Is there a natural way to raise tank alkalinity

I have a 20g fresh water tank that is 3+ years old.
Our water is naturally soft and I have problems keeping the PH up. It is a
community tank and I would like to keep the PH around 7.0. It is currently
about 6.6.
I have done frequent water changes and I use a gravel filter to drain the
water.
The Nitrates are about 20 ppm.
I have a penguin bio filter which I change monthly and an Ehiem canister
filter left over from my 55g tank from years ago. The Ehiem filter I clean
about every 3 months. I cleaned it about 6 weeks ago.
Right now the tank is very clean.

3 weeks ago I added 4 fish and lost 3 of them plus 5 other fish.
I took my water into a fish store to be checked.
The PH is low which I know and so is the alkalinity.
A couple of years ago when I had PH problems before, I got advice to add
crushed coral and maybe some sea shells as a natural way to raise the PH.
This seemed to work for about a year. I recently added a few extra sea
shells to try to raise the PH.

Is there a natural way to raise the alkalinity? I am guessing that is part
of the reason why my PH is so low. The fish store folks are trying to sell
me some buffering chemicals which I want to resist if I can.

Thanks,
Mark

ML wrote:
Is there a natural way to raise the alkalinity? I am guessing that is part

A niece piece of holey limestone would do the trick, and it looks great!

--
Victor M. Martinez
Owned and operated by the Fantastic Seven (TM)
Send your spam he
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On Sun, 26 Mar 2006 08:06:20 GMT, "ML" wrote:

I have a 20g fresh water tank that is 3+ years old.
Our water is naturally soft and I have problems keeping the PH up. It is a
community tank and I would like to keep the PH around 7.0. It is currently
about 6.6.
I have done frequent water changes and I use a gravel filter to drain the
water.
The Nitrates are about 20 ppm.
I have a penguin bio filter which I change monthly and an Ehiem canister
filter left over from my 55g tank from years ago. The Ehiem filter I clean
about every 3 months. I cleaned it about 6 weeks ago.
Right now the tank is very clean.

3 weeks ago I added 4 fish and lost 3 of them plus 5 other fish.
I took my water into a fish store to be checked.
The PH is low which I know and so is the alkalinity.
A couple of years ago when I had PH problems before, I got advice to add
crushed coral and maybe some sea shells as a natural way to raise the PH.
This seemed to work for about a year. I recently added a few extra sea
shells to try to raise the PH.

Is there a natural way to raise the alkalinity? I am guessing that is part
of the reason why my PH is so low. The fish store folks are trying to sell
me some buffering chemicals which I want to resist if I can.

Thanks,
Mark

For openers, a pH of 6.6 and soft water sounds fine for most community
fish, unless you intend to breed certain fish, and even then you may
be OK with most. In fact, it's exactly where all of my tanks settle by
the time they are due for their next weekly water change. Out of the
tap, my water is pH 7.0 and very soft. I have never really mastered
the fine points of hardness and alkalinity, and most of the time
knowing the difference between soft, medium and hard and buffering
capacity is enough to get me through. When I've let a tank really go,
like no water change for 6 months, my pH will drop to 6.0. The fish
were less upset than me. What is your procedure for acclimating and
introducing new fish to your tank? My tanks contain Angels, guppies
livebearers, tetras, corys, barbs, which are commonly considered
"community tank" fish. What is your pH and hardness straight from your
tap? It sounds like you are depending on your pet store to test your
water, you need to buy a test kit so you can check the basics, pH,
Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates and a hardness kit would be nice too. I've
read from several people here that "the pet shop tested my water and
said it was fine" - - if you have your pet shop test your water again,
ask them to write down for you exactly what they tested for and the
numbers. Ask them to do each of the tests I mentioned above, if
they're nice guys they'll do it. Money spent on a test kit would be a
better investment than more fish at this time. API's Master Test Kit
is good enough for most purposes and It costs around 20 bucks. It does
not include a hardness test. You can call your water company for that
information, or you can get the exact numbers from your pet store.
"Very soft" is good enough to know at this point. You haven't told us
how many and what kind of fish you have in the tank and what kind of
fish you just brought home and lost. Do you have live plants? How
often do you do water changes and how much water do you change at a
time? Yes, crushed coral is a good, "natural" method to increase your
buffering capacity. I've used it many time before to raise the pH and
buffer for some livebearers I was breeding. I place about half a cup
in a mesh bag and add it to a chamber in my HOB filter. I strongly
encourage you to stay away from chemical pH changers. They can be
tricky to use and even trickier to maintain the target pH. And your
tank volume isn't large enough to be very forgiving for any mistakes.

I just read what I've written above, dotting my "t's" and crossing my
"i's" - it reads like I'm lecturing you - believe me, I'm not. Getting
the answers to the questions I've asked will help us help you a lot
more effectively.

-- Mister Gardener

ML wrote:
I have a 20g fresh water tank that is 3+ years old.
Our water is naturally soft and I have problems keeping the PH up. It is a
community tank and I would like to keep the PH around 7.0. It is currently
about 6.6.

