are essential in a planted shrimp tank. I think the whole "0 across the boards" mentality probably came from breeders that focus on maximizing fry numbers. Such tanks are usually pretty bare with just a clump of moss here and there. It works in these cases but not so much in planted shrimp tanks. I'm not suggesting to run and dump a bunch of inorganic salts into your tank and aim for "EI" dosing levels, but some nutrients are needed that aren't provided by the livestock or GH products. I aim to keep nitrates below 10 ppm but a majority of my tanks rarely exceed 5 ppm, with 2-3 ppm being more typical.  If the shrimp waste,  excess food or whatever can't achieve these levels, I dose KNO3 or seachem nitrogen (1/3 of that is in form of urea). Many of my tanks can maintain such levels on their own with shrimp and feedings alone but phosphate and micro nutrients are always needed to keep my plants healthy.

 

I'd be willing to guess your tank is fine for adding shrimp if it cycled for 6 weeks or so and parameters have been steady for a few days. Just acclimate them a little slower if parameters in bowl are drastically different. My cycle with sl-aqua (the sl-aqua method with heaters and magic powder/purify) ran for 32 days before I added shrimp. 0 casualties and quite happy shrimp, despite the cold winter water temperatures. I cycled 4 tanks at the same time and they all are behaving similarly after stabilizing. My pH with this soil is quite a bit higher at 6.3. I'd say a pH of 6-6.4 would be more common with this soil from what I've seen others report. Nothing wrong with it being even lower. Some taiwan bee keepers would love to have pH in lower 5's.

 

 

 

Thanks!  Great stuff there.  Super helpful.  

Because these are my first TB shrimp I was worried about using any fertilizers at all.  There’a probably a lot in the water column already from the SL aqua soil.  Maybe not.  With ADA Amazonia I used in the past, for planted scapes not shrimp,  I’d get algae super easy because of the large dissolved organics load the soil brings with it.  Not sure Sl Aqua is the same because it is more advertised for keeping shrimps than plants.  I just keep having this nightmare of dosing 1 mil or less of trace ferts and having all my shrimp dead an hour later.  I am probably overreacting a bit.  But when TBs cost so much I don’t want anythig to go wrong . 

 

That is good to know that some nitrates are ok.  But I have fissidens mosses, coral moss and bucephalandra and they don’t really need the ferts necessary.  

 

Well i hope my ph goes up a little bit at some point but I’m totally ok with 5.3 as long as it doesn’t fluctuate again.  I was trying to get a ph of 6 and a hobbyist claimed SL Aqua would be perfect for that but I’m far from 6.  It was originally suppose to be for some softer water raccoon tiger shrimps but because the ph is way too low for them I decided to try TBs in this tank instead cause the parameters seems perfect for them anyways so why not.?

 

 thanks for your help!  I’ll probably acclimate them into the tank tomorrow and just let it drip all day.  The ph these TBs are use to right now is around 5.5 so that’s not that different.  Should be ok.  

[madcrafted]

Yeah, those are definitely slow growers and will probably get by on very little, if any additional fertilizer, depending on your light levels. I can certainly understand your hesitation to dose commercial trace/micro fertilizers, especially those that contain copper. Many warnings floating around out there on the forums and web about the dangers of copper. The amounts in many of these commercial products is nowhere near toxic levels and have been proven time and time again that when used at the recommended dosage, or even EI levels, these fertilizers are safe for invertebrates. I've used both Flourish and CSM+B (at PPS pro levels) in my shrimp tanks without any ill effects. I also have some very expensive hybrid shrimp in these tanks and wouldn't dose it if I thought it would effect them in any way. However, if you don't feel safe dosing these types of ferts, you could always purchase a fertilizer like Thrive-S, which is completely void of any copper, should you decide to add some of the more demanding plants later on. . 

 

When you go to acclimate tomorrow, be sure to match GH first and foremost. I don't bother with pH readings when acclimating my shrimp... just TDS and temperature. If shrimp come shipped or from any other tank other than my own, I check GH of bag water. TDS tells me nothing here because they could use different remineralizers than I do. In these cases, I plop them in my tank after GH and temperature closely matches.

 

Anyways, good luck on getting them into their new home and be sure to update us with pics once they settle in.  

