New house, new water supply

[dmaccy]

A recent house move has meant a change in tap water chemistry.

The tap water comes with low kh (2dKH) and a pH of around 7. Over the course of a typical day the pH reading will move from 6.8- 7.6

At the moment I am testing daily to monitor this and can clearly rescue this with water changes.
However longer term is there a way to lift the kh to somewhere nearer 4? I don't want to lift the pH as the high readings are already top end of tolerance for my fish, which are emperor tetras and flame tetras.

 

[Uberhoust]

Why do you need to raise the KH? Your water is similar to mine I don't do anything to raise the KH.

 

[Sgooosh]

Why do you need to raise the KH? Your water is similar to mine I don't do anything to raise the KH.

raising kh i think makes the ph fluctuate less/none
just do water changes in the same time every day///

 

[Colin_T]

Your tap water's pH is changing because the dissolved gasses are out of balance in the water. If you let the water stand and aerate for 24 hours before using it, the pH should settle on whatever it's going to be.

A KH buffer can be added and will help stop the pH dropping, but some KH buffers will raise the pH a bit.

 

[Uberhoust]

Personally I wouldn't worry about reasonably small pH changes, it happens over time. The more you add stuff to the water to try and adjust things the more likely you are to mess it up. But that is just my opinion

 

[AbbeysDad]

Just my $.02, but I would never chase my tail to attempt to alter source water chemistry as most often it's just not necessary. We sometimes get tunnel vision and think we need to do things that we really don't need to. Many species of fish have been successfully bred and raised in a wide range of water chemistries. Of course there are exceptions, but I feel they are very rare. And often, attempts to modify water result in changing/chasing parameters making it worse than the original and stable source water condition.

 

[Essjay]

Over the course of a typical day the pH reading will move from 6.8- 7.6

Do you mean your tap water or the tank water?
If you mean the tank water, do you have any live plants?

With live plants, pH does vary with the time of day as CO2 builds up at night but the plants take up CO2 when the lights are on.

 

[dmaccy]

Hi all

Thanks for all the feedback


Essjay- thats the tank water (tap water is consistenrly ~pH7 ). Its relatively well planted so I expect that daily pH movement, it did that to moving too. So put that down to the plants and I'm not worried about that bit.

What I am cautious of is the kh being 2dkh and the potential that creates. That said over the last couple of gaps between water changes it hasnt dropped below 2dkh. My worry is that over time it may start to become more acidic. What do people think? Do I try a kh increase product (nt labs or tetra) or leave it be?

 

[Essjay]

My KH is 3 dH. Years and years ago I had a pH crash which is why I came to forums to ask why. One told me it was because of my low KH and that I had to add things to raise it, which would also have raised GH and pH. But once KH was explained, I realised the problem. My tank was rther overstocked and I did 20% water changes once every 3 or 4 weeks. So I started doing 50% water changes every week, and the pH has not crashed since then.

As long as you do large weekly water changes you don't need to add anything. The pH may change slowly for a few weeks, then it will settle to where it 'wants' to be. We have members who have virtually no GH or KH in their tap water and other members who use all RO water with no additives and they don't have any problems.