pH and stuff on water surface

Question
Hello,
I recently set up a 20 gallon tank. Right now. I only have 2 tadpoles and 2 corydoras. I have a Fluval 404 canister filter on the tank with the water flow set to medium. The problem I'm having is that te water pH keeps climbing back up to 7.4 or above and I have to lower it on a daily basis. The other problem is that the surface of the water keeps forming bubbles and what my husband said was protein. The gravel is from the petstore and meant for both fresh and saltwater. All of the decorations are artificial. Please tell me how to fix these problems because I don't want to ad any real fish until I do. Thank you
Irene Chondropoulos
Reno, NV

Answer
Hi Irene;

I'm so happy to see you are taking it slow! I usually don't hear from new hobbyists until there is a serious crisis. Which means.......your tank is actually doing okay. The tadpoles and cory cats are alive and hopefully doing well. That's a good thing in a new tank. Don't add "real fish" yet though. It needs to finish breaking in. I will include a link to my article on new tanks at the end of this letter as well as other links to help you through beginning fishkeeping.

Don't mess with the pH. A stable pH of any value between 6.5 and 8.0 is just fine. Altering it with chemicals causes fluctuations that are much more stressful to fish than  what we perceive to be a "good" pH. As your tank ages it will stay a bit lower anyway. Even if the fish you choose to keep are supposed to prefer a certain pH, they will get used to your tank's pH just fine. The fish we keep in our tanks now have been born and raised in artificial ponds for generations anyway. They have never experienced their "natural environment" so it's just fine that they are in different conditions. They can't read fish profiles to know what they are supposed to like, so don't worry about them. ;-) Breeders of fish have even shown that most fish can be bred in many different water chemistry conditions, not just what they are supposed to prefer.

The bubbles you are seeing are probably from ammonia or nitrite buildup. It happens in tanks trying to get through the break-in period. Once the tank stabilizes it will disappear. It would be helpful to your fish and tads if you make a 25% water change every other day for a week or so. Ammonia and nitrite burn them so partial changes will help them feel less uncomfortable while this passes without disturbing the break-in. You could even buy test kits for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate to watch it's progression.

Here are some links to check out;

http://www.xanga.com/Expert_Fish_Help
http://fins.actwin.com/mirror/begin.html
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/charts/good_bad.html
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/community.html
http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/beginnerinfo/a/fishcalc.htm
http://tinyurl.com/kuwoz
http://www.fishinthe.net/html/section-viewarticle-23.html
http://www.firsttankguide.net/

Let me know if you need more info.......

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins