Lost second fish

[Essjay]

I know with a ph of 8 I could have Guppies and mollies

But they need harder water than you have, especially mollies which need much harder water. GH is more important than pH and mollies in particular would be unhappy at your GH. Long tail guppies wouldn't be happy either.

 

[Country joe]

OK thanks for that, but the fish in books that seem to be able to handle an 8 ph appear a lot on the large size which would mean in a 125 litre tank not many fish.

 

[Country joe]

I did go on FB and asked the pH question, at the end of it my head was reeling, I've decided rightly or wrongly to go down my tetra path, I will continue with my weekly 10% water changes, adding any more tetras slowly, I think itcould be more dangerous to fish mucking about with ph levels.
Don't know how much is true but it does come up on line that xray tetras can tolerate a ph of 8.

 

[Essjay]

Despite the pH you cannot keep any hard water fish as your GH is too low for them.

We've had another member with this issue - soft-ish water and high pH. @Rocky998 how have you coped with high pH long term?

 

[Ichthys]

Forget about pH. The deciding factor in which fish you can keep is GH... hardness.
The old books talked about pH because in nature pH and GH tend to be linked. Hard water has a high pH, and soft water has a low pH.
This "pH is important" info has persisted, but it's really not. Most soft water fish will be fine in any reasonable pH as long as the water is soft.
X-ray Tetras occur naturally in both hard and soft water, so any pH is good for them

 

[Country joe]

Thanks for that,iwill do a complete test today, as I've been away for a couple of days, will test my tap water from the tap again, and then test it when it's sat for 24 hrs, will do a Gh and KH test, and I will also take aquarium water to my aquarium shop and have them test the kH and GH in case my old eyes are not seeing right,
Will stick results up later.

 

[TNG]

Thanks for that,iwill do a complete test today, as I've been away for a couple of days, will test my tap water from the tap again, and then test it when it's sat for 24 hrs, will do a Gh and KH test, and I will also take aquarium water to my aquarium shop and have them test the kH and GH in case my old eyes are not seeing right,
Will stick results up later.

After you’ve run all the tests again, if the pH of your tap water (and your tank) is confirmed as 8 as you mentioned earlier, and the pH of the fish store is much lower, say 6.5, then I wouldn’t place the fish from the store in my tank immediately as this would mean an immediate change of pH by 1.5 which will affect the fish.

What I’d do in that case is to lower the pH in my quarantine tank in preparation for the fish so that my tank’s pH is equal to, or no more than 0.5 unit higher than, the shop’s pH (if the shop’s pH is 6.5 I’d ensure that the tank pH is no higher than 7 by mixing my tap water with RO or rain water, before placing the fish in the QT). Every 24 hours I’d add a bit more of my tap water to the QT to bring the pH up a bit more until the pH eventually reaches 8 which is the same as the tap water’s pH.
After that, water changes will be done using tap water, and hopefully there’ll be no loss of fish.

 

[Country joe]

today's water test.
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
nitrate 0
PH 8
Gh 7
kH 8

 

[Country joe]

After you’ve run all the tests again, if the pH of your tap water (and your tank) is confirmed as 8 as you mentioned earlier, and the pH of the fish store is much lower, say 6.5, then I wouldn’t place the fish from the store in my tank immediately as this would mean an immediate change of pH by 1.5 which will affect the fish.

What I’d do in that case is to lower the pH in my quarantine tank in preparation for the fish so that my tank’s pH is equal to, or no more than 0.5 unit higher than, the shop’s pH (if the shop’s pH is 6.5 I’d ensure that the tank pH is no higher than 7 by mixing my tap water with RO or rain water, before placing the fish in the QT). Every 24 hours I’d add a bit more of my tap water to the QT to bring the pH up a bit more until the pH eventually reaches 8 which is the same as the tap water’s pH.
After that, water changes will be done using tap water, and hopefully there’ll be no loss of fish.

Thanks for that but the shops pH 7.2 mines an 8,
Would I need to go down your route as up to now I put in 10 Harlequin Rasboras, I've lost two, and 10 green neon tetras lost 0., these were added after doing a full fishless cycle

 

[TNG]

Thanks for that but the shops pH 7.2 mines an 8,
Would I need to go down your route as up to now I put in 10 Harlequin Rasboras, I've lost two, and 10 green neon tetras lost 0., these were added after doing a full fishless cycle

That isn’t so bad. But if possible I’d ask the store for their water to fill half the QT with the other half filled with your own tap water, just so that I don’t stress the fish too much. Healthy fish will do OK but weaker fish may not.

If you don’t quarantine but put the new fish with your existing fish, then there isn’t much that can be done except to hope for the best.

 

[Country joe]

That isn’t so bad. But if possible I’d ask the store for their water to fill half the QT with the other half filled with your own tap water, just so that I don’t stress the fish too much. Healthy fish will do OK but weaker fish may not.

If you don’t quarantine but put the new fish with your existing fish, then there isn’t much that can be done except to hope for the

 

[Country joe]

I will just do as I did before mix half my tank water with the bag, is that what you mean, I know a hospital tank would be best but not worth going to that expense plus running it, when I'm only going to add 10 small tetras, and that will do me.

 

[Sleeveless]

I switched to RO due to my well water being so bad. Who'd have thought getting into fish keeping would have led to discoveries in actually how bad my well is. My well was producing water at 20 dgh, had bad bacteria in it and still has an excess of CO2.

I bought a RO/DI system and the DI resin becomes exhausted after 40ish gallons of water which is a risk of high CO2 levels in wells (or so the product data says).

I do still have a PH rise which I believe is still related to the CO2 off gassing. That is the last thing possible. As long as I keep it in my storage containers, the PH stays low, but the second I start surface disturbance and gas transfer in the tank, it goes back up. Stays between 7.8 and 8.

At the end of the day, I do love the consistency of the RO/DI system and mineralizing to exactly what I need.

 

[Country joe]

Another exciting day tomorrow I'm purchasing from my local shop, not PAH,
6 black Phantom tetras, and 8 glowlight tetras.will keep my fingers crossed all goes well.

 

[Naughts]

I’d ask the store for their water to

mix half my tank water with the bag,

Adding store water to your tank is really asking for trouble. As well as the pathogens, the conditions may be terrible. The situation with the pH is nowhere near significant enough to justify that risk.