Raising the ph of an established tank.

H

hmotorsol

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Apr 25, 2008
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Hello all,

I was wondering is there a safe way to raise the ph of my water from around 6.5-6.8 (local water is a bit acidic) to 8.2-8.4 in an established tank without harming the fish. I have some chemical buffers but they say not to go more than a 0.2 change in a 24 hour period, because this could harm the fish.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I am setting up the tank for African Cichlids.
 
Why not start with new water? Also, are there fish in the tank right now that you plan on keeping with the Africans? The pH is too low for Africans but other fish can live in more alkaline water. The .2 change in 24 hours is nothing to worry about. Some people have CO2 on their tanks and can have pH swings of 1.0 or more at night when the CO2 is turned off. You don't need any fancy chemical buffers from the store. You can put baking soda in your tank and it does the exact same thing for raising your pH. First you need to say whether or not you have anything in the tank and then go from there if you are looking to get help. Some of them might not appreciate alkaline conditions, though you are probably safe unless you have wild caught fish.
 
I have 2 blue johanni, an electric yellow, and a red zebra i think ( I'll post a picture to help clarify.) and a paradise gourami. The gourami I am willing to part with or put in another tank. The tank was originally set up to host my black ghost knifefish but he died when i had to go out of town :(. Thanks for the help with the .2 clarification.
 
I've never had to deal with this, nor do I really know what the safest way would be. But if I had to do it, I'd probably first put the fish in a separate tank for a few days, then would dump a nice amount of crushed coral into the main tank (which you can later either use as a substrate or run a few bags of it i your filters), let the tank fully cycle with the old filters (should take a day or so, maybe less) and then try to slowly (maybe even drip) acclimate the fish to the new water.
 
I would worry less about pH than you are. Fish can adapt to changes instantly. But while pH is not an issue, I would suspect the GH/KH/TDS of the new water is drastically different and that would take some adjusting to. Just a hunch though.

I would slowly switch out the soft water for the more harder water with each water change.
 
Water that low in pH is likely extremely soft. Solve the hardness problem and it'll automatically put the pH into the sort of range you're talking about there; it's actually the hardness that really matters.
 
I wish I had your problem as I think soft water is much easier and less expensive to treat then a hard water problem. I concur with using Arm & Hammer backing soda as it also formulated with buffers to aim you at 7.0 what I consider ideal.

"Baking soda helps regulate pH—keeping a substance neither too acidic (sour tasting), nor too alkaline. Think of pH as a see-saw, with acidic pH tilting one way, alkaline pH tilting the other way, and neutral pH when the see-saw is level. When ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda comes in contact with either an acidic or an alkaline substance, it's natural effect is to neutralize that extreme pH - tilting the see- saw back toward level. And beyond that, baking soda has the capability to resist further changes in the pH balance - keep the see-saw level--this is called buffering."
 
The natural way of buffering ur ph would be using crushed corals, works like a charm.Only thing to keep in mind is stirring up the substrate once in a while to avoid anaerobic pockets
 
I was looking at the eco-complete cichlid the sand variety would that be ok.

I would like to have a black substrate if possible. Also I read that maybe old dead live rock (does that make sense to anyone) would also help.
 
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