Video:How to Track and Manage Aquarium pH Levels

Transcript:How to Track and Manage Aquarium pH Levels

Hi, I am Dan Thornton from Reef Encounters in Erie, Colorado and I am here today for About.com to discuss about how to track and manage aquarium pH levels.

Keep a Record of the Aquarium's pH Level

It's a good idea to have a little booklet or some sort of chart to track all of your aquarium water quality measurements. Every time you test for pH you should write it down. Whether it is monthly, or weekly, keep track & watch, if it starts to slowly go down, or go up, you may need to look into what is causing that. If it is staying the same, you have a pretty good idea that you are doing okay, as far as pH is concerned.

Manage pH with Regular Water Changes

If you are managing your pH levels, the easiest thing to do is do water changes on a regular basis. If you move across town, or across state, or across country, they might have a different pH then what you had, and you may have to slowly acclimate them to that pH, if you bring them with you.

Methods to Change the pH Level in an Aquarium

If you are trying to change your pH from what it is, depending on whether you are lowering it, or raising it, you are going to use different methods. To lower your pH , you can use Peat in your filter, that's a great method. As the peat decomposes, it adds acid to the water. Adding plants and driftwood will help a little bit.

To raise the pH, it's pretty easy. Changing the substrate from something like aquarium gravel, to something more for salt water, like eragonite, or crushed up oyster shells, crushed coral, all of those things release molecules into the water that help to raise the pH and keep it at a higher level. It's much more challenging to lower your pH and keep it low, then to raise your pH and keep it high. 

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