Ph Issues

[julielynn47]

Don't really know where to start with this.   I guess I will start with my foray to the fish store yesterday, returning fish that didn't make it.
 
I took the fish and a water sample with me to the store.  I had 5 fish that over the last week and half died.  It seems that almost every fish I get from the 2 fish stores in the city I shop in die.   Several years ago I gave up and didn't buy anymore. Then about a month and half ago I decided to get new fish and give it another try.  Same story.... I ended up taking some back and getting replacements, and the replacements didn't make it either., they are what went back yesterday.
 
So anyway, the lady there was just not understanding, as was I, why the fish kept dying. My water parameters were fine, as always.  While we were trying to figure it out she had one of those moments when a light bulb kinda comes on your head.  She got out the test tubes, API liquid, which I also use at home.  She checked the ph of the water I brought against the ph of the water in the store.  There was such a difference between the two.   
 
The water in the store tested a ph of about 6.4 and mine was 7.6 on the "ph" side and 8.2 on the "high range" side.   She determined that this must be the cause of the fish not making it. Too big of a difference when I unbag them at home.  There is another store in that city and they fish I get there don't seem to make it either. Of course both fish stores are using the same water supply.
 
Okay...so I come home and I test my water in the tank and it is indeed reading 7.6 and 8.2.   
 
So, get this, I go out to my pool and I am checking it to see if it needs anything added to it, when it hit me...I have to add PH Plus to my pool...so I came in the house and got my little tubes and the ph stuff and headed out to the pool.  Got some water out of it and it tested between 6.0 and 6.4 on the color chart, I thought what the heck? This water is coming from the same source as the water inside the house.
 
So this morning I tested the water coming straight out of the faucet in the house and it tested even higher for ph. On the ph side it tested 7.6 ( of course as high as the chart goes ) and on the High Range side it tested 8.8, also as high as the chart goes.
 
So I just do not understand what is going on here.  The water is all from the same water source. How can it be so different in ph?
 
I would like to add that I got several fish from another city around the same time, and every single one of them is alive and well. No problems whatsoever.
Also, the fish I have had for years are still doing great, no deaths or issues of any kind.
 
The lady told me that I could buy fish but I would have to put them in a bucket and slowly, over several hours, introduce water from my water source into the bucket and slowly raise the ph and then the fish would adjust and be fine.  I did not however buy any more fish yesterday.  I just had to to think on it for awhile. I am at a lose to be honest. I don't know why the ph is different when coming from the pool, the tank and the straight from the faucet. It is all the same water source. 
 
 
Do any of you have any suggestions as to why this is the way it is?   Have you had any issues like this before?  Do you think that the lady knows what she is talking about or that she does not?   
 
edited to add -- 
I have researched this myself this morning and what I found is that the PH does not really make that big a difference unless you want your fish to spawn.  So I wonder to myself...is it the ph? Or, is it just the fish from these 2 stores?
 
And I will add also that when I first got my 55 gallon back in 2007, I bought all my fish from this very store and I had no issues with the fish dying at all.  Then a few years ago there was a big turnover in the stores employees and it has never been the same since.  Maybe it is just they don't take care of the fish and keep them healthy anymore. I just don't know

 

[Akasha72]

this isn't a pH issue. I have one fish store where to pH is near to 8 but my tank pH is around 5. I've had lots of fish from this store and the fish are added to my tank fairly quickly .... nobody dies - ever.
 
Have a look at this thread from a few weeks back. I think it puts things into context better
 
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/441516-acclimating-new-fish/

 

[julielynn47]

Thank you for the link. I will go read it now.  

 

[julielynn47]

So basically you think the ph is not an issue. The only other issue it can be then is that the stores in that town are not taking care of their fish or the fish have something wrong with them when they arrive at the stores.
 
I know I went to the other store, just to look at their tanks and fish, not with any intent to buy a fish.  What I saw there did not make me want to bring a fish home from there either.  For one thing, they had goldfish in with warm water tropicals, like cories, loaches and algae eaters for example.   I know that goldfish do not need to be kept with warmer water tropicals.  So I just shook my head and decided maybe it was better to just go in the other direction, to the other city, from my home and get my fish there.   
 
These are not local mom and pop stores , these are big chain stores.   However the store in the other city is also one of these big name chains, but the fish live from that store.  