[aqua_che_scapes]

On 12/10/2018 at 5:58 PM, madcrafted said:

Yeah, those are definitely slow growers and will probably get by on very little, if any additional fertilizer, depending on your light levels. I can certainly understand your hesitation to dose commercial trace/micro fertilizers, especially those that contain copper. Many warnings floating around out there on the forums and web about the dangers of copper. The amounts in many of these commercial products is nowhere near toxic levels and have been proven time and time again that when used at the recommended dosage, or even EI levels, these fertilizers are safe for invertebrates. I've used both Flourish and CSM+B (at PPS pro levels) in my shrimp tanks without any ill effects. I also have some very expensive hybrid shrimp in these tanks and wouldn't dose it if I thought it would effect them in any way. However, if you don't feel safe dosing these types of ferts, you could always purchase a fertilizer like Thrive-S, which is completely void of any copper, should you decide to add some of the more demanding plants later on. . 

 

When you go to acclimate tomorrow, be sure to match GH first and foremost. I don't bother with pH readings when acclimating my shrimp... just TDS and temperature. If shrimp come shipped or from any other tank other than my own, I check GH of bag water. TDS tells me nothing here because they could use different remineralizers than I do. In these cases, I plop them in my tank after GH and temperature closely matches.

 

Anyways, good luck on getting them into their new home and be sure to update us with pics once they settle in.  

 

So the fertilizers I use are my own dry fert mixes from aquariumfertilizer.com.  Great stuff. The trace is CSM + B and chelated iron and dose potassium too (macros of course but very low dose).  Dry is the way to go if you you’d rather spend more money on shrimp than pre bottled ferts.  The small bags I got are going to last me a decade and only cost $50.  So nice! I use an EI schedule on my other aquascapes but with lower doses (up to half the dose) so the water Column doesn’t get clogged with too many excess ferts, helps fight algae.  My plants don’t need so many.  But I don’t dose at all in my shrimps tanks yet.  Maybe like a drop a month 🤣🤞🏻

 

I’ll definitely post an update. It’s now day five of stable tank parameters.  I’ll be acclimating them over tomorrow out of their half gallon tub.  There’s a sochting oxydator mini in there that I diluted the solution for use in the half gallon space and the shrimp are all in and on it all day long.  Poor shrimps.    

 

Thanks for the acclimation tip.  I usually just match TDS and temps but I’ll definitely match the Gh too.  the two tanks should’t Be that different cause the TDS and temp is already the same from the tub the shrimp are currently in and the tank they are going into.  But I still plan to drip all day tomorrow.  

[aqua_che_scapes]

Woke up and checked the parameters in preparation of acclimating my caridina shrimp today and the nitrates that were zero yesterday are now somewhere around 3-5 ppm.  I feel like that’s probably safe but I’ll do a super long slow drip.  I read the taiwan bees are a lot more tolerant of some nitrates and also that purigen can help lower nitrates.  My floaters should be absorbing more but I think they are in shock and still acclimating to this tank.  I just dosed some prime and a drop of paraguard just in case, a little bit of bacter ae and beta glucan.  I don’t care if the drip takes 20 hours... ph went up to 5.5 after I added bacter ae.... I thought that wasn’t suppose to do that.  Weird.

 

The shrimp are Bkk shadow pandas from VIN buypetshrimp.  Thanks Erik Lucas!  These are very pretty shrimp and have the nicest rich deep blue coloration.  Quality shrimp 👌🏻 Thank you to my parents and grandparents for the birthday money they don’t know I used to buy MORE shrimp 🤣🤣🤣🎉🥳💪🏻  I have a couple extreme blue bolts and regular BKK coming as well later this week to add so I can breed them to have richer blues and darker black colors.  This is my first time doing this soooo I hope this was an ok combo of shrimp to breed together.  Feel free to educate me if I’m wrong.  

[aqua_che_scapes]

Side note:  next year as these shrimp grow larger and hopefully have babies and don’t die 😭☹️  I’m going to setup a 20 long for them when I get some more money.  They won’t be in this 5 gallon forever.  But that means that I have to take down one of my fish tanks cause I have too many tanks to care for at the moment in one bedroom.  Fish are boring anyways.... too easy.  No challenge.  I lose my interest quickly with fish.  But I still love micro Rasboras . Mine are breeding.  

[EricM]

when you setup the tank what products did you use?  and during the "cycling" period?

 

 

[aqua_che_scapes]

1 hour ago, DiscoBee said:

when you setup the tank what products did you use?  and during the "cycling" period?

 

 

 

Thanks for your response.  You asked this earlier actually and I reaponded to it in more detail already.  👍🏻 One of my first replies on the thread.  

