Ph 9.0 Tapwater Nightmare

[xx-miss-limber-xx]

Well... I tested my tank and it was at the top of the scale of my tester kit which was 9.0 PH.

So I read on someone elses post on here to test the tapwater from my house...

Which is also 9.0 PH!!!

I know we are a hardwater area but isnt that rediclious?

So whilst doing a water change today I took 5 litres out of my 60 litre tank whilst siphoning the gravel, I added API PH down to the bucket of water I added to the tank, made it about PH 6.5 and added that water to the tank.

Am I right in thinking if I keep doing this every water change, gravel vacum and water top up, the water will eventually become 7.0 PH?

And has anyone else had this problem, has anyone used API PH down??

Also, if I was to keep my tank at PH 9 what complications could arise from this?

Thanks in advance for any advice xx

 

[xx-miss-limber-xx]

BUMP... Please anyone with any ideas??

 

[craig855s]

ur PH down plan is a good plan..however..fish will become stressed and therefore may become ill or die due to rapid PH changes. So only lower ur tank PH by 0.2 a day until you reach 7. Then when u prepare your bucket to top up at water change time be sure to get that to 7 or as near as damnit.

The high PH may only be a tempory problem. Draw water from the tap ASAP and test it,then test the water after it has stood in a glass for 48 hours.see if it is different.

My tap PH is 7.4 from the tap but once its stood for 48 hours it goes up to 85.-8.8 (carbonate hardness gassing off)

My LFS guy says no water company would get away with pumping water with a mega alkaline PH into peoples homes so they use CO2 to lower the PH (but obviously CO2 doesnt stay in the water once the water leaves the pipes) so id be very surprised if ur tap water will be 9 forever..maybe there is just some work going on or something? or are u already testing 48 hour old tapwater?

 

[xx-miss-limber-xx]

I tested the tap water when I first got my tank about.... 9 months ago and then again about... 2 weeks ago and when I asked my LFS they said that at different times in the month the water is at diff PHs, nitrites etc due to the water companies doing somthing or other. Every time I test, it comes out at a very dark green colour, which my test kit tells me is PH 9.0. All three times that I have tested (9months ago, 2 weeks ago and today) it has been 9.0. do you think I should contact the water company? Surely this is really really alkaline. At the moment all I have in my tank is 4 molly fry (all my fish got bioled to death in a heater malfunction) will the molly fry be ok with the PH down??

Thanks for your reply, didnt think anyone was gonna, felt like i was waiting ages keep refreshing the page lol xx

 

[Mr._Fishy]

I would definitely not go the pH down route. That way almost never ends well. Searching will show how and why.

But I would try and go buy another test kit. I can't recall ever seeing water above 8.4 or so although I could be wrong. What sort of kit are you using? Your test kit could be expired too.

 

[timbruun]

ur PH down plan is a good plan..however..fish will become stressed and therefore may become ill or die due to rapid PH changes. So only lower ur tank PH by 0.2 a day until you reach 7. Then when u prepare your bucket to top up at water change time be sure to get that to 7 or as near as damnit.

The high PH may only be a tempory problem. Draw water from the tap ASAP and test it,then test the water after it has stood in a glass for 48 hours.see if it is different.

My tap PH is 7.4 from the tap but once its stood for 48 hours it goes up to 85.-8.8 (carbonate hardness gassing off)

My LFS guy says no water company would get away with pumping water with a mega alkaline PH into peoples homes so they use CO2 to lower the PH (but obviously CO2 doesnt stay in the water once the water leaves the pipes) so id be very surprised if ur tap water will be 9 forever..maybe there is just some work going on or something? or are u already testing 48 hour old tapwater?

not thread robbing here but. i just have a question since i have the same problem. my water comes out at 7.5 but it really slowly works its way up to 8.5. my kh doesn't seem to change although that's just a test strip. haven't bought a liquid test yet. how do you go about water changes without stressing the fish.

 

[three-fingers]

I would simply buy RO water from your LFS for water changes, mix half RO and half tap water, or even 1/4 tap water and 3/4 RO water. You could also get an RO unit to make your own water, which is cheaper in the long-run.