 

[Akasha72]

It's more likely that the fish were sick to begin with and not that the ph was to blame. 
 
What symptoms did the fish display before death?

 

[julielynn47]

The really strange thing is that only one of them showed any signs of something being wrong at all.   The cories and the farwella (spelling?) catfish just died. Never looked sick at all. I lost 4 of the cories.  I lost 2 then got them replaced and lost those 2.  The other was a dwarf blue gouramie.  Now the gouramie did show signs of something being wrong. But I could not figure out what. He was fine one night, the next day he was sitting on the bottom of the tank, within hours he was breathing hard, and by the next day he was gone.  All lived about a week to a week and half.

 

[Akasha72]

the gourami probably had dwarf gourami disease ... sadly it's rife amongst the dwarf varieties and finding one without the disease now is rare and from the symptoms you describe it sounds familiar.
 
The only thing that jumps out is that cories are a soft water species and it might be that your water is too hard for them. Sorry, I can't think of anything else

 

[julielynn47]

I really don't think that is it with the cories.  I have 4 cories that I have had for  years and they are fine
 
What I have from that store, that has lived and is doing well...or seems to be, keeping a good thought on that, is one little albino cory, a butterfly loach and a snail.  

 

[Akasha72]

ahh I see .... not that then. 
 
I suspect what you've had then is dodgy stock. I would avoid this lfs now. Can you have a scoot about further afield and see if you can find are more reliable source?
 
You could post your local area on here along with how far you are willing to travel and see if we have any other members nearby who can recommend a good lfs. Recommendations are worth their weight in gold

 

[Byron]

While I cannot rule out some "other" issue, there is some misconception in this thread about pH that I would like to explain, if I can.
 
First, your comment in post #1: "I have researched this myself this morning and what I found is that the PH does not really make that big a difference unless you want your fish to spawn."  This is somewhat true, but here in your situation we are dealing with something very different.
 
All fish species have evolved to function optimally at a very specific pH and GH.  The GH is the more important of the two parameters.  Some fish show more adaptability to a wider range in pH, and most species can tolerate some variation provided it is not sudden.  But what you are dealing with here is a very sudden change from a pH of 6.4 to probably above 8.0, and I can assure you that very few fish will survive this much of a difference without acclimation carried out very slowly.  And even that will be risky for some species...Farlowella was mentioned and this is an extremely sensitive species that will almost certainly be wild caught and simply not manage with a high GH/pH.  Corydoras species can adapt, some of them, but most will not be able to tolerate such rapid changes without serious compromise to their physiology.
 
The pH scale is logarithmic, meaning that each unit (from 6 to 7, or 7 to 8 for example) is a ten-fold increase or decrease in pH.  So a pH of 6 is ten times more acidic that a pH of 7, and a pH of 6 is 100 times more acidic than a pH of 8; each degree multiplies the change by ten.  Fish should never be exposed to sudden changes greater than 1 degree, and preferably much less.  And changes that remain below 7, or remain above 7, are generally easier for fish than changes which cross over 7.  This is because of the positive/negative ions that determine the pH.
 
My first suggestion would be to pin down your source water pH.  And, find out the GH and KH too, as these are connected.  If you are on municipal water (as opposed to a private well), track down the website of your water authority and see if this data is posted; if not, ask them directly.  GH is general hardness, or total hardness, and KH is carbonate hardness or Alkalinity.  Once you know the GH, KH and pH, see if your home tests for pH agree or are close.  When testing tap water for pH you must out-gas any CO2 or the result may be inaccurate.  Letting a glass of tap water sit 24 hours is one method; and briskly agitating the water for several minutes usually out-gasses the CO2.  Then test the water and see if it is close to the authority's number.
 
The GH and KH will tell us how much, if any, normal fluctuation you can expect in the pH.  Without getting too detailed, let me just say that it is normal for the water in an aquarium with fish to become more acidic, lowering the pH; this biological process is "buffered" by the GH/KH.  It can also be impacted directly by targeting the GH/KH, such as by using a calcareous substrate or calcareous rocks.  We may need to look into this when we have the GH, KH and pH of your source water, if the aquarium water is higher.  The municipal water authority may also be adding something to raise the pH artificially, if the water source happens to be soft (low GH/KH).  We can go more into this when we know the numbers.
 
