Ph Is Scary! D:

[Nosphaer]

Hello, everyone...

I've been testing my pH, and the water around here seems to be naturally acidic after some time out of the tap... It's about 6.0, and that's exactly what I'm reading in my tank.

Is there anything I can, or even should do about this?

I mean, I have snails, for one thing. I know that they can't be benefiting from such.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

To insure you are getting a true reading, an because I am not sure how long "some time out of the tap" actually is, I recommend you do the following. Fill a clean container with tap water. Put in an airstone and let it bubble the water for a couple of hours and then test.

One of the most common causes of apparently low pH out of the tap is that it contains some level of dissolved Co2. This will lower the pH reading until the co2 is outgassed at which point the true pH shows through.

If you do indeed have an acid pH and really want to change it, there are a number of ways. However, this is not so simple. I would suggest you have a read here as it is one of the better, easy to understand, yet fairly complete discussions of water parameters, why they matter, how they are inter-related plus how to alter them. http/fins.actwin.com/mirror/begin-chem.html

That site is a mirror site for thekib.com. In their own words: "We are the oldest living aquarium web site, having been around since January 1994" I relied on the info there pretty heavily when I first got started in the hobby and since then have found almost all of it to be spot on.

 

[Nosphaer]

To insure you are getting a true reading, and because I am not sure how long "some time out of the tap" actually is, I recommend you do the following: Fill a clean container with tap water. Put in an airstone and let it bubble the water for a couple of hours and then test.

One of the most common causes of apparently low pH out of the tap is that it contains some level of dissolved Co2. This will lower the pH reading until the co2 is outgassed at which point the true pH shows through.

If you do indeed have an acid pH and really want to change it, there are a number of ways. However, this is not so simple. I would suggest you have a read here as it is one of the better, easy to understand, yet fairly complete discussions of water parameters, why they matter, how they are inter-related plus how to alter them. http/fins.actwin.com/mirror/begin-chem.html

That site is a mirror site for thekib.com. In their own words: "We are the oldest living aquarium web site, having been around since January 1994" I relied on the info there pretty heavily when I first got started in the hobby and since then have found almost all of it to be spot on.

I see... Well, believe it or not, my pH when measuring directly out of the tap is actually on the higher end near 7.8, so I feel that the hidden gasses and elements within my water actually raise the pH. I feel that the water itself has its pH raised by these, because ours would otherwise be a naturally acidic flow, unhealthy for exposure to teeth.

and I imagine that my filter creates the same agitation that an airstone would. I only mention this because I do not have an airstone, and I never planned to go after one.

With this, I think my pH is definitely acidic, though I'll try to follow your instructions for further analysis... Thank you for the links to sources.