WTH with the water pH shooting alkaline

[outofwater]

I bought my own home reverse osmosis unit two years ago and I have no water problems except those of my own making. As for pH , I find it to be the one thing that cannot be changed. It stays whatever it is and no matter what you do to try and change it , it always goes back to what it is coming out of the tap. As for your Otocinclus , unless you have a long established and very well planted aquarium they can be tricky to keep.

Thank you for the note. I love how ottos look and behave and I want to give the guy I already had from the start a happier life, and you guys here have taught me that includes having company of his own species. I'm going to keep adding plants to my main tank, and after the ottos I won't add any more fish until I get the 55g tank up and running.

 

[Back in the fold]

@outofwater I know exactly what you mean. Every time I see Otocinclus I'm tempted for the reason you said - their behavior. So far I've resisted because I can't give them what they need. Somewhere on this forum there's a thread where somebody had them spawn. That was very cool !

 

[Hondo17]

Will this help? https://www.mwra.com/monthly/wqupdate/qual3wq.htm

 

[outofwater]

Will this help? https://www.mwra.com/monthly/wqupdate/qual3wq.htm

Thanks!!!

 

[outofwater]

So, thanks to @Hondo17 I now have confirmation that the water here is really alkaline. The report indicates the target is 9. Something for pH.
I put api's pH down on the quarantine tank and it brought it down to mid-6, but after a couple of days the pH seems to be creeping back up to high-6 and close to 7. I assume the product does something similar to the ammonia and chlorine/chloramine "removers" water treatments which from what I've read really temporarily "lock" rather than eliminate these elements.

By tomorrow evening I'll have some more testing results on the brita-filtered water which I've left on a bucket and have been trying to move /agitate every now and then and see if the pH also creeps back up.

All in all, it seems the best I can hope for is to bring it back to 7 and work to keep it there, and since I don't want to use chemicals to do this, an RO system will be the only sensible long-term option if the brita water shows signs of returning to higher pH.

I bought a couple more plants yesterday, will move some from the quarantine tank to the 29g and 10g tank soon, and we'll see how it goes

 

[Byron]

Do NOT use any chemicals to lower pH. They will not work because other factors are "buffering" the pH and it will, as you have seen, return to "normal" for the source water (what they are doing at the water authority). This causes the Ph to fluctuate which is far worse than having a somewhat high pH to begin with.

 

[outofwater]

Do NOT use any chemicals to lower pH. They will not work because other factors are "buffering" the pH and it will, as you have seen, return to "normal" for the source water (what they are doing at the water authority). This causes the Ph to fluctuate which is far worse than having a somewhat high pH to begin with.

Yeah, I had a bottle of pH down from when I first bought my tank, the guy had a bunch of stuff that he included with it. From reading the forums and my own personal views, I try to avoid any "chemicals" and "medicines' as much as I can, both for me and any living thing under my care. Just was curious about how the "pH down" product would work, and it co lnfirmed my suspicion that it was a temporary fix at best. It just sucks to have all these "fix it quick" things out there, but I guess that's just our modern world in general.

 

[outofwater]

Just replaced my brita filter and decided to test again. On the leftt, tap, on the right, filtered tap. What a difference.

 

[outofwater]

And here's a sample from the main tank. I think it's 6.8. So, it seems using filtered water the last 2 weeks has helped. I added 2 more bamboo shoots, a couple of floating water sprites and a small shoot of java fern that I grew out on the quarantine tank.