Keyhole Cichlid

[Gordon_46]

Okay well I currently have a 190L community tank. The tank has been running 3 years and as I now have a job in an aquatics centre I fancy a change. Basically I have a pair of fantastic keyhole cichlids in the tank and I would like to change the tank into a soft water tank to be able to have Discus.
My question is basically could I acclimatise my keyholes which are now in a 7.5PH tank slowly to be able to put them into a 6.0-6.5PH tank??

I thought they both these fish came from the same area, so I didnt think it would be a problem?

Also as I now keep marines aswell I have RO water on tap so I would be using this.

Thanks
Anyhelp will be appreciated

 

[Gordon_46]

anyone??

 

[duncs]

Hi Gordon

Yeah you could acclimatise the Keyholes with few problems. What is in the tank with the Keyholes at the moment? If possible, I would suggest starting to do RO water changes in their current tank to bring the pH and hardness down before you move them over. If you can get the pH in their existing tank down to 6.5, they'll have no problems moving over to the new tank.

Alternatively, if you're moving them to a new tank [I presume it's fully matured etc], just use tap water in the new tank to begin with, then after the Keyholes are in, start bringing the pH and hardness down slowly over a period of weeks. Instead of doing your regular water changes with tap water, do it with RO until the pH is around 6.5.

The problem with using RO water is that you lose a lot of buffering ability because the RO water reduces the aquarium's levels of carbonate hardness (kH). Not going to go in to that much further, you can find an article here, but basically it makes your tank more susceptible to pH crashes. Thus I would suggest lowering the pH of the aquarium to around 6.5 then just concentrating on keeping that stable with a good mix of tap water [to provide the buffering] and RO [to bring the pH levels down].

 

[Gordon_46]

Thanks Duncs the exact advise I was looking for. What mix of RO to tap water do you think I should use for water changes once I have estblished my low PH??
Thanks again

 

[duncs]

Depends on your tap water mate. I'd suggest finding a 10 or 20 litre bucket and testing it out.. see what your pH/hardness is with half RO, half tap water.. and then adjust it to find 6.5. Once you know the ratio, 2 parts RO to 1 part tap or whatever, you're good to go for larger water changes