What's a good water conditioner +alkaline buffer

mtbikerj

AC Members
Jul 7, 2006
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Worcester, MA
My water has rather low alkilinity and a Ph of about 6.8. I currently am using Kordon NovAqua Plus Water Conditioner to dechlorinate my tap water, but it doesn't change the Ph or add any alkilinity to my water. The fish don't seem to mind, but I really want to raise the alkilinity without harming my fish. So I have several questions.

1) I want to use up my large bottle of NovAqua Plus, so is there a product that will raise alkilinity without adding a double treatment of the dechlorination chemicals?

2) How slow should I raise the alkilinity in order to keep my fishes stress level low?

3) What product should I use when I'm done with my bottle of NovAqua?
 
the fish that you have can live in water with a ph of 6.8 with no problem.But if you what to make your water more alkaline.You can do it more naturally with some crushed coral or maybe some sea shells that you buy in a pet shop and that marine aquarist use.Putting drops in will not give you a very stable ph.
 
Just remember that if you do add anything it may jump when you do water changes. You may get it to go down but as you add new water to the tank it will end up putting the levels back and then it will slowly change them again as it sits in the tank. Your best bet is to treat the water before adding it to the tank if you are going to add things to make the pH go up. This will assure that the water going into the tank will have the same prams as the water in the tank.

Now if you don't do something like above you could end up having some problems with the fish. The levels going up and down will stress the fish out and can even cause them to die.

Your water levels by the way are fine for the fish in the tank. Can I ask as to why you want to change them?
 
My water has low alkilinity and I heard that alkilinity is a good Ph buffer. My goal is to add a buffer to maintain contstant Ph, not raise or lower the Ph. I wouldn't use Ph Up or down chemicals because that would be temporary. I'm just looking for something that will buffer the Ph so that I don't have swings because of low alkilinity.

I'll research the crushed coral / sea shells route. Thanks.
 
LunchBox said:
have you been seeing swings in the ph of your tank?

No, I'm just trying to guard against them.
 
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