L190 - effects of PH crash

[henward]

Ok,
i had a big colony of royals.
suddenly they started dy ing off, one of them started to get convulsions.

Later i discovered that my arowana started to get chipped scales, indication of ph issues. I was annoyed at myself that i did not keep an eye on the oyster shell that buffers my water, later discovering that my ph tester may have been under performing! and my ph actually was around the low to mid 4s!!!!! YES, ph was low to mid 4s!!!

anyways, i put oystershell and purchased a digital ph monitor, calibrated religiously every month. ph is now sitting at 7 to 7.25.

i had 7 royals, only 2 made it! gave it away to ensure they suyrvived, was quite a sad event.

anyways, i want to give it another go! as i love the royals, absolutely.

i am looking at purchasing a 25cm specimen and a 12cm one.
the 25cm looks normal, but the 12cm one looks to have very thick bars.

my main thing is,
just out of learning sake, what are the symptons and possible effects of water ph being too low? at PH4, im sure they did not like this, would this cause issuyes?
also, keeping them around 7 to 7.25 is fine? or should i aim for 6.5 yto 6.7?

suggestions?

also, i am looking at hikari algae wafers as main food.
lots of food of course.
some say zuchini is good, should i start zuchini slowly or go for it straight away?

[MatsP]

It can be quite hard to spot that the pH is falling - I can't say that I had noticed much difference between before and after when my tank was pH 4 a while back (when I first got a pH meter...) - other than "measure pH now and again".

I'm not sure why, but my large(ish)

Panaque sp(L191)

seems to also be sensitive to low pH, and stopped feeding. I moved it (her?) to another tank, mainly so that I could monitor the fish better, since the new tank had a better setup for watching this particular fish, and make sure there was enough food being supplied. The fish is doing fine now, and I don't know if the low pH was a direct or indirect consequence of the fish seeming a bit skinny and not appearing to feed properly.

--
Mats

[zeebo]

hi, sorry to hear of your loss.
Just wanted to mention , I too have probs keeping my ph up to my preference of 6.8.Especially with the wood in the tanks. I was using crushed coral in my tanks and seemed to only last 2 weeks, so I was constantly adding and changing the bags, what a pain and too much fluctuating ph for the fish. Finally I decided to use chiclid gravel -Carib-Sea , in mesh bags the fliters in some tanks and mixed in gravel in other tanks. It seems to hold longer, almost 3 months , which is better than crushed coral for 2 weeks. HTH Georgie

[henward]

i found a combo of crush coral and oyster is working extremely well for me.

literally, if the ph starts to come down a few 0.01 points, i would just put a pinch of oyster shell, it works very quickly. and slowly and gently brings it up.

[zeebo]

Glad to hear you can keep it stable with the coral and oyster. I have 7.9 tap water , but it dive bombs quickly , especially with the large wood I have, so had to resort to chiclid gravel, that is why I mentioned it. The crushed coral wasn't holding it long enough for me. Georgie