I've been keeping fish for over twenty years now and have been around them for nearly thirty. I had a reminder the beginning of this week that no matter how much you know you never know enough. And just because you know a whole lot about something doesn't put you above making mistakes.

I have silica sand, which is an excellent Ph buffer, in most of my aquariums. My Ph in all of my aquariums is always around neutral to slightly alkaline, temp's fine, haven't had any Ammonia in decades, basically everything's running smoothly so I never even bother testing my water for anything. Recently I had to move my baby Flowerhorns out of their aquarium and into my one 55 gallon. This tank also happens to be the only aquarium I have that is bare bottom. Anyway, I noticed on Tuesday that my previously perky little Flowerhorns were just sort of hanging in the corner of their new tank looking miserable. I figured they were just adjusting and they'd be fine. Next day, they're now hiding up behind the overhang of the power filter looking more miserable than ever and won't even come out to eat. The stupid Oscar and Catfish and all the other Cichlids on the other side of the divider seem fine so I figure the Flowerhorns will come around and be okay in a few days. Then, just out of curiosity, I decide to test the Ph of this tank. I'd just done a water change on the tank the day before so I figured it couldn't be any water quality issues. It turns out the Ph in that tank was only about 5.5! No wonder my poor little Flowerhorns were miserable. I went out and grabbed a bag of crushed coral gravel and dumped it in there and did a 50percent water change to bring the Ph back to neutral. For the past two days now I've been testing the Ph in there and it seems to be stable at around 7.2. Lesson's been learned. The first thing to do at any sign of a problem is TEST YOUR WATER. Even if you're perfect you can still screw up.

a good wake up call for everyone, thanks katt! So the water from the tap came out with PH of 5.5??

No, my tap water is neutral to slightly alkaline. But with that aquarium not having any sand or gravel there was nothing to buffer the Ph. It dropped nearly two points over night. Luckily everybody seems fine since I got the Ph to stay up where it should be. The little Flowerhorns are eating again, chasing each other around, and tag teaming the juvenile Blue Acara that jumped over the divider onto their side.

every time theres an issue inthe water fish are looking to jump out off the tank literally if the temp ,ph or amo stress builds up i just lost one the water in the tank got hot and the fish jumped out