advice on what to use to keep my ph steady and not crash my tank using RODI and RO Ri

[vendingman]

I live in aurora illinois where my tap perimeters are 9.2 PH, 200+ Tds and 8GH with trace chlormines. My display and community tank are operating fime with this water in a 155 heavily stocked with 5 gallons of fluval bio cylinders in my 29 gallon sump and and a tank heavily stocked with driftwood. My problem is i have a few 29 gallon breeder tanks set up with pairs where i have been using RODI water resulting in a 6.0 ph, 0 Tds. To keep my TDS at 80 or lower, i have been using RO Right, a trace of my tap and the RO water. I can get 80 TDS and a 6.4 ph. But after just a day my PH crashes to the point i think my BIO dies off and the tank loses its cycle and needs to be started all over again. And of course and losing all of my fry and have to put the pairs back into the community tank till the recycle completes again.

So my question im seeking help and advice for is.....is there anything on the market that will raise and maintain my .ph levels and not craah mybtank?

[Kyla]

i have low kh and was experiencing ph crashes. i added a very small baggie of rinsed aragonite to each tank. the aragonite helps keep the kh at 4ish and the ph is now stable. i have never had to replace it. i like using aragonite because it doesnt involve additives for each wc.

if u try this, dont add too much aragonite at once. start off with a couple table spoons and test the water for a couple days and then work ur way up to the desired levels.

[Kyla]

u might want to pick up an api gh/kh test kit to see what the kh is, esp if u r playing with the parameters.

[DJW]

i have low kh and was experiencing ph crashes. i added a very small baggie of rinsed aragonite to each tank. the aragonite helps keep the kh at 4ish and the ph is now stable. i have never had to replace it. i like using aragonite because it doesnt involve additives for each wc.

if u try this, dont add too much aragonite at once. start off with a couple table spoons and test the water for a couple days and then work ur way up to the desired levels.

Kyla, how long was it taking for your tank to have the pH crashes? I'm surprised that vendingman is seeing a crash in just one day, and with only two discus in a 29 gallon tank.

Dan

[Kyla]

Kyla, how long was it taking for your tank to have the pH crashes? I'm surprised that vendingman is seeing a crash in just one day, and with only two discus in a 29 gallon tank.

Dan

my 210gal tank took maybe a week to crash after a big wc, but the 66gal i take care of at my workplace would crash in a day - i could do a 75% wc one day and by the next day the ph would drop from 7s so low i couldnt measure it with the api kit. tap water was coming out with kh 3-4, and by the next day it was 0. it took only like half a cup of aragonite in the 66 gal to hold the ph steady at 7.4. i just put a tiny baggie of it in the HOB filter and ive never had to replace it.

[pitdogg2]

have you tried a 50-50 or 60-40 mix of RO to tap? It seems your water doing what you are doing is not buffered enough and your not noticing it as much in the larger tank because it is larger volume of water. Many up there in that area raise Discus very well with straight tap in the upper 8.6 and above but the key is water STABILITY which your not getting or so it seems.

I have been very successful using straight tap aged 24 hrs. Comes out of the tap at 8.5-6ish settles down to 7.6-8ish after 24 hours. doing daily 70% water changes my Discus lay all the time get wiggler and free swimmers often but other tetras in the tank pick them off one by one which I'm ok with as I don't plan on selling but the fact of the matter is that they hatch and grow in straight tap.

[Jack L]

When I used straight ro i used seachem products to add back and it was fine

Now I add back tap water to it and that is also fine