New to the group

[Brittanymurphy8630]

Hi! I'm new to the group. Just had to introduce myself and my axie. I have a 10 month old axie named Calypso. I believe it to be a girl but not sure. She has recently been acting weird. Normally she is outside her hide and very active. Loves to eat and is very sassy. Swims alot back and forth when I come up to the tank. Plays "tag" with my hand kind of. I believe she might have ammonia poisoning due to ph being too high. I have her tubbed with daily water changes for now and I am in the process of removing the sand I have in the tank because I think it is what is making the tank ph so high. I got the tank used and the sand was used as well. I have no idea what kind of sand it is or what was in it before. I realize this was a rookie mistake. She has been sick off and on ever since I have set the tank up. The tank is cycled fully. The ammonia is at 0ppm, nitrite is at 0ppm, nitrates are at 5ppm and ph is over 7.6 off the chart dark blue and the high range is 8.6ppm. Way too high I believe. I've had others tell me it's fine but I think not. She is throwing up and hiding and being apathic. All signs of ammonia poisoning. What do you guys think? Here is a picture of my chonk girl for attention.

 

[wolfen]

Hi! I'm new to the group. Just had to introduce myself and my axie. I have a 10 month old axie named Calypso. I believe it to be a girl but not sure. She has recently been acting weird. Normally she is outside her hide and very active. Loves to eat and is very sassy. Swims alot back and forth when I come up to the tank. Plays "tag" with my hand kind of. I believe she might have ammonia poisoning due to ph being too high. I have her tubbed with daily water changes for now and I am in the process of removing the sand I have in the tank because I think it is what is making the tank ph so high. I got the tank used and the sand was used as well. I have no idea what kind of sand it is or what was in it before. I realize this was a rookie mistake. She has been sick off and on ever since I have set the tank up. The tank is cycled fully. The ammonia is at 0ppm, nitrite is at 0ppm, nitrates are at 5ppm and ph is over 7.6 off the chart dark blue and the high range is 8.6ppm. Way too high I believe. I've had others tell me it's fine but I think not. She is throwing up and hiding and being apathic. All signs of ammonia poisoning. What do you guys think? Here is a picture of my chonk girl for attention.

what's the tap water ph?,
get some sand out and put it in a container with boiling water and stir it up, let the water/sand get cold and test the ph.
if ammonia is zero then its not ammonia, have you been stirring the sand up when you clean the tank as it could be that she has been routing through the sand and get a mouthful of bad bacteria/muck/gas (that's the problem with black sand you can't see the bad patches.)
have you been using any chemicals in the water ie.. bicarb etc.
whilst the ph is high then you only need to test with the high range, think of the ph tests as low and high, 6 - 7.6 = low 7.4 - 8.8 = high making a combined range of 6 - 8.8.

 

[Brittanymurphy8630]

what's the tap water ph?,
get some sand out and put it in a container with boiling water and stir it up, let the water/sand get cold and test the ph.
if ammonia is zero then its not ammonia, have you been stirring the sand up when you clean the tank as it could be that she has been routing through the sand and get a mouthful of bad bacteria/muck/gas (that's the problem with black sand you can't see the bad patches.)
have you been using any chemicals in the water ie.. bicarb etc.
whilst the ph is high then you only need to test with the high range, think of the ph tests as low and high, 6 - 7.6 = low 7.4 - 8.8 = high making a combined range of 6 - 8.8.

I haven't tested the ph out of the tap yet. But yes she could have

what's the tap water ph?,
get some sand out and put it in a container with boiling water and stir it up, let the water/sand get cold and test the ph.
if ammonia is zero then its not ammonia, have you been stirring the sand up when you clean the tank as it could be that she has been routing through the sand and get a mouthful of bad bacteria/muck/gas (that's the problem with black sand you can't see the bad patches.)
have you been using any chemicals in the water ie.. bicarb etc.
whilst the ph is high then you only need to test with the high range, think of the ph tests as low and high, 6 - 7.6 = low 7.4 - 8.8 = high making a combined range of 6 - 8.8.

 

[Brittanymurphy8630]

My base test for ph out of my tap is same as my tank pretty much. Im already in the process of changing out the sand. So its happening and im changing the water too. A big water change. I bought a java fern as well to plant in the tank to help. I just don't know what to do about the ph though bc it has always been high like this since i set the the tank up. Its high staright out the tap. Uuugh. My high range ph is high as well its 8.6. idk what do you think it looks like in the picture? It kind of looks like 7.6 to me out of the tap in the picture now looking at it closely.

 

[wolfen]

test the tap water with high range ph

 

[Brittanymurphy8630]

test the tap water with high range ph

Oh! I'll do that too. But I just got done setting my tank back up and my high range went down where it should be but my regular ph is still at 7.6 and higher. Didn't really change and I did a 75% water change. I haven't tested any of the other parameters yet. I will in a little bit though. I'm taking a break to eat dinner and smoke a well deserved joint. I'll report back when thise two things are finished.