saldayan1

hey, ok so im trying the salt treatment (from the sticky) because i think i might have ich... so far ive put 5 teaspoons of salt into the tank(throughout a few hours of course) but my PH level went from 7.5 to about 6 by the morning for some reason! my PH test comes with a solution to raise PH level so i put as many drops as necessary for my tank and im still low after a few hours . do you think i should do a quick water change to get the salt out, and then just go buy the meds instead? or continue adding salt slowly?
tank stats:
36 G bow front
1 large, 1 small green terror,
1 medium, 1 small flower horn,
1 pearl fish
2 red devils
1 med. cat fish
<1 large red parrot who's been moved into a separate 10g "ER" tank cause he doesnt look too good these days >

thanks for the help.

Jay

Hi saldayan1

I have a few thoughts...

Is the salt you are using table salt ("NaCl") or something else?

A drop in pH from 7.5 to 6 is a big drop, IME the addition of NaCl for the treatment of Ich has little or no effect on pH so I would look elsewhere for the problem. A drop like that indicates that an "acid" of some type has overwhelmed your buffer. The addition of a pH altering chemical has now further mucked up the picture.

Can you give us a complete set of tank parameters. pH GH KH Nitrates Nitrites
Ammonia, Phosphates?

What test kit are you using?

What are the parameters of your tap water?

Jay

phatbak

I finally got my 55g tank up to 1 tsp per gallon last night by using the Top Fin water conditioning salt for freshwater. I noticed a couple white spots on one of my blue female bettas, so I figured I'd do the saltwater treatment from the sticky and followed Jay's procedure word-for-word.

I always get my Ph down to 7.0 at every water change, and it goes back to 7.2.-7.3 by the next day. This time after the salt it did the same thing and went to 7.2. So it looks like I'm doing everything right. :thumbsup:

Jay

That's OK but I have no Idea what Top Fin water conditioning salt is, or what it contains, or what the mix ratio needs to be .

I would use "table salt" good old NaCl for Ich treatment.

Jay