 

Basically:  seachem purigen, stability and prime.   A little bit of dr tims ammonia chloride drops to keep the cycle going.  I’m not dosing it anymore tho.  That’s all.  Chemicals were used during (not dr tims) the cycle and after.  This tank is for my first TBs so I’ve been trying to be careful not to put anything in it besides these things.  The only other thing I found was a few melted buce leaves that I removed.  I guess they could have caused the spike.  I was not constantly using these chemicals tho.  Seachem stability was daily during the cycle process,  prime every so often when my plants started suffering from nitrites etc. purigen is several months old and most likely exhausted before the cycle even started.  

 

The tank has stabilized again now since a week ago so im getting ready to move the shrimp over today or tomorrow.  It’s been busy.  

[aqua_che_scapes]

So I was going to acclimate the shrimp finally today but the ph started dropping again ugh!!!

 

 It was 5.25-5.4 for almost a whole week night/day and now it’s dropping again....Last time it did this (when I created this post) it continued dropping all the way down to 4.5.  I no longer trust it to put the shrimp in.  All I did was add a small dose of prime in this morning.  This is getting ridiculous.  It’s currently at 5.1 which isn’t bad but it dropped down from 5.4 in less than 12 hours.  Pretty quick.  The drop occurred during the photoperiod too (usually only drops a little at night due to the plants releasing co2).  I don’t know if purigen causes this kind of tank behavior,  or just the substrate isn’t established yet.  It’s been about 6-8 weeks now.  I don’t know anymore.  

[madcrafted]

How old is that pH probe you are conducting your test with? Reason I ask is I've used various "hobbyist grade"  pH probes (Hanna, Milwaukee, American Pinpoint and Oakton to name a few) throughout the years and find that they typically quit giving accurate readings after a year or so, regardless of how well you store them. I always stored mine in a potassium chloride base (pH of 4) and calibrate at every use. I also toss my liquid reference solutions after 6 months because it expires fairly quickly once seal is cracked and will give false calibration. Some sources even say 3-4 months but I've found them to be fairly close after 6 months still. 

 

I'm not accusing you of testing with faulty equipment, just wanted to make sure you are aware of these things when it comes to ORB probes and such. If the pH readings won't stabilize after 30 seconds, the probe is likely reaching the end of it's life and trying to get consistent readings will drive you nuts and make you doubt everything. You can also get these probes to calibrate at both endpoints and still give false readings with your test samples. I've seen it happen quite a bit. Hobby grade and lab grade probes alike. 

[aqua_che_scapes]

Thanks madcrafted.  I am not bothered at all by insights into things. That was very helpful. To be honest my ph meter isn’t a main brand name product.  I attached the photo of the exact one I have.  I have three different new liquid ph test kits (less than 6 months) that I’ve been using to check to see if the meter is accurate.  It’s actually never off.  I have an API PH (down to pH 6.0) and then I bought two tests this last week that go down to 4.5,  the Sera wide range pH test kit and a Fluval low range pH test kit.  

I also bought the powder Milwaukee brand pH calibration packets (mixed with 250 ml RODI water in a clean plastic sand which bag) and calibrated the meter a few times since last week.   I never re use the calibration liquids. I rinse the probe off with RODI water and allow it to dry before it touches the calibration solution so there are no tank contaminants.  

 

 I don’t doubt this probe is probably a piece of crap tho but it’s never been hugely off.  Maybe only by .1 but then I fix it.  Sometimes I calibrate and it’s never off.  I don’t store it in any solution.  To be honest I’ve had it in the tank 24/7 cause I’m constantly watching the tank pH the past month or two.  It’s not turned on all the time tho.  Just sitting in the top of the tank and I hit the power button on and let it settle and check it a few times a day.   It plugs into the wall so it doesn’t ever run low charge or need new batteries. 

[madcrafted]

No problem, just wanted to toss that out there. I've had my fair share of headaches with pH testing equipment and reference solutions alike. The dry packets of reference solution "crystals" tend to last longer when not opened, so that's good. Cross contamination isn't a concern the way you are doing it, so good job there. Never re-use solution that has had probe dipped into it. I just pour a little into those disposable sauce cups just enough to fully submerge the probe in the solution. Then I throw it out afterwards. once probe is properly calibrated. 

 

One thing I can tell you with great certainty is that the nutrafin wide range test is terribly inaccurate. It measured a whole point lower (5.5 vs. 6.5) than any of the other tests I took. I used a Hanna handheld pen, an American Pinpoint monitor and API drop test as redundant backup. All of these test measured within .1 accuracy of one another except for the nutrafin test. I'm not 100% sure but isn't Fluval and Nutrafin both Hagen brand? If so, I'd look for another drop test (besides API due the 6.0 cutoff limit) to double check against.

