Dying Fish

[Prime Ordeal]

As others have already said, there is no need to add any pH control to your water. The tap water pH for most fish would be just fine. The problem with adjusting pH is that it will start to vary with time and as the chemicals you use get used up the pH will drift around. If you have a natural tap water pH anywhere from about 6.5 to 8.0, most fish will be just fine. One piece of bad information that you had is that pH indicates hardness. It does not. PH only indicates whether the water is acidic, basic or neutral (an excess of H+ or of OH- ions). Hardness is a measure of the concentration of calcium and magnesium ions in the water and, since those chemicals are often present in water that has passed through a lot of rock, pH is a secondary way of judging hardness. Unfortunately, hard water can have almost any pH but people react to pH as if it indicated hardness. Tank water being held at 7.0 by adding chemical buffers may be very hard or very soft before you add the buffer but is undoubtedly higher in mineral content after the buffer is added. In general, fish reputed to prefer soft water really prefer water low in minerals and fish that like hard water really doing better with high mineral content water.
It sounds like you may have cured your original problem of fish being affected by metals in the water but there is no reason to change the type of fish that you keep unless you actually know what kind of water you are working with.

Apologies! that was my fault I always thought that Ph was a good indicator of hardness but this does not appear to be the case I have learnt something new today I have amended my post to remove this piece of poor advice, Louise I am glad to hear there are no more deaths I would do as others have said and refrain from using chemicals to bring the Ph down, perhaps either run the water for 24 hours using an airstone and then test your Ph to see if it is lower? 9.4 is rather high, did you have issues keeping fish previous to adding the buffers or have you always added them?

Betta fish I can understand your confusion. There are so many similar terms bandied about that anyone could be forgiven for getting it wrong.

What probably misled you is that in our tank water pH is a reasonable indicator of carbonate hardness (KH), i.e. low pH, low KH and high pH, high KH. KH is a measure of how much 'resistance' there is to a change of pH, the higher the KH the more stable will be the pH.

The term 'hardness' when used on its own always refers to General Hardness (GH) and if we referred to it correctly as GH instead of hardness the confusion would not happen. When reference is made to hard or soft water it is GH that is being referred to.

I agree with you that the tap water pH of 9.4 is unusual too. I don't think I've ever come across anyone with pH that high out of the tap before now.

 

[This Old Spouse]

Is it possible that the OP is getting inaccurate pH readings??

 

[Louise S]

HI All

The water from our tap has always been +9.0 - all 6 months we have lived in this house. In our previous house - only 5km away - the ph was always around 6. Maybe I could just go and ask the new owners for water each week
I have tried different taps in the house (2 geysers), I have tried running the tap for a while and then testing, but no good. I do however feel that I have become really good at adjusting the pH and every time I check - daily - it is precisely 7.0.

Anyway, bought 6 new platjies (thought my kids would enjoy the fry) for my backup tank and a piece of drift wood to replace the toy trucks in my main tank so feeling a little more perky. Any advise on how to prepare the wood from my lfs? I will post this as a new topic too...

thanks for all the advice!

 

[This Old Spouse]

If you can keep your pH stead at 7, then bravo to you! Shame your tap water is so messed up.

Depending on the driftwood, you'll probably have to soak it for a time to get it waterlogged again and to soak off some of the tannins. Got a photo?

Glad things are going better for you!

 

[Louise S]

Photo attached. Difficult to scale out of the tank but it is about 40cm long. Will leave it soaking overnight and check on it in the morning...

 

[This Old Spouse]

very nice!

 

[betta fish]

Nice piece of wood would look good with some java fern attached to it should be fine to place in tank after a nightly soak, tannins are not bad for fish they just stain the water brown.

 

[Louise S]

awesome! driftwood is in, remaining fish seem happy. Owner is happy too. Thanks for input!

 

[Louise S]

hmm, driftwood has been in since the 21st January and is still staining my water. How long is this likely to continue for??

 

[betta fish]

It depends on how often you change the water, I really wouldn't worry though it can be beneficial to fish even if it doesn't look so great each time you do a water change you will dilute more.