How to reach PH 6,5 on akadama-soil ?

[Luc]

First I would like to apologize for using the English language , but although I understand quite well most of the messages in German , it's still to hard to pose a clear question in German.So ... English it is.
I have 6 shrimp-tanks , all with akadama soil, osmosewater en Beesalt GH+.The PH in this tanks is a stabil 5,8.
For my tigers and some tibees I would like to increase the ph to 6,5, without using tap water.(tap water is not safe here for shrimps (in Belgium))
I was considering to use Shrimp salt KH+/GH+ instead of only the GH+.
Has anyone experienced if the combination akadama + osmose water + Shrimp salt KH+/GH+ can give me a stabil ph of around 6,5 ?
Feel free to answer in German . I will understand it.

 

[TheYeti]

Hello Luc,

I´ll do my very best to answer in english, using an understandable way. For my opinion there are not so many options for you, because the Akadama Soil was not designed for aquaristic use. Originally it´s a bonsai substrate. So, the water-parameters, generated by the soil are more or less randomized in reference to aquaristic use for shrimp tanks. Under this point of view it is only a fortunate coincidence, that the soil is useable for our needs. The manufacturer does´nt take care anyway, to give a good usability as a shrimp soil to the Akdama.

You can try to raise the KH by using Salty Shrimp GH/KH+, but the Akadama will work against the KH and absorb the KH´s ions. This will be the major problem in going this way, because your water-parameters will change rapidly when you put your freshwater into the tank and will change back to the old, akadama-set parameters step by step. This will happen until the moment the Akadama´s ion-changing capacity is drained.
In remebrance, that the major reason for using active soil is,to bring stability to the water parameters, maybe it´s not a really good idea to exposure the shrimps to changing water-parameters with every waterchange, only to raise the pH.

Than the Akadama will behave like any other passive soil, and you could raise KH to have a pH-buffer for raising the pH. Which pH you´ll get at this moment, will depend on the pH of your osmosis-water, so it is not possible to forecast, which pH you´ll finally get.

Another interestimg question is, why you so urgently want to raise the pH? By my experience a stable pH of 5.8 is not really a problem for shrimps and I could often see, how the acid water was burning on my skin, during cleaning the tank or cutting the plants, without any effects on the shrimps.

You should really balance the reasons, befor you start increasing the KH´s amount using Akadama simultaneously, in front of the risiko to get new and heavier problems for reaching a little advance by a higher pH.

Regards from Himalaya
Yeti

 

[Luc]

Thank you Yeti for your clear answer.
The reason why I want to increase my PH is because I think that it will be hard to breed with my new groups ( Royal blue tigers and two other group of tibees) with a PH below 6. The people of whom I bought these shrimps had them also on OW , but PH 6,5.
Don't you think it will be much harder to keep the youngsters alive with a PH-value below 6 (note that there are already a few females berried , despite the low PH)
I could ofcourse change the soil and use for example a classic tank-soil, but how will I then be able to stabilise the PH around 6,5 and have also good watervalues for KH and GH , for exampe KH 3 and GH 6 ?
What would you advise me to do ?

 

[TheYeti]

Hi,

I´dont think, that there will be a problem to keep the new born shrimps alive. First of all, the adult Shrimps would not start reproduction, if the conditions are to worse for the new generation. Maybe, you have to wait a little bit longer until the moment, the shrimps will start reproduction, because they need a little more time to acclimate.
A second point is, if you ask physicans, veterinaries or biologists, they´ll tell you that many pregnancies are often leading to an spontaneous abort, longtime before they were detected as pregnancy.
This is a natural protection mechanism, to prevent massive disabillities or deformation if there are mutations or errors in the development of an embryo or, in case of the shrimps, larvae, wich are not conformable with biological life.
Knowing this, I think that the little shrimps would not reach the moment of birth and die in their eggs before, if the water parameters were not comfortable to their needs.

For my opinion, a good conditioned environment with stable parameters, and an efficient and balanced biology is more important for success, than a little bit higher pH. So, if I would have to decide, I would try it without greater changes. The chance, that everything will work fine is really good and in case of a failure you can change the setup and try with a higher pH.
But, if you now change the whole setup and there would be a failure, you could not say what has gone wrong, and probably you would have to retry with the actual setup. So I see no sure benefit, if you change everything right now.

At the moment itis really hard to explain losses, but it´s known too, that putting together different groups of shrimps and the whole change giving the them to a new environment can cause the death of some animals. I´could not say, if a too low KH or a too low pH is the reason, or if we see the normal start up problems now..... .
Maybe waiting for some weeks could be an option, to be sure that the start up time is already over, and actual problems have different reasons.

Regards from Himalaya
Yeti

 

[Luc]

Thanks Yeti ,

I'll do as you say : wait and see what happens when the shrimplets are born. If it turns out alright , I'll leave everything as it is.
However if it turns out to be a failure , I make changes for the next pregnancy.

greetings ,

Luc