Changing The Ph In A Tank

[LongS]

Was pondering this to myself the other day as i was thinking of my girlfriends South American setup and it had me wondering. Angelfish, black skirt and penguin tetras and many other south American fish, (i believe) prefer soft acidic water.

We live in an area with very hard and alkali water and many of the fish available are more than likely locally bred, meaning they have never known soft acidic water.

This brings me to my question, does it benefit the fish then, to change (gradually) the water to the soft and acidic water it would experience in the wild?

 

[raptorrex]

Was pondering this to myself the other day as i was thinking of my girlfriends South American setup and it had me wondering. Angelfish, black skirt and penguin tetras and many other south American fish, (i believe) prefer soft acidic water.

We live in an area with very hard and alkali water and many of the fish available are more than likely locally bred, meaning they have never known soft acidic water.

This brings me to my question, does it benefit the fish then, to change (gradually) the water to the soft and acidic water it would experience in the wild?

trying to change PH (well water hardness of any type) is far from simple.
water has this annoying habit of "buffering". it always finds its way back to the original.

now you can make up the water, using a bought kit, mixed with RO water. expensive and time consuming.
or, just keep fish that suite your water.

if the fish have been bred locally. they should have no problems with the local water.
as a result, i doubt they would benefit from any "softening" you may do.