maximum pH?

[tttnjfttt]

EDIT: The entire story, including other quirks that I didn't were related, are posted in a new post at the bottom.

On this board, I have learned that it is bad to mess with the pH in a tank with chemicals, which is exactly what my LFS told me to do, and they sold me the chemicals that they use in their tanks. The chemical is Sodium Biphospate. I haven't seen any dramatic swings in the pH using this chemical.

My trouble comes from my local water conditions, something I really didn't know about when I started.

pH - 9.0+ (its seriously off the charts)
GH - 4
kH - no clue, need to buy a test kit for this

So high pH, with soft water.


I would like to get away from the chemicals, but how high of a pH can my fish really take? I currently have tiger barbs and zebra danios in a filtered tank, and I have bettas in unfiltered tanks.

From what I've read about planted tanks, they seem kinda a hassle to keep set up, and bogwood is kinda expensive, and money is tight. Suggestions?

 

[bluefire]

yeah 9 is way too high, ive heard that filtering with peat lowers ph.

 

[Torrean]

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=59467

 

[bigmick474]

and bogwood is kinda expensive, and money is tight. Suggestions?

get it from ebay

 

[tttnjfttt]

What is the actual highest pH i should be aiming for? In all my reading, i have never seen anything other than the aclimate them slowly.

 

[tttnjfttt]

One other question, is bogwood the same as drift wood?

 

[bluefire]

probably the highest pH you should be aiming for is 7.5, maybe a bit less. the most important thing is stability thought, the changes are worse than the actual pH

 

[sinistral]

Is that the pH straight from the tap? You may want to dechlorinate the water and/or let it sit for a few hours and then retest it. Sometimes the water is set to a higher or lower pH straight out of the tap and dechlorination helps determine what the "real" value is.

I can't recall what the chemistry is at the moment. I got that piece of advice from somebody in my local aquatic society.

 

[Bloo]

different types of wood will affect the water in different ways. It depends on individual pieces. The reduction with wood is only very slight and very very gradual. So unless you are using chemicals (or CO2) you're looking at minimal changes. Have you measure your PH at different intervals - i.e. straight from the tap, straight from the tap standing for 24 hours, standing in the tank for 24 hours +, day and night ? Is it always way off the charts ?

The only thing I've found to effectively bring down PH, is CO2. My PH came down form roughly 8.4 / 8.2 to 7.4 / 7.2 within a couple of days.

You really do need your KH reading if you want an indication of how difficult / easy it will be to bring your PH down. But I expect your KH to be 10 +++

 

[CFC]

The simplist way to deal with the problem is to buy and install an R/O unit which will provide you with pure nuetral (7) pH water which can then be easily manipulated with the use of reclaimed minerals to suit the fish you keep.

 

[freddyk]

Unfortunately the higher the PH, the less affect wood has and I doubt you'd even see a difference. In the end I have to agree with CFC - it's really you're only option if you want anything effective and stable. These fish can all handle a PH of 8.0 without any problems, but 9 is really getting dangerous.

 

[qwikimpss]

While high PH sucks...trust me, i know...it is doable. I dont know about 9-plus tho, the ph in my tanks usually runs about 8.4!! Once the fish get acclimated to it they are fine, and with waterchanges every week they nearly thrive....they just wont breed. You could TRY keeping the fish with the high ph and if they suffer then inject co2, use RO water (expensive), use bottled water (also gets expensive).

 

[reg2k2]

Is 9.0 the pH of the tank?

The pH of my tap comes out high as well (8.0+), but GH & KH very low.
I filter crushed coral to protect against pH crash, but do nothing as far as tap's pH reading...the KH is not high enough to hold this level. My tank reads 7.0.

 

[tttnjfttt]

Ok. Things are beginning to get confusing, even for me, so I'm gonna start from the beginning, and hopefully everything will be alot more clear.

About two months ago, I bought a 20 gallon tank to upgrade my 5 gal. When I went to get fish, I decided I wanted to go to a decent LFS, so I got online, and found one about 45 min away, which does have a very impressive stock. Up till this point I had three zebra danios, who were fine in tap water, which I admitedly didn't test very often. but when I did test it, the pH in the tank was around 8.2, tap 9+. KH -6 (just got the test last night), and GH - 3 to 4, depending on the day.

At this LFS, I was told that the pH of our water is too high for my fish, and i needed to bring it down to 7 using sodium biphospate. They told me they have been using it in the shop for years, and since they have some more expensive fish in their shop, I believed them, ignoring some of the warning signs. In retrosepct, I believe this shop is less knowledgable than I originally thought.

So for the past five weeks or so, I have been adding sodium biphospate to my tank weekly. When I started coming here, I learned that chemicals are bad, and I do see some pH fluxuation, usually about .4 over the course of a week. Right now, I want to get away from chemicals, without stressing out my fish. Also, from what I've read, my fish are ones that do better in a lower pH.

To add to this, I sent my tank into a mini cycle (don't worry, i know what i did, just don't feel like typing it all out at the moment). Around this time I also started wanting to get rid of the chemicals, but I was doing daily water changes to help with the nitrite, so I reasoned that this would send the pH up alot higher because of the daily changes, which wouldn't give the water much of a chance to go back down inbetween changes.

Where things are now -- At the moment, my tiger barbs are acting stressed from an unknown reason. Hiding in a corner of a tank, a few took a while to start eating today, limited movement. Sinistral PM'ed me with some info that could possibly explain my fish's behavior based on the chemicals I have been adding. I have also decided to get some low light plants, and am building a co2 infuser to attempt to bring the pH down and keep it regulated. I will start add the infuser and do a partial water change at teh same time, to raise the pH slightly, then give the infuser a chance to work ot bring it down to where the fish are used to.