Tap Water Ph Changing

[Bigpig]

Right my tap water ph has changed this week from around 7.4 to 6.6?? What has happened
My tank water is around 7.2 atm

m few concerned atm with the water changing so much. Iv tested it 4 times this morning

Live in N.ireland

using a API Freshwater test kit

 

[drufly]

Im not too sure of the best thing to do, someone will tho. When is you water change due? if not for a few days i would leave it and see what its like then. If it is soon the i would change it gradually so not to stress the fish too much, let them adjust to suit.

Nice to see someone else from our wee country on the forum we are few an far between lol.

 

[Bigpig]

I do it every weekend around 35%.

Would it have anything to so with the huge rainfall we been having this past few weeks?

 

[drufly]

Could be m8 not too sure, but i will have to check mine to see if im in the same boat. But def if it has'nt changed by the weekend i woud just add water gradually, unless someone else can give a different opinion

 

[rhostog]

There are various reasons the water company can change your supply, like if they're replacing water mains etc. Could be the heavy rain. In agricultural areas it can wash nitrates etc. from fertilizers into rivers and reservoirs, or it can interfere with proper drainage of waste water. Then the levels of various pollutants start to get above the acceptable limits, so the water company will mix the polluted water with some cleaner water from somewhere else, to bring it below the acceptable limits. (They call it 'blending', which makes it sound like a coffee or whiskey rather than just diluting down the pollutants...) So it could be you're getting water from a different source which has a different pH.

I'd agree, small water changes - if the pH of your supply has changed, could be other things have changed too which could affect the fish, like hardness, or other dissolved salts.

 

[Bignose]

That's not that huge of a change at all. Something the fish probably won't even notice.

Using pH always make things look bigger than they really are. It is a difference of 0.000 000 039 to 0.000 000 251 moles of [H+] per liter. It is a tiny, tiny change.

The real question is: has the hardness changed significantly? Most fish can adapt to pH changes very, very easily. It is large changes in hardness that are really stressful.

 

[Bigpig]

How do you test hardness?

 

[blue acara]

You can get Gh(general) and Kh(carbonate) test kits from your local pet store. A small change in hardness wont cause any problems unless you have particually sensitive fish. Small regular water changes like you are doing is absolutely fine.