How Do You Lower Alkalinity?

[Elrohirthehasty]

I'm hoping to get a pair of rams soon, but I'm not sure what to do exactly.
I've heard that they require high quality water. I've heard they like soft water. The problem being that my water is fairly hard where I live. How might I lower the akalinity?

 

[drobbyb]

I'm hoping to get a pair of rams soon, but I'm not sure what to do exactly.
I've heard that they require high quality water. I've heard they like soft water. The problem being that my water is fairly hard where I live. How might I lower the akalinity?

It's best not to do anything special. They will adapt to your hard water. If you are getting them locally, mst likely they will be acclimated to hard water when you get them.

 

[Colin_T]

You can use peat or sodium biphosphate to lower the PH.
Peat will need to be changed each month or so and will lower the PH over time. It will also release tannins (brown staining) into the water. This is harmless but can make it difficult to see the fish.
Sodium biphosphate should be added to a bucket of water and left to aerate for a few hours. Then you check the PH and add more if needed. When the PH is correct you can use the water for water changes.
Reverse Osmosis (R/O) water can be used on its own or in conjunction with tap water. R/O water is virtually pure water with no minerals left in it. This theoretically gives you a neutral PH (7.0) and 0 hardness. Most people actually add minerals to R/O water so the PH doesn't drop suddenly. Or they use some tap water and some R/O water to make up a nice solution with an approximate PH and hardness.

Unless your water is very hard (more than 250ppm) & alkaline (PH above 7.6) and you plan on keeping wild caught rams, I wouldn't bother modifying the PH or hardness.

 

[tenohfive]

I've kept rams in water with pH of between 8 and 8.2 before now - currently they're in 7.6 (due to loads of bogwood) and they've always been happy as larry. The pic in my avatar was taken in pH 8 water - as you can tell, full colouring and very happy.

The trick is good water quality - frequent water changes. If you aren't going to do minimum once a week water changes (ideally more) you won't get the best out of them, they'll become stressed and won't be anywhere near as colourful.

Its better to have a steady, stable pH - fluctuations from messing about with peat etc can do more harm than good. Its manageable but unnecessary unless you're looking to get ideal conditions for breeding.

Steady high pH > fluctuating low pH.