Also adding bogwood to the tank would help a bit too.

 

[timbruun]

i'll have to look into the buying an RO since my LFS is not a short drive. i'm not worried so much about the pH being high. more the shock of the pH when doing the water change. and i dont' really want to have 30 gal of water sitting for min of 24 hours just for the change.

 

[xx-miss-limber-xx]

My test kit is nutrifin liquid one. its not out of date, and my uncle tested my water with his API water master thingie and he sed his testkit makes it 9 aswel.

Why not PH down?? And if not, then what do I do!? I cant buy water from my local LFS because its a pets at home and thy dont do it, the actual LFS I go to, which isnt actually local to me is 45 mins away.. and its too far to go to get water. plus my mum would go mad if i start buying water, she never wanted me to keep fish in the first place!!

Is PH 9 gonna kill any fish I put in the tank? xx

 

[three-fingers]

i'll have to look into the buying an RO since my LFS is not a short drive. i'm not worried so much about the pH being high. more the shock of the pH when doing the water change. and i dont' really want to have 30 gal of water sitting for min of 24 hours just for the change.

pH shock is very over rated as a fish killer. pH fluctuates greatly in nature and loads of aquariums between day and night due to plants using CO2 during the day and not at night. Just look at people who inject CO2 into planted aquariums (like me). Ive had pH drops from 7.5 down to 5 over night in the past with no fish or shrmp losses at all, not any signs of stress either. It's the hardness you need to watch out for, but even then, if your only doing 20-50% water changes, it's not worth worrying about IMO.

My test kit is nutrifin liquid one. its not out of date, and my uncle tested my water with his API water master thingie and he sed his testkit makes it 9 aswel.

Why not PH down?? And if not, then what do I do!? I cant buy water from my local LFS because its a pets at home and thy dont do it, the actual LFS I go to, which isnt actually local to me is 45 mins away.. and its too far to go to get water. plus my mum would go mad if i start buying water, she never wanted me to keep fish in the first place!!

Is PH 9 gonna kill any fish I put in the tank? xx

Chemicals that mess with water chemistry aren't recommended because every time you use them the pH would fluctuate greatly, and at the end of the day, they aren't a whole lot of use. If your pH is that high, your water will probably be very hard too, pH down wont solve that, and a lot of fish wont like that either.

RO water isnt expensive, it's only like £2 for 5 gallons.

I think your best option by far would be to buy a small RO unit off the internet and use half tap water and half RO water for water changes, this still works out cheaper than using pH down in the long run anyway.

pH 9 probably wont kill your fish, it may be OK for a lot of species too. I'm just not sure which ones, I've never personally had to deal with keeping fish at that high a pH, though I've done the other extreme, pH 5 and below keeping rams no problem. So pH extremes are likely no problem for some species.

 

[Mauricia]

The Mollies should be fine, they prefer harder, brackish water. My pH is also pretty high and I just make sure to get fish from local breeders so the fish are adapted to the pH. Even my bettas, who prefer a pH close to neutral, are healthy in my water since I've been careful to get fish that were bred in water with a similar pH. Most of them have lived 4+ years with high quality of life. I used to try to control the pH with chemicals and after I accidently killed 3 fish by putting too much in I gave up on that. Just make sure you look for species that don't prefer supper low pH, like Discus, or fish that are generally sensitive and hard to raise. If you do want to go this route you should get an R/O filter for your tap water.

 

[three-fingers]

I'd go with RO water regardless personally...just that I've never heard of any fish living in water with pH 9 in nature, while pH4 and 5 I have, so it seems more realistic.

At such a high pH, any ammonia is going to be very, very highly toxic (since most if not all of it will be i it's toxic ammonia form compared with lower pH's where some would be in it's non-toxic ammonium form too).

pH8 would be no issue, I mean, the sea can be around pH 8.2-8.4 but most freshwater fish prefer it slightly lower.

But pH 9 is in fact 10 times more alkaine than pH 8, so it's quite a large jump.