Ph?!

[fishypps]

Hullo... my ph (tap AND tank water) is very high.. like 8.5-9ish... i know this is not good atall.. anything i can do?

 

[fluttermoth]

Best option; choose fish that like a high pH.

Second best; use half RO, peat filtered or, depending where you live, rain water.

You should really find out the hardness too, as that's also important; you might just have high pH, but relatively soft water.

 

[fishypps]

What's RO?

 

[Aqua Tom]

What's RO?

RO is http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_osmosis

But dont bother with it, your fish will be fine in that pH. The only fish that realy need a fine pH tolarabce are Discus & Marine. Anything else will aclimataise.

My pH is 8.5ish & my fish are doing swimmingly.

Tom

 

[waterdrop]

Well I find myself agreeing with both AT and FM on this. Agree with AT that many fish will adjust and get right on up there with the 8.5, so excessive worry is probably not in order but it is quite a -wise- thing if you can know your species and plan your stock for the hardness of the water as FM has advised. As said, pH is secondary to hardness, which is the real parameter that's good to understand. WD

 

[cwa]

I was sold an API product to keep ph at 7.0. Is this a good thing? I add some powder every time I do a water change just to make sure. It claims that it will balance it out to 7.0 no matter if it is high or low. Maybe I shouldn't worry as much?

 

[fishypps]

I actually said "i'm going to stop worrying" after posting this... the fish all seem happy and healthy, the neons, guppies and panda garra have been living in the same PH for about 6 months some of the neons for longer, cherry barbs are apparently quite hardy fish and the betta *touch wood* seems fine

 

[OldMan47]

The acid sold to drop the pH in a tank will work but try to understand what you are doing with it. Fish with a reputation for liking a low pH got that reputation because it is easy to measure pH, not because the fish really care about pH. It turns out that water that is low in minerals is almost always lower in pH because most of the minerals in water comes from rocks like limestone dissolving in the water. The limestone raises the pH. Now back to your low or neutral pH fish. They are naturally well adapted to low mineral content water and you have higher mineral content than would be optimal for them. When you add the acids to the water some of the hydroxides in your water are converted to salts and the total mineral content of your water goes up because you added minerals, not down, while the pH drops. You just made things worse because you didn't understand the chemistry of your water and the true needs of your fish. If you do real research into your fish's needs, not just pH, and find that they truly require water with low mineral content, like many fish from the Amazon basin would, then treat the water by diluting with RO or rain water after you measure your starting point. WD lives in an area with very low mineral content while my tap water runs around 225 ppm of total dissolved solids and a pH of 7.8. We cannot both get away with identical water treatments to make adjustments. Each depends on the starting point and the fish's needs.