I hope this will help understand some of what is crucial here.
 
Byron.

 

[julielynn47]

I really don't want to start using chemicals to raise and lower the PH or any of that other stuff.  I don't know what the other, the GH/KH  are, but if it is something that the water dept is doing then they won't change it just for me. LOL All that chemistry stuff is just too confusing for me. I hate that but it is.
 
I guess I will just go in the opposite direction to get fish when I want some new ones.  They seem to do just fine from that other city. Haven't lost one of them yet.
 
If I decided to ever get a fish from where I got those that died, I will just try to do the acclimation thing with the water and slowly raise it so they will hopefully be okay.

 

[Akasha72]

I don't understand it either julie, this is why I try to leave things like that for members such as Byron. I have tried many times to get my head around the chemistry side of things but my brain is just not set up that way.
 
What I can tell you is never try to mess with the pH with chemicals. It's better to figure out what water type you have and stock with fish that prefer what you provide. Water type (hard and soft) depends on many factors and it varies widely from area to area. Where I live here in Yorkshire, England we're nearly all on soft water ... it's just part of Yorkshire. Given that I've stocked my tank with all soft water loving fish. If my water was hard though I'd have stocked with hard water loving fish.
 
There's some fairly simple ways to tell if your water is soft or hard. Limescale is one simple way. If you have to de-scale your kettle regularly then your water most likely hard. If it never happens then is most likely soft.
 
Hard water usually comes with a pH above 8.0, soft water it's usually in the low 7's. You could try looking on your water companies website though and see if they can give you those values

 

[Essjay]

If you have a hard time understanding the chemistry, just think about it like temperature.
 
You already know that keeping cold water fish in warm water is not good for them and keeping tropical fish in cold water is not good. It's the same with the chemicals. Keeping fish in the 'wrong' one is not good for fish. If you have soft water, keep soft water fish and vice versa.
 
Similarly, you wouldn't move a fish that was in a bag of 25o water into a tank at 10o. You would acclimatise them slowly to the new temperature. So it is with hardness and pH. If you put fish from a bag of water containing soft water into a tank with hard water you need to acclimatise them slowly - that's what the lady at the shop meant by putting the fish in a bucket and slowly adding tank water.
 
And as Byron explained, some species won't adapt to the 'wrong' levels no matter how carefully you acclimatise them. Fish that have been bred in farms usually, but not always, adapt more easily than those fish which are wild caught.
 
 
 
Look on your water supplier's website for hardness. It doesn't matter if you understand them or not, you just need to know the numbers. Then when you look up a fish it will tell you what hardness it needs and you can compare that to your tap water numbers. If the fish needs a number that is different, don't get that fish. If the numbers are similar, it's OK to get that fish.

 

[julielynn47]

My water dept does not have a website. I know that probably blows a lot of your minds.  POP. 117...can we talk country living?  We have our own water table that our water is pulled from and it is the most delicious tasting water I have ever drank. We actually have had people stop by just to drink the water from the well my parents used to have at their poultry farm.   So, that being the case, there is no website. LOL  We have "city water", which means we are running off the water table which is actually right below my feet where I am at this precise moment. But it is extracted from that source and whatever water depts do, they do it and we just turn on a faucet and there it is. LOL   But no website to look at.
 
If limescale is any indicator of hard water then nope, I don't have hard water. No build up of any kind is ever on anything.   And honestly, I don't recall ever having PH readings in the past that were as high as they are now.  Maybe it is being added to the water at the water dept. For what reasons I have no clue.  Maybe is it something that I have in my tank now, that I didn't have before, that is making it that way. But I find that highly doubtful as it is coming out of the tap high before it ever gets in my tank.
 
I will just make sure that I acclimate the fish to my ph or just not get fish at all that won't be happy in my ph.  I don't know what else to do. Maybe the fish were sick already.  It is just hit and miss with that as I don't know that answer. But in the future I will test the water before I release the fish into my tank and if the ph is different I will try to adjust them to it slowly 

 

[Essjay]

In that case the simplest answer is to take a sample of your TAP water to an LFS and ask them to test it for both GH and KH. Ask them to write down the number, not just say something like low or high.
 
You need to know your hardness as well as the pH. I have softish water (GH 5 german degrees) but a pH between the 7.2 and 7.6 colours of the API tester.