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Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)

Hi,

John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.

I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.

With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.

I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.

If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.

I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.

I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.

Thank you
Darragh Sherwin

high ph low kh

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03 Feb 2014 16:19 #1 by alan 64 (alan)
hi lads have u any thoughts on this my ph is 8.4 id say its because of my cement diy background, checked my kh and its at 1 i thought it would be harder and if i raise the kh will it raise my ph even further ???

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03 Feb 2014 17:06 - 03 Feb 2014 17:15 #2 by archibalts (Arvis)
Replied by archibalts (Arvis) on topic high ph low kh
I have similar problem and I don't have cement background. I noticed, that PH stays lower if I'm not running air stone and lowers if I add co2.
With airstone running I have PH8.5,
airstone+co2 PH 7-7.5
only co2 - PH 6.5-7.

Here in forums are much smarter guys to answer your question then me, but from my provided data you can see that co2 and airpump will change your ph. You can try to research different types of PH buffers. I found buffers which increases KH value, but unfortunately it is increasing PH as well.
Driftwood supose to lower ph and keep it there, but in my case it doesn't do anything.
Also I have noticed, that my guppies, swordtails, pleco, cory cats amd fan shrimp doesn't mind PH fluctuation.
At the start I was worrying about PH, but not anymore.
My indicator in tank is Fan shrimp. If he goes around like mad - time to change water, if water is fine he is hiding somewhere, if there has been huge water changes, eg.30% 2 -3 days in a row, he comes out and becomes shameless fan shrimp, stands in middle of the tank and enjoys environment :)
Last edit: 03 Feb 2014 17:15 by archibalts (Arvis).

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04 Feb 2014 18:52 #3 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
pH and KH do not have to go up or go down in unison: you can have hard acid water and soft alkaline water and other combinations in between.
Your KH test kit is essentially a pH test at heart but is used in such a way as to be an alkalinity test.

Thus, increasing KH will not necessarily increase pH......it could reduce pH, it could have little effect on pH or it could increase it slightly. But ann increase in KH will help stabilise the pH.

The problem of high pH and low KH is common....especially in tanks where keepers have tried to soften the water, or attempted to reduce pH or attempted to low conductivity/TDS or have good plant growth with a lowered alkalinity.

Adding carbon dioxide is not a good idea unless that is co-buffered with non-gaseous buffers.

Now....ammonia and nitrites need to be checked.
Ammonia is a weak base (so will tend to increase pH); nitrites are weak bases as they are salts of a weak acid (nitrous acid) and so will tend to increase pH to an extent.
If ammonia and nitrites are high then pH comes lower on the urgency.
It should also be noted that if alkalinity is low then that may upset the biological filtration by way of either:
not functioning to any efficient degree; OR
poising the system for a large acid crash from nitrous or nitric acid being produced by the biological filter yet.

ian

Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.

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10 Feb 2014 12:30 #4 by alan 64 (alan)
Replied by alan 64 (alan) on topic high ph low kh
cheers ian for the info have u any tips on raising the kh i have been reading about baking soda is that a safe way to go

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