ClownLoachFan

im befuddled, i started a 55 gal comunity tank, and bought some danios and goramis forgeting the fact i have to cycle. thankfully only 3 danios have died out of 1o. anyways, to start things off my pPhis like 5.5, which blew me away.evry time i get it up to like 6.5 or so, the next day its back to the fives. and also my GH/kh are extremely low, like 1-5 DH at tmes. i was wondering if any1 has any solutions to fix the pH and gh/kh. my ammonia levels r pretty high , like 1.5-3. but i think its going down so I'm well in to cycling. iv had it up for a week. thanks

Luniyn

That large of a KH range has me wondering if your test kit is functioning properly. Are you using test strips or a liquid test kit? Your KH should be pretty stable, are you using distilled water or RO water or just plain tap water? In any event even at 5 dh, that's still fairly soft water. If you want to raise both GH and KH, you can add some sea shells, limestone, or coral pieces to your tank which will increase the calcium carbonate levels in the tank. You can also raise your KH without touching the GH by adding sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) to the water. However, this can make your pH rise, so if you do want to try that route don't add it directly to the tank but rather to water in a bucket that you let sit and test before adding it to the tank.

As for the ammonia levels, at your pH there really isn't much of it that is actually toxic to the fish. I would still do water changes to keep it on the low side, but even at 6.5 pH and a total ammonia level of 3 PPM, you only have 0.0054 ppm of toxic ammonia in the tank and it's not harmful to the fish till the 0.02 ppm range. Do note though if you start to mess with the water hardness and up the pH to a higher level the level of toxic ammonia will rise very fast. So be sure to test often and try to make changes as slow as possible.

All that being said, it is possible for fish to get used to a lot of different conditions. And if those fish came from a local pet store using the same tap water, chances are they are used to a low pH already. The key though is a good test kit. If you are using test strips then look into get a liquid test kit from a company like API. It will make all the difference in the world. I've seen people who thought they had a serious problem in their tank because their test strips said one thing, then they bought a liquid test kit and found our their tank was actually perfect. So be sure your tests are correct before you change anything in the tank.