My Ph Is 8

[NeWcS]

Took my water to the LFS today. The owner said everything looked fine aside from my ph(8). He gave me some stuff(Looks like salt. I forgot what he told me it was). and told me to use 1/4 teaspoon after every water change in my 42gal. (Take some water from my tank and dissolve it and put it in my tank)
Does this sound right? He said it should bring me down to around 7 if I do this

thx
-Jay

 

[Curiosity101]

Artificially altering your pH using powders isn't a particularly good idea.

And pH 8 isn't even that bad. What do you plan to keep in the tank?

If you really want to lower your pH then go and get your GH and KH tested. Both on a sample of tap water and on a sample of tank water.

Chances are your KH and/or GH is high. So it's just a case of lowering those, which is better done with RO water.
Eg.
Tank water registers at KH10 and GH4
RO water registers as KH0 and GH0
So you could simply mix in some RO water to lower your values.

 

[NeWcS]

Tap and tank are both 8. LFS guy is right down the street and says his water is also 8/8

-Jay

 

[Curiosity101]

So you tap water has KH8 and GH8 ?

If so then there are a few ways you can do it (if RO water doesn't take your fancy)

Adding bogwood is meant to help soften the water and therefore lower pH. The bogwood will leach tannins for awhile (unless you boil it really really well before putting it in). But the staining can be removed via activated carbon in the filter.

Adding peat to the filter system, though this will stain your water a bit tea coloured. Not sure how long the staining stay effective.

Or, as I first said you can just introduce a bit of RO water into each water change. I'd suggest changing around 25% of you tank to RO water.
So in every 10l of tank water you would have 7.5l Tap + 2.5l RO.


What do you think?

 

[oscars r ace]

my tap water is ph 8 all my fish live in it happily, ok so it's perfect for my malawi's, but my tropical community tank also lives in it and they are perfectly ok.

i don't see any reason for changing the ph

 

[OldMan47]

You don't say what the fish are in your tank NeWcS. Depending on the fish, there may be no problem at all with the water being at pH 8.0. I can certainly understand the LFS trying to sell you something but what is the reason, in terms of the fish that you keep, for wanting to change the pH? One consideration should be that you get your fish from a place that has 8.0 pH water. That would mean that any fish you get are likely to be acclimated to that water and would have trouble adjusting to different water in your home.

 

[NeWcS]

Wow, thx for all the help everyone. The reason this even became an issue is I was told, based on my other post about not seeing my loaches, that it might be due to my water conditions. And my only water prob seems to be my ph.

Thanks again for the input

-Jay