Alkalinity and pH too low

[shrimpy4]

Hi all,

I posted before that after a year my shrimp have never berried in their new 5 gallon tank, when they did in their 1 gallon.

I tested today with some strips and they indicate ammonia, nitrates and nitrites are all good. But both my pH (7.4ish) and Alkalinity (40ish ppm) are too low.

Is anything in the tank causing that (algae, chaeto, aragonite calcium or lava rocks)? I've read not having enough light during the day can cause excess carbon dioxide production by the algae and that lowers pH. I also have my one dwarf hermit who gets a tropical fish food pellet twice a week.

Healthy alkalinity seems to create healthy pH. Any recommendations for buffering the alkalinity in a brackish tank? Add more of the aragonite calcium rocks? Most of my tank is non coral substrate and big lava rocks. I did a saltwater tank calculator that seemed to say .1 tsp of baked (I.e. Oven baked) baking sofa dissolved in distilled water would increase both alkalinity and pH. That's a very small amount, so no real margin of error.

Some tank pics to give an idea of the environment.

[Mustafa]

Are you sure your measurements are correct? How are the shrimp doing? If they act normally I wouldn't change anything. How often do you feed? Is all that white rock calcium carbonate containing rock? If so, that should be more than enough to buffer things.