Fish/Fishless Cycle

I dont mean to be rude here - but i dont know what your water is like there - what qualities it has, but i use PH up and PH down, and my PH does not YO YO as you put it.
I move the PH as i require it, and it stays fairly close to that reading.
Our tap water comes out at around 8.2 PH - (much too high for freshwater fish), I add ph down in small amounts and keep testing until it is close to where i want it to be - around 7.0. The tank water stays pretty close to this until i do a water change (allowing for small natural shifts from natural biological processess within the tank).
 
YMMV. Fact is, there are a wide variety of results from any given product. Many people have reported a wide variety of problems when using these products. Since most fish will acclimate to a different pH than the ideal one, and manipulating water chemistry can be tedious, I don't recommend it for a newbie. Breeding fish, and some sensitive fish, need specific pH water. For people with more experience in just keeping a tank stable, that's fine. It is more than most newbies need to deal with on their first tank.
 
Awestralian
Apologies if I sounded dismissive, but I kept and bred FW fish for decades in California, with hard, alkaline water. 7.8-8.2 was typical. Among the "softwater" fish, neons were fine and angels made lots of eggs. pH down will work, and it does buffer, but I am not a fan of adding extra PO4 to my tanks.
To clarify my post, I feel that people too often worry about parameters like pH, which most fish have a relatively wide tolerance for, rather than looking at other management issues. Sorry if I was quick to put your idea down.
 
Thats cool - im not arguing.
Im just putting forth my experience, same as you guys are, so that others can decide from all the info availble.
Im not dismissing what either of you say - but i have slightly different ideas - i find PH is an easy thing to monitor and minipulate as it were. I also place more emphasis on it than OrionGirl appears too, but as i said before - different things seem to work for different people.
They way i do things is just one option - same as yours - same as a hundred others.
 
Cool. Way too many ways to skin a dead cat, and all we can do is offer opinions.

But what happened to Ryan? How are your fish? Have you tested your pH?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom