How Can Ph Be Reduced...

[Sharpy14]

Another question of mine lol,
How can PH be reduced as I want to keep Cardinals and mine PH is a tad high for them. Any ways to lower it?
Chris

 

[Carlovel1]

Add peat to the filter is the best way imo

 

[james_fish]

Yeah, peat works well from personal experiance.
Bogwood can also work, if it isn't soaked too long.

What is your pH Sharpy?

James.

 

[mattlee]

ive had cardinal tetras thrive in a pH of 7.6-7.8. dont forget most fish we buy are raised/bred on farms so not in their wild water parameters and will never have been in pH6.0 etc like a wild habitat.

 

[drobbyb]

Yeah, I'd have to agree with matlee. Fish need a stable pH, not a perfect one. Most fish can adapt to a range of pH.

 

[Lolly123]

I've got cardinals in mine, however, we got them when the tank was well established and my water is at 7.8. I wouldnt mess with PH too much, rather keep it stable and acclimatise the fish appropriately.

I do see your train of thought though, i'd love to have my tank parameters in accordance to what each individual fish prefer.

 

[twodoctors]

Best way is to use Reverse Osmosis water, which will give you pH7. You can then add peat or bogwood to lower it further, or even go down the chemical route. Without soft (RO) water, the solutes in your water might resist the pH change. Anyway doing this is not cheap (for the average fish keeper like myself).

Like others have said, stable pH is more important than correct pH. However people do say that the life expectancy will be shorter if the pH is wildy different from their "natural habitat's pH". Personally I chose fishes that matches my pH (7.8).

Adrian

 

[raptorrex]

Another question of mine lol,
How can PH be reduced as I want to keep Cardinals and mine PH is a tad high for them. Any ways to lower it?
Chris

there is no definitive way to reduce PH. the water always makes its way back to its original ph (or close enough). even "cutting" with RO is a waste of time and money.

making the water, from scratch, using RO and additives is the only way. its incredibly wasteful and expensive. tough i have heard of using rain water to "cut" with tap water. but the water still makes it way back.

 

[Proxo]

I've tried a few things to drop the pH of one of my tanks (7.6) a little it did drop to around 7.2 (For about a week)
but like the rest have mentioned, the pH just ended back where it started at 7.6.

I didnt try extremely hard to get it low really as it's stable at 7.6