Ph too high - need help!

they should surive just fine in that PH and hardness. i have 8.4 and about 250PPM hardness and i even have a cockatoodwarf cichlid!!!
 
Well, 24 (actually 25) hours later and the 4 new fish seem to be doing just fine. The last time I put guppies in the tank (just floating and dumping) by the next morning one of them was in trouble and dead the following morning. Last night I ended up dripping the water for almost 3 hours. I guess 1 1/2 drips/second was on the slow side. I sped it up at one point because it was getting so late. At 9pm, my poor son was so exhausted he couldn't keep his head up (he's only 4 1/2.) The pH tested between 8 and 8.2 - not quite as high as the tank, but it was time to call it quits. So I netted the fish and said goodnight. Happily, everyone is doing well today, but I think I may get 2 females to keep the male guppies company. The drip method was really so easy - I will never float and dump again.
 
Most people suggest having several more females than males, so that the males don't constantly harass the same female.
 
That makes sense, but I now have 8 fish in a 10 gallon tank. They're all quite little, but if you go by 1 gallon/inch of fish, 10 is the maximum amount of fish I should have in there. Which do you think is more important? Following that rule or keeping the guppies happy?
 
The rule is utter tosh. Forget you ever heard it. It could only work in a universe where volume increased arithmetically with length, rather than with the cube of length.
 
So how many fish can you keep in a 10 gallon tank without having to exchange the water more frequently than once a week? And how many female guppies would you recommend for my 2 beautiful males?

Thanks again for all the great info!!

akg
 
Alas this is a "how long is a piece of string?" question. All you can do is suck it and see. Usual recommendation is twice as many females as males, but frankly I don't find that the females are that bothered by the males' attentions.
 
I wouldn't bother with females at all unless you really want to breed them. My male guppies seem just as happy by themselves as they did when they had the females in with them.
 
Ahh... a difference of opinion. I don't really want to breed, and if I did get females I would let nature takes its course, as it were, if they did actually have babies. But I'm still curious - if the 1 gallon/inch of fish rule is bogus, how many fish can live in a 10 gallon tank before the biological filter would be overwhelmed?
 
I have platies and not guppies. I would keep 3 in a ten gallon tank and no more. I keep more than 30 fish in my ten gallon but they are quite small. They all don't weigh as much as 2 platies.
 
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