# head scratcher: Water Parameters and Bio Load questions



## rickwaines (Jan 2, 2011)

So
I have a 40 gallon.
I have six micro geophagus, 3 oto's, 1 bnp, 2 columbian jewel tetras

I recently added two Discus from Rick.
I have been doing once a day 80% water changes since I acquired them and I am getting an increase of ammonia and a pretty significant crash with the pH. I hadn't been adding anything except Prime to the water.

Currently the pH is at 4.8 ish. 

I am thinking that I may have too high a bio load for the 40 gallon. what do you think?

I am filtering with an ehiem 350 with purigen. nitrites and a and nitrates are fine ammonia is .25 despite daily 80% water changes and purigen. no plants. a fair amount of wood.

I have just started adding some seachem discus buffer in the hopes of buffering and raising the pH.

I am a bit flummoxed by this set up. Any thoughts welcome.


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## tony1928 (Apr 22, 2010)

I had a similar problem with ph plummeting until I introduced some buffering. I know everyone has their own opinion on how but I just put some crushed coral in a bag and stuck it in my canister. Seems to be fine now. Ph stable at high 6's.

Oh and I would add that I was not changing water daily like you are. And my tank is 100g.


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## josephl (Apr 21, 2010)

rickwaines said:


> So
> I have a 40 gallon.
> I have six micro geophagus, 3 oto's, 1 bnp, 2 columbian jewel tetras
> 
> ...


If the fish are happy at 4.8 and it is staying stable at 4.8, why change it?

I would be very curious to see what's causing it, I'm guessing it has to be your wood. If it's stable at 4.8, the only issue I see is your fish having to adjust to 80% water changes. I think vancouver water comes out at just above 7 now


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## Death's Sting (Apr 21, 2010)

At pH of 4.8 the nitrifying bacteria will begin to die off, it doesn't sound like your tank in cycled anymore. Not many people know this but nitrifying bacteria prefer a higher pH since they consume ammonia a lot better then ammonium. Ammonia turns to ammonium as the pH drops.

I second the suggestion to use crushed coral in the filter, been doing it for years now, never had a problem with pH, GH and KH.


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## rickwaines (Jan 2, 2011)

Death's Sting said:


> At pH of 4.8 the nitrifying bacteria will begin to die off, it doesn't sound like your tank in cycled anymore. Not many people know this but nitrifying bacteria prefer a higher pH since they consume ammonia a lot better then ammonium. Ammonia turns to ammonium as the pH drops.
> 
> I second the suggestion to use crushed coral in the filter, been doing it for years now, never had a problem with pH, GH and KH.


It has been my assumption as well that the nitrifying bacteria have all but died off and that the cause of that was an ammonia related pH crash. So, I am doing some buffering and going to reduce the bioload and pull out some of the wood. see if that corrects things.


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## rickwaines (Jan 2, 2011)

josephl said:


> If the fish are happy at 4.8 and it is staying stable at 4.8, why change it?
> 
> I would be very curious to see what's causing it, I'm guessing it has to be your wood. If it's stable at 4.8, the only issue I see is your fish having to adjust to 80% water changes. I think vancouver water comes out at just above 7 now


I guess I was afraid the 4.8 might lead to further drops. which might be lethal no?


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## Rastapus (Apr 21, 2010)

rickwaines said:


> It has been my assumption as well that the nitrifying bacteria have all but died off and that the cause of that was an ammonia related pH crash. So, I am doing some buffering and going to reduce the bio load and pull out some of the wood. see if that corrects things.


The ammonium that is accumulating in your aquarium will convert to Ammonia when the ph increases. It does sound like there is no active bio filter in there with a pH that low. Of course, I would recommend buffering the aquarium to achieve the desired result you are after. I highly doubt a pH of 4.8 would be healthy for your fish. I would recommend increasing the pH very slowly.


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## sunshine_1965 (Aug 16, 2011)

If this has just started since you got the discus and are doing WC's daily then there is a problem needing serious attention. If your PH was low to begin with then it will be hard to fix with daily WC's. Definitely bring your ph up slowly over the next week otherwise you will shock your fish and stress them out and cause illness. Hope all work out for you. Remember discus need about 10 gallons per fish to thrive.


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## rickwaines (Jan 2, 2011)

Rastapus said:


> The ammonium that is accumulating in your aquarium will convert to Ammonia when the ph increases. It does sound like there is no active bio filter in there with a pH that low. Of course, I would recommend buffering the aquarium to achieve the desired result you are after. I highly doubt a pH of 4.8 would be healthy for your fish. I would recommend increasing the pH very slowly.


Hey grant
In general I am totally behing your gh kh ideas. They make perfect sense. The challenge, right now is that everything I have read about micro geos is that they appreciate super soft low pH environments like kh near 1 gh 0 and tds below 50. And I can't imagine a way to have low pH buffered water without having gh kh and tds numbers much higher than that. 
Many people in the city keep discus with the big regular changes and no gh or kh improvements. Our water may in fact be the perfect water for these species that love the soft soft. I know the domestic discus will adapt to most environments as long as they are stable. It may just be that having the mocro geos and the discus together is too much.