 

[aqua_che_scapes]

Yah I heard that about nutrafin too so I didn’t get one but I think you are right about fluval being made by hagen but maybe they are made/created in different places so are still different enough to be more functional than the nutrafin ones... hopefully.  I’ll conpare the results today and post what I find.  I actually just barely got the fluval one the other day and haven’t tested it yet.  But I really like the Sera one.  It’s dead on so far the couple times I’ve used it and it’s a nice quality test kit.  I always violently shake and wack my test kit bottles for a good 30 seconds haha.  I’m always worried about them not mixing well.  It won’t just ruin the current results but ruin the whole bottle for future tests too,  because the concentration could be altered. 

[madcrafted]

I misread you post admittedly, I just saw "wide range test" and assumed it was nutrafin. I've heard good things about sera test but never used myself. Maybe your tank just wants to settle in that range. It's not unheard of with buffering substrates, just not as common with this particular soil but shouldn't be a problem. Adding stuff to the water like Prime and baking soda, just changes the chemistry and could cause more issues than it helps. Prime is for tap water or emergency ammonia/nitrite neutralizing (in higher pH tanks). I can honestly say that I've never dosed Prime in a soft water tank, it's just not needed. Baking soda is a no no in a bee shrimp tank. Not so much the KH itself but the rapid swinging that takes place with substrate trying to buffer those bi/carbonates. So don't keep using that.

 

At the end of the day, it's not my tank so not my call but I would stop worrying over pH and focus on keeping GH and temperature in their correct range and keep them consistent. These are far more important values to monitor in a shrimp tank. Once I determine where GH brings the TDS, I simply use a TDS pen to check water here and there. Nothing else really matters until substrate starts to expire a year or so later. In these cases, a pH test comes in handy. Other than that, my pH probes sit in potassium chloride for months at a time.

 

[aqua_che_scapes]

So here are my test kits for today:

 

 

ph meter reading is at 5.13

 

 Sera pH wide range pH (top photo) 

 

 fluval/Hagen wide range pH (honestly this color that showed up doesn’t match any of the colors on their chart very well....it only tests down to 5.0 for pH so technically it could be lower according to this kit but I don’t trust it)

 

Ammonia API (pretty sure it’s at zero but the this test kit always shows slight green even when there isn’t ammonia.  Is that normal?  Or am I reading it right and there is .25 ammonia?) could be the lighting.  It’s under a white led bar. The fluorescent bathroom light showed it slightly more yellow and if I look down through the top of the tube onto white it looks more yellow than green.  

 

Nitrate API at around 5 ppm (I think the nitrate goes up when the lights are off cause the plants aren’t using it)

 

 

 

 

[aqua_che_scapes]

14 minutes ago, madcrafted said:

I misread you post admittedly, I just saw "wide range test" and assumed it was nutrafin. I've heard good things about sera test but never used myself. Maybe your tank just wants to settle in that range. It's not unheard of with buffering substrates, just not as common with this particular soil but shouldn't be a problem. Adding stuff to the water like Prime and baking soda, just changes the chemistry and could cause more issues than it helps. Prime is for tap water or emergency ammonia/nitrite neutralizing (in higher pH tanks). I can honestly say that I've never dosed Prime in a soft water tank, it's just not needed. Baking soda is a no no in a bee shrimp tank. Not so much the KH itself but the rapid swinging that takes place with substrate trying to buffer those bi/carbonates. So don't keep using that.

 

At the end of the day, it's not my tank so not my call but I would stop worrying over pH and focus on keeping GH and temperature in their correct range and keep them consistent. These are far more important values to monitor in a shrimp tank. Once I determine where GH brings the TDS, I simply use a TDS pen to check water here and there. Nothing else really matters until substrate starts to expire a year or so later. In these cases, a pH test comes in handy. Other than that, my pH probes sit in potassium chloride for months at a time.

 

 

 

Thanks!  I only used the baking soda once when the pH dropped down to 4.5 because some of my bucephalandra started to melt and a few even died.  But I’ve done water changes since then and it’s been over a week or two now.  I don’t plan to use it ever again.  Yah the change is very rapid.  I haven’t done a water change in a solid week now so the tank is pretty untouched besides the prime I added yesterday.  And the prime.  I was worried that the present level of low nitrate or small ammonia might hurt the TB shrimps while trying to acclimate them.  I see now that it was an overreaction... I only use prime to neutralize ammonia or high nitrates in my fish tanks when I know water change day will be delayed and the levels are too high.  But I’m only 6 months into caridina shrimp (only have had tigers before these recent/new TBs) so still learning do’s and dont’s.  I didn’t realize a few drops of prime would cause parameter changes.  Nothing is safe I guess 🤣👍🏻