# Does ammonia raise or lower ph?HELP!



## ledfootz28

Hi all.I have a 75 gall fish tank with just a red belly,parrot fish and a spotted catfish.im having a real hard time with the water :sad:

first off my ammonia is sky high and my ph is low.i dont have much gravel so that dirt get filtered and dont sit..just enough gravel to cover the bottom.i have a few pieces of drift wood,an emperor dual filter and a 350 magun filter and circ pump.

i used alot of ammo lock and did a few water changes to try and battle the ammonia this week.i was wondering if high ammonia can lower the ph bc my ph is sadly in the high 4's low 5's..f'n rediculous.

ive been doing about 20% water changes once a month but lately ive been doing them more often bc of the water conditions.

heres my questions:
how many cubes of food(frozen plankton or whatever) would u feed every day.i was doing 2 cubes but now im only doin one for amm reasons.

how often should a h20 change be done on a 75 gal


----------



## emc7

I would have said once a week, but looking at your list of big-eating, messy fish which I'm assuming aren't small, I'd say twice or 3 times a week,whatever it takes to get the water quality. If you only do once a week, you may need to do a huge one, like 75%. 

Yes, over-feeding/under-waterchanging can drop definitely your pH. This is what is meant by "the tanked crashed". The nitrate levels creep up and up until the "buffering capacity" of the water is exhausted and the pH drops overnight. Usually I see this with high nitrate levels rather than ammonia as ammonia in an established tank should always be 0. That you have any ammonia is cause for concern. You may need to clean a filter or gravel-wash whatever gravel you have. I would advise you cut back on feeding, not necessarily forever, but until your ammonia/nitrite/nitrate/pH is under control. Go back to basics, treat it like a new tank, watch you levels and change as much water as you need to to get things back on track.


----------



## ledfootz28

well i just did a 75% water change and added stress coat and conditioner accordingly.i got the ph to the high 5's and the majority of the ammonia should be out.

does ammonia lower ph though?>


----------



## aspects

dissolved solids can lower your PH.


----------



## emc7

Not sure on this one. Household ammonia is basic, caustic. You don't mix it with toliet-bowl cleaner (phosphoric acid). Ammonia gas in water makes ammonium hydroxide. Extra hydroxide in water is basic, not acidic. But when you add "detoxifiers" like Prime or ammo-lock, I think they control the ammonia's toxicity by "compexing it" and I don't know what that does to pH. The only ingredient in ammo-lock disclosed is sodium thiosulfate pentahydrate. 

I do know that both nitrite (NO2-) and nitrate (NO3-) are acidic. You really should be testing for all three.

Water changes are a straight concentration math. Ammonia conc. before x fraction of old water = ammonia conc. after. Your ammonia should be reduced by 75% with a 75% water change.


----------



## jones57742

lf:

The following answers the question/title of your thread.



emc7 said:


> ammonia is basic, ....


ie. ammonia raises Ph.

TR


----------



## TheOldSalt

Ammonia does not lower pH, but the process of turning it into nitrite and nitrate does lower the pH quite a bit.

The low pH is, actually in reverse, the reason your ammonia is so high. The bacteria which convert ammonia can't do it if the pH is as low as yours, so the ammonia you create can't get eliminated.

You really need to get that pH up where it belongs, and do it slowly enough to not hurt the fish.


----------



## ledfootz28

wow good posts guys.really appreciate it.ive been battling insane low ph and high ammonia and now it makes sense..having a low ph i cant get rid of the ammonia(i think thats right).

after the 75% water change last night i got my ph up to 5.6
im going to bring a sample of my tank water and tap water to the aquarium store today to get a full test done including the nitrites and nitrates.

emc7 you said its simple math in terms of 2 quantities of water that have ammonia but does the same work with ph.like if you have 25% of water with a 4 ph and add 75% of water with a 6.7 ph is that why my ph right now is 5.6

im def going to cut the feeding down to maybe 1 frozen cube for a while until im on a good water change schedule..it just sucks when u have a red belly catfish and parrotfish..they need food and not some algae wafers lol.


----------



## emc7

No, pH is a log scale. So the math is all off. You need an equation like 10^(.25*log(3.9)+.75*log(6.7))=5.8. That you got 5.6 instead of 5.8 means there is still something pulling your pH down further. Looks like more/bigger water changes for you. 

Ammonia is straight math is you started with 4ppm, you'd have 1 ppm after a 75% change.


----------



## ledfootz28

i cant keep doing 75% water changes and having no results.what could possibly be pulling the ph down if all the drift wood is out..no plants are in there and i have a fully working dual emperor and magnum filter.i just dont get how the water ph or even ammonia can get so out of wack with good filtration..its redicilous.

i heard stabalizing ph is hard and ph rebound happens alot..so what do you do if it just keeps rebounding low..how do you have fix it unless u take every drop of water out of the tank


----------



## ledfootz28

you would think that all that filtration would buffer the water to a normal ph 

if my biological bacteria is toast from the ph then i could replace all the filters at once and im not messin anything up lol right.

i think im goin to service the magnum today.


----------



## jones57742

ledfootz28 said:


> emc7 you said its simple math in terms of 2 quantities of water that have ammonia but does the same work with ph.like if you have 25% of water with a 4 ph and add 75% of water with a 6.7 ph is that why my ph right now is 5.6 ....


lf:

Not exactly.

