Quarantine pH is 7.0!

[Chihuahua6]

I am using the "tank transfer method" with some new fish, putting them into a new sterile tank every three days. Inbetween I used some Ammo Lock to be sure ammonia wasn't building up. Today I tested the old water and new water before transferring the fish and the water they have been in for the past three days (no ammonia reading on the ammonia badge) is arounf 7.0. I'm just guessing the pH because the test water was yellow instead of a shade of purple. The fish are breathing faster than normal.

Can someone please tell me what has caused this? Is it the Ammo Lock or is there enough ammonia in the water (even with the badge showing it's ok) to lower the pH to this extent?

I am slowly raising the pH of their tank water to the pH of the fresh water before transferring them.

[Chihuahua6]

Well it's 2:20 a and I just got finished taking care of my fish and doing some experimentation. Two important things I discovered.

1. Seachem Ammonia Badge is not accurate. It was reading that I had no ammonia but my ammonia test kit confirmed .25 (or is it 1.25? either way you get the idea.) Not good when you're depending on the badge to alert you.

2. Ammo Lock does indeed lower pH. I did an experiment with fresh water testing the pH before and after adding the product and it lowered it drastically. I believe the Ammo Lock is what caused me to lose several fish that I was treating.

Well that's it for now. I'm so tired but my fish are happily swimming around in clean water with the right pH now : )

[bertoni]

The ammonia test kit might be detecting ammonia bound by the AmmoLock product. That's fairly common. Some test kits can't differentiate between bound ammonia and free ammonia because they alter the pH during the test, and cause the bound ammonia to become unbound.

I believe the Ammonia Badge detects only unbound ammonia, so it'll tell you how well the Ammo Lock is doing.

[disc1]

Originally Posted by Chihuahua6

Can someone please tell me what has caused this? Is it the Ammo Lock or is there enough ammonia in the water (even with the badge showing it's ok) to lower the pH to this extent?

The MSDS for ammolock lists aliphatic amine salts and thiosulfate. Neither of those should have any lowering effect on pH. It's more likely that it interfered with your pH test.