# Added plants and now pH is going up



## Karen00 (Sep 19, 2016)

Hello all,

I did a quick search in the forum posts but couldn't find anything that might answer my question so here goes...

I have a 15g freshwater tank that has been going for about 1-1/2 years with 6 white cloud minnows. The pH has always been around 7.2 (Toronto tap water). I had some plants in the tank when I set it up but they didn't do well (the fish either ate them or they just died). I don't keep the hood on the tank so they most likely died because they weren't getting enough light.

Recently (the past couple months) I decided to try plants again because I couldn't get my nitrates down. The level wasn't crazy high but was hovering about 40ppm which was higher than what I liked. The only thing being added to the tank after my weekly water change was beneficial bacteria plus stuff to remove chlorine/chloramine.

I added some Bacopa and an overhead light to the tank and fortunately these did well (fish didn't eat them and I think the light helped) but the nitrates didn't budge although I only had about 4 plants. Recently I added a couple more Bacopa and some Jungle Val and figured I would start to add fertilizer as well so after my weekly water change I add the required amount for my 15g of Seachem Flourish. I don't do co2 injection or anything like that.

The plants seem to be doing great and my nitrates have dropped to about 20ppm which is great but just recently I noticed an increase in the pH. I just use the test strips but they now show a pH of between 7.8 and 8.4. I did some research and read that as co2 decreases the pH increases so my questions are:
1. Is the rise in pH because of the plants using the co2 (like I read) or is this somehow related to the Flourish?
2. Will the pH continue to rise and should I be concerned about the current levels on my fish? They seem fine so far but the pH has just started to go up.
3. Should I try to get the pH back down and if so should I add some driftwood or maybe peat or will the pH Down additive work in this case? Or something else?

If you need more information (other water parameters, etc.) let me know.

Thanks in advance for any help/advice.


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## slipfinger (May 11, 2016)

From reading your post I see nothing that would be raising your Ph by those numbers. You would need a very accurate/expensive Ph meter to be able to 
measure the change in the Ph because of a few plants consuming the Co2 in your tank. Flourish should not effect the Ph of your tank water.

You can think of nothing that you added or changed that can account for the change?

You've retest your tap?

You can try removing some tank water from your tank and let it sit for 24h or more than test it see what you come up with.

Maybe replace your test kit, or better yet purchase a Ph pen which will be a lot more accurate then test kits.

Side Note



> beneficial bacteria plus stuff to remove chlorine/chloramine.


Do you happen to have your beneficial bacteria additive mixed up with your Chlorine remover? I don't think any beneficial bacteria would be able to live in the chemicals that removes Chlorine from your water. Seachem Prime is one of the main products people use to remove Chlorine from their water.


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## Karen00 (Sep 19, 2016)

Thanks for the speedy reply slipfinger.

I'm going to have the tap water retested. I have read others on this forum mention there could be changes to the Toronto tap water due to all the rain and runoff this year that has gone into the Lake Ontario which is where our supply comes from. The last time I had a full test done was when I setup the tank 1-1/2 years ago.

To answer your questions:
1. Nothing else has changed in my tank other than the addition of plants (lots of plants all at once... the number of plants probably tripled in one shot) and of course the ferts that I'm adding. The overhead light is fairly new but that has been going for a couple months when I first re-tried plants in my tank. I'll have to go back to my notes but I think pH was fine then.
2. No. I'm not mixing my beneficial bacteria with the chemicals to remove the chlorine/chloramine. I mix up my new water batch (approx 10% water change) and add it to the tank then turn on my filter and let that run for about an hour to cycle the water through the tank. I add the bacteria after that then I add the ferts. The ferts are added directly after the bacteria so there's no cycling of the tank with just the bacteria before adding the ferts (not sure if that makes a difference).


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

If there are no apparent detrimental effects to your tank, my advice is to ignore the pH.

There are a lot of things that can affect water pH, and in my experience with freshwater, changes in pH of the range you describe doesn't really matter.

Interesting fact: Toronto tap water has a pH of 7.2-7.4 right out of the tap. Leave it sitting overnight, however, and the pH will shoot up to 7.8-8.0.


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## Karen00 (Sep 19, 2016)

Thanks solarz! I feel better about these replies especially from more experienced members. I was most concerned about this change affecting the fish and even though white clouds are tolerant of change (within reason) I wasn't sure if this change could be dangerous no matter what type of fish is in the tank.

