What Causes High Ph

[Colonel Mustard]

HI
my Ph is at 7.9 which is too high for my aquarium. what kind of things cause Ph to be this high, it has been like this for a while, but i would like to find the source at least before i treat it.

thanks

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Has the ph always been like this or only just relatively recently? What sort of decor do you have in the tank (type of substrate, rocks, plants, ornements etc)?

 

[tropical55]

Had the same problem. I have hard water in the house which holds the ph high for a long time. My fix to the problem was a water softner pillow and drift wood from a fish store.
Make sure you don't have shells or any stones that might raise your ph. You should read up on kh, gh, and ph and how they are related. I'm no pro so I don't want to explain it wrong.

 

[Bignose]

Water can very naturally have that high of a pH. Primarily is comes from the ground as it seeps through the limestone, it increases in hardness and pH.

However, and this is a big point, what fish are you trying to keep? 7.9 is not bad for a very, very large range of fish. There are only a tiny amount of aquarium fish that cannot live long, happy, healthy lives in that water. What is bad for all fish is having a pH that is constantly bouncing around because you have to keep adding chemicals. And, with all the buffering capability hard water usually has, the water is going to resist leaving 7.9 pretty staunchly.

So, it is probably for the best not to try to change the pH, and it will be much easier -- you'll be able to do water changes straight from the tap without having to add chemicals every time. Are you planning on keeping some really fragile/picky species? Are you trying to breed some fish? Because unless you are trying to do one of those two, fish can adapt to a wide range of pHs and be quite fine.

 

[Colonel Mustard]

this weekend i did a water change using the water from my main tap (as we have a water softener in the house i ussually try to change the water from the drinking hard water) so this time the water was softer. this was in an attempt of trying to slighlty alter the ph which has been this high for a long time.

So another couple of questions...

1. should i continue to use the soft water tap or does it not matter?

2. Bignose, when you say do water changes straight from the tap, do you mean not adding any de- chlorinatior?

i may also post this in the new science section

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

"Water changes straight from the tap" generally means using dechlorinator, but not filtering or adding chemicals in anyway.

Also, I would avoid using the water softener...that simply replaces the minerals with salts.

 

[rdd1952]

What is the pH of your tap water? Is it possible something in the tank is causing it to rise?

 

[Bignose]

Yes, straight from the tap still means using dechlorinator -- there is still chlorine in your tap water. But, compare that with the cost and time of buying or implementing an RO or other kind of filter. That's what I mean,

What fish do you want to keep? There is tons of experience on this board, most likely someone has kept the fish you want to keep in a variety of different waters, so we can tell you how fragile and/or picky the fish you want are going to be.

As an example, my tanks run around 8.2 to 8.4, and I've kept a lot of fish whose "ideal range" doesn't include anything above 8. Not only have they had long and healthy lives, but I've caught them spawning once in a while, too. 7.9 is not that high of a pH really, and unless you want to keep some very exotic, fragile, wild caught, picky fish, it will be 100% just fine.