Ways to lower ph of water used during aquarium maintenance

[Lukara]

Does anybody have any recommendations on ways to lower the ph of the water used for water changes?

My tap water is 7.4 and my aquarium is 6.8-7.0 depending on time of day due to CO2 injection. I'd like to find out if I could safely pre-treat the water that I use for water changes and lower it's ph to 6.8 before I put it into the aquarium.

I did a bit of research and found Seachem Acid Buffer which is designed for the planted aquarium and lowers the ph between 5.0 - 6.8. I'm wondering if it would be safe to use this in my change water and then put the pre-treated water into my aquarium. I have CO2 injection and I don't know what the effects of both the acid buffer and CO2 will have on the water chemistry. Any opinions on this?

 

[Dtman]

I've never used any kind of buffer in my freshwater tanks so I dont know about that. I did use to pre-treat water with peat. That will bring the ph down.

 

[SnakeIce]

your ph will go lower if you add co2 and where it ends up depends on where it starts so if you buffer the starting water to a lower ph then the result could be an even lower ph than you are already getting in your tank.

If you are concerned you could change smaller amounts more frequently or set up a holding container that you are injecting co2 til the ph matches and then use that to change

but take into consideration that I am not exp. with co2 so try to get another opinion

 

[Lukara]

Thanks for your replies. I think I'm just going to let things stay the way they are and of course keep a close eye on things. "If it's not broken then don't fix it" kind of thing.

 

[Sumpin'fishy]

I have a 7.8 pH from the tap, and this comes down to 6.8 to 6.9 after it has been saturated with CO2. I have never had any problems with my fish due to water changes that I have ever noticed! I do 50% water changes weekly, so I'm sure with the disturbance of changing all that water (surface disturbance) I'm gassing off plenty of CO2 during water changes and the pH probably goes up to somewhere around 7.6 to 7.8.

As long as there are not more than one stress factors to the fish at any one time (poor water quality, disease, rapid temp fluctuation, etc.) the pH change probably doesn't do much to them.