Ph values are logarithmic whereas ammonia concentration values are linear.

The following is approximate only.

Ph indicates the concentration of H+ ions in the water, ie. a concentration of 10^-14 yields a Ph of 14.

Something like battery acid has a very,very low Ph; a high concentration of H+ ions and hence burns the skin due to the quantity of H+ combining with the basic portions of the skin.

Assume a 10G tank with a Ph of 5.

A one gallon water change with RO/DI water yields a Ph of approximately 5.9.

TR


----------



## emc7

filtering doesn't ever buffer, it justs moves ammonia to nitrate. Regular water changes take out nitrate, skip them and it builds up and up.

You are right, if your bacteria is toast, you can service the filters and be no worse off. 

I have been known to take every drop of water out of tank. It really is the easiest way to get to 0 nitrate. The trick then is acclimating your fish back to the clean water slowly enough to be safe for them.


----------



## ron v

What kind of test kit did you use to find a PH of 4 or 5? Most kits will only measure down to 6.0.


----------



## ledfootz28

so what should i battle first the ph or ammonia.if my ph is low then battling the ammonia is pointless.i just tested the ph and it dropped to 5


----------



## ron v

Ledfoot, I suppect that your problem is soft water. I didn't read through all the posts in this thread, so someone may have already said that. I would suggest getting a test kit that will test for PH, GH, KH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. I think EMC had good advise. You need to dump your aquarium and start with fresh water. Move your fish into a bucket and change all the water. One place I would differ with EMC tho is with the acclimation process. A slow acclimation may kill your fish. The water in the bucket has a high concentration of ammonia and a very low PH. Ammonia is not toxic at a low PH but as you slowly add new water the PH starts coming up and at a high PH ammonia becomes deadly. I would recommend netting the fish from the bucket and place them directly into the new aquarium. The chance of Ph shock is much less than the ammonia poisioning that would occur in the bucket.


----------



## ledfootz28

thats interesting how ammonia isnt harmful with low ph thats why its not having an effect on the fish.so by adding ammo lock accordingly to my huge water change yesterday what only put me at square one?? since turning ammonia to nitrate lowers ph lol??

im starting to think just fill the tank up and add that 7.5 buffer crap to the whole tank


----------



## ledfootz28

ok i just got back from big als aquarium in east norriton.i bought ammo chips that i put in my emperor and did a half and half of carbon and ammo chips in my magnum.the guy there said the ammo chips should remove all the amonia once cycled through.he said the ammo lock is basically pointless it doesnt remove ammonia he said it just masks it on the test.

he tested my tap water and said it was good and he tested my tank water which had high ammonia like i said and low ph.the nitrite and nitrate werent bad though he said.the lowest ph number on his test was 6 and thats what showed up.if the ph was 4 it would still show up as a 6 on the color chart according to API so the ph test there really didnt do anything for me.

i talked to him about feeding and he said to just use 1 cube every other day.i used to use 2 cubes a day  now i know atleast and hopefully within the next month i can bounce this tank back.i ll be doing a 10 gal water change weekly for a while.

i also got this product called PRIME which is super concentrated and removes all the bad stuff and even makes a slime coat on the fish..so i basically dont even need stress coat anymore..it seems this prime does it all.im not going to be adding any buffers or additives besides the prime and stress zyme and hopefully i can get some good biologically guys living.i appreciate the help and i ll keep ya updated.


----------



## ron v

Call your pet shop and ask if they have a product called Stability by Seachem? If so... get some and some baking soda and non-iodized salt and come back to this forum. We can help you get that tank cycled in a week. Forget the prime and stess zyme and all that stuff.


----------



## emc7

lol, I bet Prime and ammo-lock have the same active ingredient. Everyone has their own favorites Both "detoxify" ammonia rather than take it out of the tank, supposedly leaving available to the filter to turn to nitrate. The problem with ammo-carb taking it all out is that filter's need some ammonia to cycle. It will help you short-term, but if your tank doesn't "cycle" you are in for more large water changes. I do like Prime.

If you think you are getting good advice and he will keep testing your water, it makes sense to do as he says. Hopefully the stress-zyme will do the job and 'cycle' the tank.

That your nitrates aren't sky-high shoots down my first theory of why your pH is low. If your pH is low because your water is soft, you will probably find you need to add some "buffering capacity" to get it to stay up.


----------



## TheOldSalt

What is the pH of the water coming out of your faucet?
I'm betting it's very low, too, resulting in your water changes not raising the pH, since otherwise it really should have.


----------



## ledfootz28

the ph coming out of my tap is about 7.1
i live in the suburbs outside of philly and the water isnt bad.there is not water softener in my house either and like i said the guy at the fish store said my tap is fine.i was reading the description of that product ron suggested called stabalize and what is is it benificial bacteria that will live in even bad ph condtions..unlike other products.im going to see if my local pet shop has it and if not order it offline.the prime and stress zyme along with the ammo chips should hopefully get my tank cycling and remove the ammonia this week.(for a 75 gal how long should it take to "cycle"

once i get the ammonia out i ll start battling the ph if i have to.i dont want to put anything like buffers in the tank just yet.

I found this link that you guys should check out..its pretty much my problem to the T.
http://www.bestfish.com/oldtank.html


----------



## ledfootz28

i just picked up a bottle of that stabalize and added it accordingly.i think it will really help get my tank back on track with some good biofilter


----------

