Mega High Caronate Hardness,leading To High Ph

[craig855s]

Spoke to my LFS today about obtaining some mature media (with no luck as he uses sandbed filter things) and anyway,here is the story
1.Been cycling my tank with liquid ammonia,safe start,and some potentially mature media for 10 days (the media came from my old house and was in a bucket with some ammonia during the move
2.Going away for 5 days on tue so though id whack some livebearers in to keep the cycle going
3.Found the filter is not coping with just 4 small liverbearer (EX1200 in a 240L tank) so phoned the LFS for mature media

LFS owner told me some rather intresting facts

He told me that thames valley water has an astonishing carbonate hardness (off the scale on test kits) and that this CO2 gasses off 48 hours after being drawn from the tap so that the PH of the tapwater is 7.2, but the PH of 2 day old water is VERY VERY high (just tested my other cycling tank and its over 8.8)

I have 2 pieces of bogwood in the tank (and yesterday immediately before the fish were added and shortly after i added them i done large water changes,so my current tank PH is 7.2)

So my current PH is 7.2,but in 48 hours its gonna be 8.8 or so..will this rather rapid rise kill my fish?

The LFS guy said that all new tanks in the area suffer this problem, and the only cure is to do small water changes every 2 weeks with a sensible and stable stocking in the tank (he says the bogwood and fish constantly bring the PH down,wheras water changes will take the PH back up so its a balance to keep a steady PH....id like 7 on the dot really)

He also said (with regards to cycling) that 2 products called special blend and Nite-out are genuine cycling bacteria in bottle products and do work..is this true?

 

[ZoddyZod]

LFS owner told me some rather intresting facts

He told me that thames valley water has an astonishing carbonate hardness (off the scale on test kits) and that this CO2 gasses off 48 hours after being drawn from the tap so that the PH of the tapwater is 7.2, but the PH of 2 day old water is VERY VERY high (just tested my other cycling tank and its over 8.8)

Interesting, I'm also with Thames Valley water and my pH is around 7.8 - 8.0 in the tank (haven't tested the tap water directly). Also the Kh seemed to be off the chart when I tested using a test strip, but I just assumed that the test strips were not accurate after reading about them on here.

 

[rdd1952]

About your only safe way to lower the levels is with RO water. Because the water gases out, water changes wont' have an effect and the fish aren't going to lower it unless you severely overstock and don't do water changes. Nitrate will lower pH over time but it's slow.

Don't worry about the 7.0 pH as it's pretty much impossible and not really necessary. I dare say that there is less than 5% of the membership here that has a pH at 7.0 on a regular basis. My tap water is 7.2 but has 0 GH& KH so my pH goes the opposite direction once it's in the tank. It levels out around 6.2 to 6.4 and for the fish I keep that's fine.

What type fish are you planning to keep? Obviously, African's would do well in your water but most fish can readily adapt to a wide range of pH values. The water in and around London has been called liquid rock because of the hardness and high pH yet several people in that area have kept very delicate fish with no problems.