Add material made of limestone, e.g. seashells, chalk (not black board
chalk, which is something completely different, but the stone, the
'white cliffs of dover' chalk) or limestone. Marble reacts too slow to
be of much use though.

Limestone etc will buffer your pH to 7.5 - 7.7, which is exactly what
you want.

Using crushed coral as the substrate will also work.

On Sun, 26 Mar 2006 10:18:29 -0500, "J. Bahl"
wrote:

Using crushed coral as the substrate will also work.

I added a mesh bag with a half cup a week ago and today I am pleased
to see that tank has remained at exactly 7.0, which matches my tap
water. The GH and KH have increased some as well, though still in the
soft range. I'm giving myself a while to decide if I want to increase
the amount of crushed coral or hold tight and test again in a few
days. I'm not certain I would like adding it to my substrate until I
am absolutely sure of the amount I want.

-- Mister Gardener

Mr. Gardener wrote:
On Sun, 26 Mar 2006 10:18:29 -0500, "J. Bahl"
wrote:


Using crushed coral as the substrate will also work.


I added a mesh bag with a half cup a week ago and today I am pleased
to see that tank has remained at exactly 7.0, which matches my tap
water. The GH and KH have increased some as well, though still in the
soft range. I'm giving myself a while to decide if I want to increase
the amount of crushed coral or hold tight and test again in a few
days. I'm not certain I would like adding it to my substrate until I
am absolutely sure of the amount I want.

-- Mister Gardener

I think that the net bag is a good idea long-term, and keep net bags of
crushed coral in my filters. The "hardening" and buffering effect of the
crushed coral seems to diminish over time, and this way it can be
replaced periodically.

Thanks for the many good responses. When I first added the crushed coral,
it seemed to work well, but it appears to diminish over time and from Mister
Gardner's response below, it appears that I need to change it every once and
a while. I need to look for coarser crushed gravel than I purchased the
first time. When I added it to my filter it quickly seized the impeller.

From other Q's in the rest of the string, the only fish I now have left are
- 3 red fin tetras
- 1 neon
- 1 female guppy.

The new fished that died were
- 2 hone gouramies
- 1 male guppy

Established fished that died
- 2 cats (don't remember the exact kind, similar to corys)
- 1 dwarf plecostomus
- 3 neons
- 1 beta
- 1 hatchet fish

At this point my plan is to invest in a KH and GH test kit as well as coarse
crushed coral that I can add to the filter.

And from Netmax's reply I will look from the acid source - although I think
I know what it was. We had an automatic fish feeder and it was probably
over feeding the fish. We set it up for a vacation last June and never
turned it off. Since the difficulties I have turned it off and started to
get to know my remaining five fish a little more personally

Thanks,
Mark



"netDenizen" wrote in message
...
Mr. Gardener wrote:
On Sun, 26 Mar 2006 10:18:29 -0500, "J. Bahl"
wrote:


Using crushed coral as the substrate will also work.

I added a mesh bag with a half cup a week ago and today I am pleased
to see that tank has remained at exactly 7.0, which matches my tap
water. The GH and KH have increased some as well, though still in the
soft range. I'm giving myself a while to decide if I want to increase
the amount of crushed coral or hold tight and test again in a few
days. I'm not certain I would like adding it to my substrate until I
am absolutely sure of the amount I want. -- Mister Gardener

I think that the net bag is a good idea long-term, and keep net bags of
crushed coral in my filters. The "hardening" and buffering effect of the
crushed coral seems to diminish over time, and this way it can be replaced
periodically.

"ML" wrote in message
. com...
Since the difficulties I have turned it off and started to
get to know my remaining five fish a little more personally
=================
Feeding my fish is second only to plopping in one of my overstuffed wicker
chairs with a cup of coffee and just watching them do their thing.
--
Koi-Lo.... frugal ponding since 1995...
Aquariums since 1952
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
~~~ }((((o ~~~ }{{{{o ~~~ }(((((o

ML wrote,
it appears that I need to change it every once in a while.......

I don't like using crushed coral or crushed oyster shells to raise pH
to a target value less than pH 8.0. In an established tank of fish used
to a pH 6.5, it would raise the pH way to fast, passing your target of
pH 7.0, or whatever. I found that a marble chip or two raises pH much
slower. By slowly adding baking soda over a few days, you can raise
your pH to the target value you want, and then hold it there with a
marble chip, or two placed in your filter's box....

new fish that died.....
established fish that died.....

Most people kill their new fish by osmotic pressure shock (used to be
called pH shock), and I can see how that happens, but that's not what
killed the established fish! An aged tank, low pH (lowered TDS), then a
large water change using water with a high pH (raised TDS) would/could
cause osmotic pressure shock, but you said your tap water has a low pH
(lowered TDS). Not enough difference in TDS to make enough of an
osmotic pressure change to kill fish! ....
Nope, I would stick a marble chip in the filter and look for another
reason as to what killed the fish, being that *both* the new fish *and*
the old fish died. Just adding my 2 cents worth............. Frank