CRS dying! :/ (UPDATE : PH/CO2?Hardness??????)

[IvanSanchez]

My parameters are clear.
Ammo - 0
Nitrates - 0
Nitrites 0
PH - 6.8 - 7.2

I also got an airpump for the nights since i upped the yeast dosage on the diy co2. So it's on when lights are out.

Could it be something in the water?
I gotta admit, I did do a 120ish% WC three days ago. I did 50%'s and refilled and did it again to clean all the gravel. Could this be the reason?
I tried compensating with dosing StressZyme everyday.

I don't know what it could be! And i'm not liking going to the tank and seeing another CRS being eaten by my RCS D:

[Mzungu]

What kind of filtration do you have on the tank? How many gallons?

Have they been dying since you upped the CO2? Could that be the correlation?

What else do you have in the tank? What kind of substrate? How often do you do water changes, and what's the normal percentage?

[Sea-agg09]

I would cut out the DIY CO2 and go with flourish excell. DIY CO2 systems cause huge fluctuations in pH, which might be the problem. Flourish excell will help your plants without cause the ph swings.

Test your water in the morning, mid-day, and at night, and see if the pH is changing.

[IvanSanchez]

10 gallon. Its an aquaclear 20 set on full with water bottle on the return for less agitation(sponge, biomax and bonded filter pad + sponge on intake) also co2 is dispersed via mini elite filter which serves as mech/bio with the sponge inside. Bacteria is plentiful

CRS and RSC only tank. Substrate is FloraMax with peat underneath.

WC's every thursday or friday. one 2.5Gallon bucket water change with Amquel+(I add 50% more on macro dosage after every WC)

I have noticed one death due to co2 increase but on the following day turned on the air pump everyday at night.

I would like to go flourish excel but i it's not co2 at all. I only use excel for spot dosing BBA or green spot.
Plus co2 is a benifit for stargrass, fissidens, hairgrass, java moss and riccia.
Also, i'm dosing dry ferts every morning before lights are on. macros and micro EI dosage.

PH does fluctuate from 6.4-70.2 I don't know if that could be the problem but i'd hate to get rid of my co2. Only way i'd okay would be RO water and excel. But my wallet isn't ready for a RO just yet.


I will Check for PH levels all day tomorrow Morning, mid-day, night and 3 hours after lights out. (Lights are only on 7-10Hours... varies)

[nacra99]

pH fluctuations between 6.4 and 7.2 are huge!!!
remember pH is measured on a log scale. i.e 1 pH point increase is a 10 times increase in acidity.

IMHO if you want to inject CO2, use a pH controller with a regulator. DIY yeast setups are extremely unpredictable. Especially for a small tank like a 10 gal.
Dosing Flourish Excel is much better and more stable. Although not as good as direct CO2 injection, you won't end up with dead shrimp.

[IvanSanchez]

I figured it would be bad =/
The only time it makes a huge jump in levels is when I don't keep up with changing the bottles out.

Yesterday I checked PH levels and they were constant at 6.8.
Would a regulator be a bit more stable?

[5thwardboy]

IMO you add too many chemicals in a 10 gal and too much wc. CRS are very sensitive to change in water parameters. My suggestion is ditch substrate and go with ADA substrate. This will lower your PH, and have all the ingredients to grow your plants. Hope this help. Good luck.

[IvanSanchez]

I am thinking of going ada substrate but the shrimp wont be in the 10 for long. I'm gonna buy a 20L soon(my pea puffer's 10gallon tank is leaking so the current shrimp 10G will be it's new home.) I'm hoping for less water fluctuations. I am gonna buy a paintball co2 system when i buy the 20L and it'll be set somewhat low.
Maybe i'll just go low-tech and just go straight up moss+floating plants for the shrimp. Still thinking it through. Thanks for the input guys.
So far no dead shrimp from what i can tell.

Oh! And if someone would love to explain the different aspects between PH/Hardness/CO2 and how they all play a roll together.
I read that fish could careless about PH levels but hardness is a different story. And does co2 lower my hardness as well as PH?
Enlighten me :)

[IvanSanchez]

Oh yeah Still dosing dry ferts. Macros - 1,3,5,7 Micros - 2,4,6(#'s mean days of the week)
Gonna WC only 20% on thursday. Added enough guppy grass to cover the top for shrimp pleasure. And lowering co2 tomorrow morning.

Feeding NLS and blanched veggies whenever I feel like it.

[Sea-agg09]

Fluval makes a CO2 unit that uses the small canisters. You can get everything for under $100, and it would be well worth the investment. I would definately continue to use the dry fert mixes.

This chart linked below is the conversion between dissolved CO2, hardness, and pH.
THE CO2 CHART

Basically... the minerals (aka hardness) act as a natural pH buffer for water. So the more minerals in the water (aka harder water), the more CO2 is needed to drop the pH to a given level.

As the chart shows, it takes 450 PpM of CO2 to drop the pH of water to 6.0 if the hardness is 15.0. It would only take 15 PpM of CO2 to drop the same amount of water to 6.0 if the hardness of water is 0.5.

You can imagine as plants use up CO2, the pH of the softer water will fluctuate a great deal. If the water is more hard, plants can use up the same amount of CO2 without affecting the pH of the water.

I use a small amount of peat in my filter to lower the hardness and pH of my water, but my tank is a 75 gallon tank, and the peat doesn't put a huge dent into the overall chemistry of the tank. It more off-sets the chemistry of water changes when I use tap water.

Hope this helps...