Very high pH, known water hardness issues.

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Oct 17, 2005
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I have a very high pH tank, just about 8.0 in 20 gallons. I thought it might be related to the single piece of fossilized coral I had in the tank, however I am told it is unlikely that this would leech enough into the tank to cause this level of alkalinity.

So I tested my tap water before and after adding Prime to get rid of the chlorine. In both cases my water is testing at 8.0 right out of the tap. Unfortunately I do not have a hardness test in my kit, but I can tell you that our water is very hard just based on personal experience (washing laundry, windows, & cars; the leftover minerals on the top of the tank from evaporation).

Does hardness affect the pH test? Do I need to get the hardness down before I start testing for alkalinity/acidity?

The good thing is that I have a Lake Malawi Kenyi cichlid, apparently, which likes alkaline type water.
 
8.0 is still ok. Most fish will adjust and be fine. I would be more worried if you were trying to lower it. I would simply keep an eye on it. If it's sticking at 8.0 on a consistent basis don't worry about it. Just let it be. The most important thing isn't the number, it's the consistency of that number. Most chemicles used to lower pH will cause fluxuation and stress fish.
 
If you keeping African Cichlids --they like the high PH and high hardness. So you doing fine. :thm:
 
I also have very high Ph water. My water goes thru a softener which lowers the GH (General Hardness) but not the KH (Carbonate Hardness). My Ph stays at about 8.0. I have Angelfish which prefer soft water but are doing fine in my water cuz the Ph is stable. I tried to lower my Ph and found out that unless you have a PhD in chemistry, you'll just drive yourself NUTS!! The fish will adjust to a stable Ph. Stick with the kind of fish you have now, they like that kind of water. Unfortunately for me I bought my fish before I found out about my water. If you're curious about water chemistry here's a site which explains it pretty well.

http://www.aquariumpharm.com/articles/gh-kh.asp

N.
 
Thanks all!
 
nlmadison is right....the fish will be ok with the water you have, it's monkeying with the ph and the hardness and having them unstable is bad. You may not be able to breed fish if the ph isn't optimal. but they should be ok.
 
I also have very high Ph water. My water goes thru a softener which lowers the GH (General Hardness) but not the KH (Carbonate Hardness). My Ph stays at about 8.0. I have Angelfish which prefer soft water but are doing fine in my water cuz the Ph is stable. I tried to lower my Ph and found out that unless you have a PhD in chemistry, you'll just drive yourself NUTS!! The fish will adjust to a stable Ph. Stick with the kind of fish you have now, they like that kind of water. Unfortunately for me I bought my fish before I found out about my water. If you're curious about water chemistry here's a site which explains it pretty well.
Click to expand...

Something that seems to be a point of confusion in this hobby is what truly is hard water. From our perspective as citizens, hard water is water that is hard to get soap suds from. From a fish's perspective, Hard water is high Total dissolved solids levels (fish don't care about soap suds). The great mis-nomer is the water softener. Which exchanges sodium Ion for Calcium and magnesium ions ( at a rate of two to one I believe) this softened water is higher in dissolved solids than the original tap so while it is great for laundry and showers, it is worse for our softwater fish than the original tap water before it was softened. In other words it is not to your fish's advantage to use water from a water softener, they are better off with pre-softener water.

Our GH test picks up on calcium and magnesium ions as the indicator, so even though water from the water softener has more solids, it will test lower GH since the softener targets Calcium and magnesium for removal. this is where a true water analysis, or a TDS meter would be very handy.

Please don't confuse the water from a water softener with saft water in the fish sense. they are the opposite of each other
Dave
 
I should add some thoughts to the last rant.

As said fish will adapt and in you case the cichlids should be very happy with the water you have.

Additionally if you truly want to soften water (lower TDS levels) for your fish, the best way is to mix RO and tap water at a ratio that works for you. This will dillute the Solids levels in the water and actually truly soften the water in the sense that your fish will appreciate.
dave
 
daveedka

Question: So if I take water (unsoftened, straight from the well) and add something like "AquaSafe" to remove chlorine, cloramine & heavy metals that water would be better for my fish than the "softened" water?

N.
 
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