PH Too High?

[Ken]

My water from the tap and in my ten-gallon tank tests about 8.0.

The lfs tells me that I need to treat it to get it down to 6.5.

Do I need to lower the ph for the species usually found in a community tank?

If so, what is the best way to do this?

I would really like to avoid monkeying around with ph, if I can.

I will be setting up a larger tank, and I would like to keep mollies and their kin, gouramis, cories, tetras, danios (your typical community tank-types).

 

[SBA]

most people on here would say to leave the pH alone in the vast majority of cases. exceptions are breeding and certain sensitive fish (i.e. discus).

it is considered worse for fish to be subjected to the pH swings that will undoubtedly occur if you start trying to lower the pH with products from the LFS particularly in a 10g.

i keep cories in water with a pH in the high sevens with no problems at all.

just be careful when adding fish if the pH in the tank is so different to the pH in the shop water (test both). slowly does it...

HTH

 

[PumaWard]

I agree with SBA, if your fish have been living in those conditions for a while with no ill effects, then don't change it. Even discus can tolerate (I have read some places that they may even breed) in a oH of 8. This just goes to show that a stable pH is more important than its value.

 

[TKOS]

I had kept my parents tetras at a pH of 7.6 for a year. I then went into the petstore to have my water tested for hardness (I had no kit). They did the whole range of tests and then told me that I needed to buy the perfect pH stuff. I told them that they had been doing well for a year in their current pH but I was assured that they wouldn't last much longer.

We are headed into year three and I still haven't changed the pH. And they have even lived through a case of fin rot (due to my lack of knowledge about tank size and cleaning at the time). Hmmmm, I better run out and get some perfect pH.

 

[RTR]

The pet store is trying to make money by selling you stuff. Fish are quite adaptable in pH, and as already stated, other than for breeding (the eggs are more sensitive), will adapt to your tap water better than to buffered/additive treated water.

It is not really the pH that matters - the blackwater fish are from water with low total dissolved solids (TDS), which having little bicarbonate also has low pH. Your water is higher TDS, and the LFS wants you to ADD more things to the water to make it better for the fish? Guess what? The higher TDS water so produced will be worse, and very hard to stabilize, needing every larger additions. Their lack of knowledge and even worse their lack of undrstanding is really showing! This is the too-common thing of folk parroting something that is part of something they have heard or read and really have no understand of whatsoever.

If I can keep cardinals and neons in pH 7.5-7.8 water for six years average, so can you at a couple of points higher. It is not pH problems that kill fish.

 

[caz]

its not so much the high ph thats bad, but if you were to treat it down to 7.0, that would be worse. i would leve it alone, and see how it goes. some speices like dwarf gouramis are ph sensitive, but if your just keeping standard community fish, most of them are pretty hardy and will except a wide range of ph

 

[TKOS]

Using those products and doing small water changes is generally "okay." But just the other night we had to practically empty our 20 gallon to clean up a big spill. With only 2 5 gallon buckets I couldn't save the water. Can you imagine how hard it would be to try and match all that new water, some 15 gallons worth. Yikes. Instead I was just able to add dechlorinator and match temps to within a few degrees.