pH Battle
The 5 gallon bucket and one of the tanks, the tank to the left, are doing just fine, just like they are supposed to do. All three containers are really growing fine, but one tank's pH is flucuating too much.
I get home daily, and the bucket and the tank to the left have a pH of 6.4 to 6.7, which is normal to me. As the plants eat, the pH is going to go up. I add a gallon of water, 1/6 packet of nutes, and reduce the pH to close to 6.0 as daily maintenance.
But the tank to the right, I find it at 7.4 to 7.8 daily. That is not normal to go from 6.0 to 7.4 in one day. And I know somethign is wrong to find it at 7.8. I reduce it to 6.0 in two steps, one adjustment in the morning, another adjustment in the evening. Adjustments from 7.8 to 6.0 in one step are too drastic and not as safe. In an emrgency, ocasionally, it is OK, but not daily, everyday.
I was able to ask the BubbleHeads on Rollitup if they had any ideas or suggestions and a good friend named Mostly Crazy asked me about my airstones, something I did not think about. He suggested the possiblity that the airstones are holding embedded trash. He reasoend the water pump and hub were out of the tank, there was no dead debris in the tank, and it had to be something causing the pH spikes. So two days ago, I stopped at Walmart and bought two new 12 inch airstones for that tank. I brought them home, and soaked them in 4.0 water for an hour. I drained the tank, and refilled it 4 times with plain water, draining it again after each re-fill. I really rinsed the tank clean.
I cut 3 or 4 inches of the bottoms of the root off. The root ball was gigantic and may of being harboring trash. I added my nutes, one and 1/6 packet of BLOOM nutes, one packet of Micro nutes, and with my water at 100 ppm, it made my tank a ppm of 1000. That was Thursday evening, and when the dark period began, the pH of that tank was 5.8. I got up this morning and the tank was 6.2. When I got home this evening, it was 6.4 and a gallon and a 1/4 of water was gone.
If you are battling drastic pH fluctuations, something is causing it that you can do something about. Sometimes a drain and Replinish really needs a complete draining and cleaning of the bottom of the tank. I would rather get it clean, than to resort to buying one of the additives like SM-90 or Hygrozyme that balances dead debris in the tank.