PH Problem

[Essjay]

Re the GH and KH testers - ignore what the instructions say about safe levels. There are no 'safe' levels for GH and KH. Different fish have different GH requirements and what would be safe for a soft water fish is not safe for a hard water fish. KH does not directly impact fish so again there is no safe level. KH indirectly affects fish by stabilising pH. If there is not much of it, pH can drop, which does affect fish.


If the substrate was affecting the pH I would expect the GH and KH in the tank to be different from plain tap water. When substrate increases pH, it is because it is also increasing GH and KH.

 

[Libbyd]

Well I’ve tested the Ph in the tank and the water and what I’m doing is getting samples of each and doing a little experiment to compare a cup of straight tap water, the gravel and the sand in a cup and see what changes. i guess maybe you’re right and because it’s such a small tank maybe he water is just effected more by the substrate still something to do at the weekend I guess!

 

[Essjay]

doing a little experiment to compare a cup of straight tap water, the gravel and the sand in a cup and see what changes

That is the best way to do the test
The plain water shows any changes over time due to just the water so you know what is due to the sand/gravel and what isn't.

 

[Libbyd]

So I’ve finished my testing but it sort of proved inconclusive. The water that I did the testing on I put little pots of sand, normal tap water and just to compare, gravel. None of them had raised the PH Or hardness after 2 days so it’s a bit confusing, whereas the tank PH has definitely increased By .5 as compared to the tap water. I guess I’m just going to have to accept that this is the PH in the tank! I suppose it could be anything in there. Could algae or filter media affect things? It’s cycling so there is a fair bit of alga. I’m hoping a PH of 8.5 will be ok for what I want to add, a betta and shrimp.

 

[Essjay]

The hardness of the water is more important than the pH, which can be slightly outside the normal range for a species provided the GH is within the species' range.

Looking back through the thread, I see that you have hard water (15 dH), which is not really suitable for a betta unless you mix your tap water with RO. If you choose to do this you would need to mix tap and RO water before every water change, and you would never be able to do an emergency water change with all tap water. Half tap, half RO would get a GH suitable for a betta.
The other option would be to keep fish that need hard water. For 48 litres the one which springs to mind is endlers. Males only as females would have so many fry the tank would be overstocked in no time. You could keep shrimps with them.

 

[Libbyd]

well I read on another site That they can be ok up to 300ppm This one here
I know it says in the middle is best but I was hoping it was ok for one and they would be bred round here in hard water so used to it? Might be entirely wrong of course but you read so many different things online !
The other ones I was considering was male guppies or small rainbows ? Like the little blue eye ones? I’ve read they like hard water.
I do like endlers. Can’t wait for shrimp

 

[Essjay]

Seriously Fish (the most reliable website) says 18 to 268 ppm (1 to 15 dH) But we should always aim to keep fish in water with hardness near the middle of their range. So around 8 dH /143 ppm is better for bettas.

Some of the Pseudomugils do well in hard water though the recommended minimum tank size is 60 x 30 cm. If your 48 litre tank is a short wide one, it would probably be OK, but a lot of smaller tanks seem to be the narrow tall type.
Endlers are better than guppies for small tanks because they are smaller (and are less inbred, for now anyway).

 

[Libbyd]

Thanks I’ll take a look on there. My tank is not long and low unfortunately. It’s squarish. Oh having hard water sucks. I could look into RO but does seem awkward. theres plenty of time to decide there’s no fish shops open selling fish of course. Is there any other way to lower hardness, can you put something in the filter? (I want to say peat ?? but that might be for something else !)

 

[Essjay]

Peat can lower pH but not hardness. And if KH is high peat won't have much effect on pH.

Hardness - GH - is made up of calcium, some magnesium and tiny amounts of other metals. There is nothing that removes these from water except some of the ion exchange resins. But you have to be careful with these as some of them exchange the hardness minerals for sodium, which is not a good thing for a fish tank.

 

[Libbyd]

Thanks
stupid hard water never mind I’ll keep thinking it over