[jellopuddinpop]

I’ve got a dumb question, and I’m hoping you can all help. I’ve been running high tech tanks for a while now, and this is something I should know by now. However, this is the first time using Seiryu Stone, and that’s throwing me for a loop.

My newest tank setup (journal in the works) has an incredible amount of Sieryu Stone in it. This raises the hardness and ph of the tank water as the week goes on. I’m trying to dial in my CO2 right now, and I don’t know what I should be using as a baseline to determine my ph drop. Am I supposed to be using degassed tap water, or degassed tank water? If it’s degassed tap water, then I’m fine. If it’s degassed tank water, then I’m literally going to have to do it every day while I tweak the CO2.

The ph I measured 1 day after I set up the tank was 7.6, so I set my CO2 ph goal to 6.6. The first few days were fine, but then I started noticing the ph was going up day over day, without decreasing the CO2. I went and turned the CO2 up a bit, and got back to 6.6. Rinse and repeat for a couple of days, and just yesterday my fish were gasping at the surface, getting gassed. I managed to do a really quick water change and saved everyone, but now I don’t know what I’m going to work towards for my ph goal to let me know how much CO2 I have.

Do I really need to degass a glass of tank water every day, and use that to dial in the CO2?

 

[sbo80]

you're thinking too hard and it doesn't need to be that specific. And you will never get it right either. I'm shortly going to be tearing down much of my hardscape to rip out what was almost 50lbs of sieryu out of a 120gal. That stuff is a nightmare, my pH has slowly, over about 9 months, gone up about 1.5. My degassed pH is about 9.0 (we have pretty hard tap water to start). I've been running the CO2 24/7 just to keep the pH around 7.8 (and I know it's a catch-22, that's only making it worse). But my hardness is so insanely high now, seriously like 15+, if I change out with 25gal of RO water, it might drop the pH 0.1. I run a pH meter/probe so I can track it pretty close. I'd never recommend sieryu in anything but a low-tech, or a tank that's small enough you can do huge water changes all the time. Maybe if your tap is already sub-7.0 it would work great.