Ph, Here We Go Again.............

[JackoUK]

Sorry to pipe on again about my problems that i'm having with pH but I thought i'd finally got somewhere, but alas no!

As you probably already know my tapwater is pH 5.0 - 5.5 and i've been trying to find a suitable and safe way to raise this for over a month now. I thought i'd figured it out this week. My tank in my old house was always at around 6.5, which was great. So I asked a friend of mine who lived in the same street if I could 'borrow' 10 gals a week of water off him. He said no problem. So I went to the camping shop and bought two 5 gal water containers and this morning collected the water from his house ready for my waterchange. I thought i'd just test the water to check and it came out as the same as my tapwater here.....gutted. I can't fully understand why my tank in the other house was fine.

The questions I wanted to ask was:

Can I fill the two containers with my tapwater and add either a chemical to them or some tufa rock or crushed coral and leave them over night?

Is this long enough for the pH to change?

If I do this every water change how long, approx, would it take for the pH of the 200L in my tank to alter to my desired figure?

and lastly, would this be safe to do?

I'm assuming once a pH has been changed it doesn't alter unless there is something in the water to change it, such as, bogwood, tufa rock, e.t.c.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

I'm assuming once a pH has been changed it doesn't alter unless there is something in the water to change it, such as, bogwood, tufa rock, e.t.c.

i think you are correct in this, however what i would do is add the buffer directly to the tank. I'd go with crushed coral as you can add it in very small amounts at one time so you can gradually bring the pH up by putting a small amount in and leaving it a few days, then adding more (testing all the time obviously) to gradually get it to where you want it.

you then need to be careful not to induce pH shock when you do water changes however by doing smaller but more frequent changes (e.g. 10% twice a week) however most fish can adapt to a relativley small change, just as an example Ian's tank the pH sits at 5.5 due to the substrate, water comes out of our tap around 7.2 Fish are fine with anything up to 30% changes although we did loose a few neons when we did a 50% change.

 

[JackoUK]

I'm assuming once a pH has been changed it doesn't alter unless there is something in the water to change it, such as, bogwood, tufa rock, e.t.c.

i think you are correct in this, however what i would do is add the buffer directly to the tank. I'd go with crushed coral as you can add it in very small amounts at one time so you can gradually bring the pH up by putting a small amount in and leaving it a few days, then adding more (testing all the time obviously) to gradually get it to where you want it.

you then need to be careful not to induce pH shock when you do water changes however by doing smaller but more frequent changes (e.g. 10% twice a week) however most fish can adapt to a relativley small change, just as an example Ian's tank the pH sits at 5.5 due to the substrate, water comes out of our tap around 7.2 Fish are fine with anything up to 30% changes although we did loose a few neons when we did a 50% change.

Thanks miss wiggle.

I think thats what i'll try. Can I not induce less of a pH shock by leaving 10 gallons of water to sit with crushed coral for 24 hours so that maybe the pH will be slightly higher so then the step wouldn't be so big?

Edit: Either this Miss Wiggle or you could send me 10 gallons of your 7.2 tapwater every week, sounds good to me.

 

[JackoUK]

Sorry forgot to add. As I don't know a great deal about crushed coral I was wondering if it was something that deteriated over time to give less of an effect or not?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

you could do (i don't know how long it would take to effect the water by the way, best to do a little experiement and find out) i see no reason why it wouldn't work. Personally I don't think I'd want a bucket of water sitting around my house for 24hrs every couple of days for water changes, but you may have significantly more space than me so it wouldn't be a problem!

you pay the p&p and a small charge for the hassle and i'll happily send you water ever week

only thing i will say although i'm sure you already know is that adjustments must be made very gradually with the fish in situ, feel free to experiment on what works but please just take your time and allow the tank to stabilise between adjustments

Sorry forgot to add. As I don't know a great deal about crushed coral I was wondering if it was something that deteriated over time to give less of an effect or not?

not AFAIK however I'm far from 100% suere, so get a second opinion

 

[rdd1952]

It will take a very long time for crushed coral to stop buffering your water so that shouldn't be an issue. As Miss Wiggle mentioned, I would put the buffering items in the tank and just do smallish water changes of 10 to 15 percent and maybe do them twice as often if needed. Even if you manage to raise the tank to 7.0 with the crushed coral or tufa rock, a 10% WC with 5.0 water would only lower it .2 which won't be a problem for the fish.

 

[JackoUK]

Thanks guys.

I'm gonna test it out on my empty 48L tak first to see how quickly it changes so that I don't induce too much shock to either my 200L or my 65L. I might as well experiment with a small bag of crushed coral in my 25L water carrier and see how much it does alter the pH, if at all, even if just for interest.

you pay the p&p and a small charge for the hassle and i'll happily send you water ever week

First payment is on it's way!

It will take a very long time for crushed coral to stop buffering your water so that shouldn't be an issue. As Miss Wiggle mentioned, I would put the buffering items in the tank and just do smallish water changes of 10 to 15 percent and maybe do them twice as often if needed. Even if you manage to raise the tank to 7.0 with the crushed coral or tufa rock, a 10% WC with 5.0 water would only lower it .2 which won't be a problem for the fish.

Thats great to hear. Finally I may be able to keep a stable pH of a value I want.