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## Fish rookie (May 21, 2012)

I always thought ammonia is a base so too much of it will raise the PH, isn't it?
At a low Ph your ammonium is not harmful and you are fine with no friendly bacteria in theory I think...
But from what I read in nature the natural PH in the amazon for Discus is 5.8, and for domestic they are usually higher.
Have you checked if your water is highly concentrated of dissolved gas which could cause a swing in PH?
Aging your water will help if that is the case. You can buy a big trash can and store your water heated over night to use for your water change. 
I dont think you need discus buffer, usually that is for people with a high PH.
I do add equailibrium and alkaline buffer in my other tanks for my other fish though--but not in my discus tank. Discus tank has nothing added but Rick's water conditioner crystals, which only remove chlorine, does not help with slim coat, contains aleo vera or do anything like that. With regular water changes my PH is steady.


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## Rastapus (Apr 21, 2010)

rickwaines said:


> Hey grant
> In general I am totally behing your gh kh ideas. They make perfect sense. The challenge, right now is that everything I have read about micro geos is that they appreciate super soft low pH environments like kh near 1 gh 0 and tds below 50. And I can't imagine a way to have low pH buffered water without having gh kh and tds numbers much higher than that.
> Many people in the city keep discus with the big regular changes and no gh or kh improvements. Our water may in fact be the perfect water for these species that love the soft soft. I know the domestic discus will adapt to most environments as long as they are stable. It may just be that having the mocro geos and the discus together is too much.


Are your rams wild? If you are trying to duplicate natural environments their values change with the seasons so I am not too sure what you are after as an end result. If you raise your GH and KH to 1, your pH will be more stable and will still be acidic. Is your water change regiment what you plan on maintaining or is this due to your readings? I dont know how your pH could be so low with water changes that regular and large.


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## discusherder (May 9, 2011)

Id be careful with discus buffer, without Neutral Regulator in soft water, it can cause huge ph swings


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## Death's Sting (Apr 21, 2010)

Fish rookie said:


> At a low Ph your ammonium is not harmful and you are fine with no friendly bacteria in theory I think...


False, Ammonium is harmful just not as harmful as ammonia.


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## Fish rookie (May 21, 2012)

I was referring to NH4 (ammonium) which is also referred usually as the non toxic (or to be very technical, much less toxic ) form of NH3 (ammonia).

Ammonium (NH4) is formed by protonation, which is the addition of a Proton (H+) to the molecule. During this process of protonation, ammonia (NH3), which is a base, converts into a weak acid, which has the tendency to lose, or "donate" a hydrogen ion, also known as a “Brønsted-Lowry acid”. 

This tendency to “donate” a hydrogen ion is how NH4 converts back to NH3 as pH rises. 

Products such as Prime block this process, maintaining the extra hydrogen ion, keeping NH3 as NH4 even at a higher PH--which is how Prime claims to "detoxify" ammonia. Seachem is essentially saying that "toxic" NH3 is converted to "non-toxic" NH4 hence the term "detoxify."


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

In the reading I've done previously ammonium is considered "basically harmless", which does not mean it is non-toxic, I'm sure given enough of it or proper condition it can cause problems, the main concern is though when the PH rises above 7 and the ammonium converts back into ammonia which as you said Prime helps prevent.



Fish rookie said:


> I was referring to NH4 (ammonium) which is also referring usually as the non toxic form of NH3 (ammonia).
> 
> Ammonium (NH4) is formed by protonation, which is the addition of a Proton (H+) to the molecule. During this process of protonation, ammonia (NH3), which is a base, converts into a weak acid, which has the tendency to lose, or "donate" a hydrogen ion, also known as a "Brønsted-Lowry acid".
> 
> ...


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## DBam (Aug 9, 2010)

rickwaines said:


> I guess I was afraid the 4.8 might lead to further drops. which might be lethal no?


Due to the nature of the pH scale, you shouldn't experience any lower pH than 4.8 in your tank.


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## Fish rookie (May 21, 2012)

If you change your water daily does your PH go from around 7 right after a water change to below 5 daily? 
If that is the case your ammonia level would raise drastically right after your water change on a daily basis.
It could become very stressfull, not to mention dangerous, for your fish, in my humble opinion.


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## Death's Sting (Apr 21, 2010)

Fish rookie said:


> Products such as Prime block this process, maintaining the extra hydrogen ion, keeping NH3 as NH4 even at a higher PH--which is how Prime claims to "detoxify" ammonia. Seachem is essentially saying that "toxic" NH3 is converted to "non-toxic" NH4 hence the term "detoxify."


 Prime will bind ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate for 24-48 hours. At which point, if they are still present, will be released.


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## Fish rookie (May 21, 2012)

Death's Sting said:


> Prime will bind ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate for 24-48 hours. At which point, if they are still present, will be released.


That is common knowledge. 
The extra hydrogen ion is released after a short time which is why NH4 (the non toxic form of ammonia according to Seachem) is coverted back to NH3, which is highly toxic. I am not sure how they keep nitrite and nitrate "non toxic"...do you? Do they turn them into N2 through reduction, or into a benign organic nitrogen compound until they are consumed by bacteria? I have alwasy wondered about that one.
My comment was a response to your other post saying Ammonium is also harmful.


Death's Sting said:


> False, Ammonium is harmful just not as harmful as ammonia.


I have never heard of ammonium poisoning in fish, but of course I am sure if it is in a ridiculously high amount it might be harmful; toxic or not I am not sure. All that readings I have done only point to ammonia (NH3) being toxic. 
Seachem also seem to believe that Ammonium is non-toxic or else they would not say their product can "de-toxify" ammonia by converting it to ammoninum.
Thank you.


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