High pH

[Ive]

Hello!
I am still cycling my 20 gals. tank with 2 white tetras for ten days. I used Nitromax bacteria. Tap water used is pH 8.0.

The problem is that from the first day, the pH is 8.0. I tried a couple of times to lower it with pH Down, only to return to 8.0 the next day. I stoped this practice after learning it can shock my fishes, that fortunately, are alive and look healthy.

I tested the new gravel with vinegar to see if it was the culprit, but the reaction was negative. All the other decoration is new and artificial, made for aquariums.

These are tanks water parameters:
Ammonia: always 0
Nitrites: always 0
kH: 107 ppm (6 dkH) day 2 71 ppm (4 dkh) day 9
gH: always 143 ppm (8 dgH)
Temp: 28 C (85 F)

I think those parameters are ok for a tropical community tank exept for the pH. (Am I ok?) Help me to understand how kH and gH relates to pH... What I can do? Can bottled water help? May I use peat filtration and for how long?

Thanks for your attention.

 

[caz27]

I had problems with my ph and in the end i had to use RO water...you can get that from most LFS. saved me alot of time and hassel

Caz

 

[Alien Anna]

I would strongly caution against a beginner trying to do anything to pH - it's a very complicated process and it's all too easy to crash your pH and kill your fish.

When I tried it I thought I knew what I was doing (after all, I've studied a degree in biochemistry). Boy was I wrong! If you have hard water, trying to affect the pH is rather like dropping a canon ball on a trampoline. It'll go down, but just you try to keep it down, and then when it does finally go down and stay down, it goes through the floor.

I used to pre-filter my water through peat. However, due to the effect of the hydrogen ions from the peat, the pH seems an awful lot lower at first than it does a few hours later and all that bouncing around is bad for your fish.

Chemicals like "pH Down", IMHO, should be banned unless you've been fish keeping about 10 years. A beginner certainly shouldn't be going near the stuff.

What is the pH out of your tap? I know mine can hit pH 9 on a bad day. Fortunately, must of this is temporary and the pH will drop almost immediately. I expect that is the source of your hard, alkaline water.

Put some well soaked bogwood in your tank (you'll need to pre-soak it for a week) and that will slowly, and steadily reduce your pH and soften your water. The tetras will fare an awful lot better at pH 8 than they will in a tank with yo-yoing pH. Be careful not to get your tank pH too different from your LFS - otherwise you're going to have nightmares every time you buy a new fish.

Plants can also have the effect of reducing pH and softening water, but this will take a few weeks to have an effect.

 

[Fishsmurf]

Anna has covered most of what you need in the post above. Seriously leave the pH alone, it just gets to damm messy otherwise. A stable slightly high pH (and yours isn't that high) is better than a fluctuating pH.

The only thing I would add is to allow the tap water to stand for 24hrs before you take the pH reading.....

 

[Ob1]

I was reading in a book that filling a bucket using a hose i.e under some force, actual release some of the chlorine in tap water

will they help reduce ph? or is it just a another tap water addtive people should think about?

Jason

 

[Dragonslair]

I second what Anna has said- even for the professional playing with the Ph is scary. I would certainly advise against it.

 

[Ive]

Thanks to all of you for your help! This is the best forum on the web!

 

[smb]

I would strongly caution against a beginner trying to do anything to pH - it's a very complicated process and it's all too easy to crash your pH and kill your fish.

I couldn't agree more.

A pet peeve of mine is people getting a fish and then reading on the web that they like a certain pH, like 7.8-8.2 for example. The problem is unless they are wild caught, F-1's or F2's then that might not be accurate for that species you just bought at the lfs. They might have been bred in a pH of 7.2 for the last 2 years now and if you buy them and put them into a pH of 8.2 right off, you'll kill them almost instantly. It's great that you did your homewwork and tried to learn as much about the species you can. That's to be commended for sure! The only thing I say is to learn about the individual fish of that species that you buy also.

When you buy a fish, have the lfs or breeder give you the water params of the tank you took them out of and those are the params you must match. No matter what.

jmo and I'm sorry if it sounded like a rant because it wasn't meant to be. I just wished I had this info 27 years ago when I started out in this hobby so I'm only trying to throw in my pet peeves once in a while to help. Hope you all understand and take it for what it's worth-- only one persons opinion and only trying to help others.

 

[Braddah]

but cant you use the drip method to acclimate new fish to the parameters of ur tank? (and in the process not have to try to adjust your pH?)

 

[smb]

but cant you use the drip method to acclimate new fish to the parameters of ur tank? (and in the process not have to try to adjust your pH?)

Great question.
With temp and most water params that works, not with pH tho. The thing people might not realize is that works for temp but not as well for pH. The change in pH has to take weeks for the fish to be healthy and survive it.

pH change is a huge killer for fish. A big daily change of pH is as deadly as an ammonia spike of 4-5ppm's! Anything over 5ppm's of ammonia and no fish can live, to give you an idea of how important pH is on a scale.

I suggest never use any chems to change your pH and keep it the same at all timesno matter what. If you don't have the pH to keep a fish, then move on, imo. Fluctuation of pH is the worst thing that can ever happen to a fish, imo.

 

[mrV]

Here is also discussed about pH.

 

[Alien Anna]

but cant you use the drip method to acclimate new fish to the parameters of ur tank? (and in the process not have to try to adjust your pH?)

Tried it. I bought cardinals at the LFS (in pH 8, would you believe) and tried to reduce them to my tank's pH, then at 6. I went really slowly over the course of 6 weeks but of 8 fish, I lost 6

It was annoying because the books say they're wild-caught and come from pH 5.

The next time I bought cardinals I'd allowed my main tank to drift up to pH 6.5 in the proceeding months. The LFS was pH 7.5 on this occasion, so the drop wasn't quite so high. Having tried it the "proper way", this time I didn't bother and lowered their pH in two jumps over a week. On both occasions they got stressed and all their colour bleached out temporarily but the three cardinals and 4 black neon tetras I'd bought all survived.

My conclusion is that pH is a much trickier beast than I ever imagined possible. It annoys me that the LFS doesn't have the courtesy to have the same pH as me!

Next time I get cardinals, I'll try the shock-treatment method. It's risky, but killing them after weeks, after all that effort was really soul-destroying. If anyone's got any better ideas, I'd be pleased to hear them.

P.S. I have two cardinals inherited from a friend who are at least 6 years old. They were kept at pH 8 for much of those 6 years and are the biggest cardinal tetras I've ever seen.