It's just very strange. I've always done random testing of my water (meaning different days of the week or times of day) with my test strips and don't recall ever seeing it go much beyond 7.2 but I'm going to go back and check my log book. I'm definitely going to get my water re-tested at Big Al's to make sure there isn't something going on with it out of the tap.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Karen00 said:


> Thanks solarz! I feel better about these replies especially from more experienced members. I was most concerned about this change affecting the fish and even though white clouds are tolerant of change (within reason) I wasn't sure if this change could be dangerous no matter what type of fish is in the tank.
> 
> It's just very strange. I've always done random testing of my water (meaning different days of the week or times of day) with my test strips and don't recall ever seeing it go much beyond 7.2 but I'm going to go back and check my log book. I'm definitely going to get my water re-tested at Big Al's to make sure there isn't something going on with it out of the tap.


I just thought of one thing that could be affecting your pH: phosphates. Or rather, the lack of them.

Phosphates are secreted by fish waste just like nitrates, but are mostly harmless. However, they do have the ability to lower and buffer water pH. So it's quite likely that you had lots of phosphates in your tank and the addition of plants removed those phosphates.


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## Karen00 (Sep 19, 2016)

That is a great point solarz! It could be that some of the chemicals I added while the tank was cycling and maybe a sustained affect after the cycling caused the pH to be lower than what it should be and now it's actually normalizing with the addition of the plants. I will run that test and report back.

Thanks for this!


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## slipfinger (May 11, 2016)

Any news on this?


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## Karen00 (Sep 19, 2016)

Hi all. Sorry for not having posted anything. I found my original report from Big Al's and as it turns out the ph of my water is 7.6 (obviously I didn't read this too closely when I got it) so the results I'm getting now aren't as far off the mark as I originally thought. Having said that the most recent test I did showed between 7.8-8.4 but this is with the highly unreliable test strips. At least it seems to be holding around this range and isn't constantly rising which was the concern with my original post. Fish and plants are still fine. I plan to have my water retested this weekend (tap and aquarium) when I go to Big Al's and I will most likely pick up a proper ph test kit.

I also read a post about CO2, plants and ph (among other things) and it said this... "Given enough light and carbon dioxide, plants absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Carbon dioxide will lower the pH of aquarium water, making it more acidic, while oxygen has no effect on water pH. Therefore, when plants absorb carbon dioxide, thus removing it from the water, the pH will rise. Typically, this has a small, but measurable effect on pH."

What might be happening is that with the addition of all the plants so quickly (and not doing CO2 injection) the CO2 might have been depleted to the point that it affected the ph. I bought an Ista CO2 indicator and it shows there is below "average" CO2 levels (it's reading blue) and given I don't have a lot of fish in the tank it's not like there's anything coming from them.

As far as my original query goes about my ph being 7.2 and was increasing... I had a difficult time cycling this tank and ended up with a bunch of problems (bacterial blooms, ammonium levels through the roof, etc.) so I was adding things like ammo lock and stuff to clear the bacterial bloom as well as doing 50% water changes daily. All of this might have caused the ph to drop to 7.2 and it's only now that it's normalizing although I hope it's actually around 7.8 because 8.4 seems high.

I might have to think about doing some CO2 injection. My setup is low tech but maybe a few shots of CO2 everyday might be beneficial. At this point though everything seems to be fine.

I will post my test results from Big Al's when I have it redone.


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## slipfinger (May 11, 2016)

Good to hear everything is stabilizing. Tbh I would not be too concerned with PH, most everything can adapt. As for Co2 injection, no harm at all in giving DYI a try. Problem is once you see the results you'll be wanting a pressured system. 

Post some pictures and keep us updated.


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## Karen00 (Sep 19, 2016)

So far all of the plants I got from you are doing great (hopefully I didn't just jinx myself or my plants)!  Not much growth which is to be expected given my setup but they're lush and healthy so I believe there is harmony in the tank.

I saw the intro Fluval CO2 20 kit. Most people said this is not the route to go if you plan to do constant injection because it can get expensive but if I use it to add a few shots everyday then it might be better than DIY which sounds like a lot of work. LOL!! If the Fluval 20 turns out to be a bust then I've only wasted $40 (I found some on kijiji).


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## Karen00 (Sep 19, 2016)

Hi all,

I wanted to post a quick follow-up to this because I'm sure people are having sleepless nights wondering the outcome.  As mentioned in my previous reply I made the trek out to Big Al's with two water samples (one from my tap and another from my aquarium) to find out what's going on with the ph.

Results:
ph of tap water: 7.2 (approx) which is interesting because a year ago it was 7.6. I can only assume this fluctuates.
ph of aquarium: 7.4 (approx) which is a huge relief given the test strips were suddenly giving me wildly high results for no apparent reason.
Ammonia is 0 (I have a proper test kit for ammonia so this is no surprise because my results show 0 as well).
Nitrites and nitrates both almost 0. My test strips are giving accurate results for both of these so it's only the ph that's gone wonky with the strips.

Moral of the story... invest in a proper test kit.  I didn't get the full kit but did pickup a proper ph kit.


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