I am having a hard time maintaining the proper pH level in my aquarium. It is constantly low. I add pH up daily but when I test it, it always go back to a low reading. So I guess the question is…what actually causes the pH to go so low?
The low pH is caused by fish wastes. What kind of filtering setup do you have? Many home aquariums are over-stocked and under-filtered. A correctly setup aquarium shouldn’t need chemicals like pHup to maintain a proper pH. Don’t forget that filtering is both a chemical and a physical process and one of the important things a filter does is provide an environment for the beneficial bacteria that should do the majority of the chemical filtering. You probaly need to rethink your filtering setup or lower the number of fish you have. You could also try using the more expensive, but more effective filter media like CHEMI-PURE.