Ph Question

[Queen Bee]

I had my water tested and our tap water has no stabilizers or buffers in it. The lfs tested it 3 times, he'd never seen that before.

My 3 other tanks have coral running in them. The ph was dropping in them and when tested, the ph reading was lower than my test kit had results for. After running coral, the ph in all tanks reads a steady 8. Fish are fine and no more deaths.

Problem: I am setting up a new tank. Been filled for a few days and is cycling. I want to run different fish than in my other tanks, and after researching, the ph suitable for these fish is in the range of 6 - 7.5

I tested the tank today, not that the ph has had time to drop yet, it is 8. I am waiting, previous experience showing it will start dropping in about 2 weeks. I want it to lower, but not to the point that it is too acidic.

Instead of adding coral directly to the tank, if I put some in a bag and let it hang in the water for a short period of time, would this stabilize the ph of the water, or no?

I really don't want to use chemicals to play with the ph as fluctuations will be worse for the fish.

Any ideas out there?

 

[Bignose]

Instead of adding coral directly to the tank, if I put some in a bag and let it hang in the water for a short period of time, would this stabilize the ph of the water, or no?

no, this won't work. The pH change is a function of the minerals released by the coral, in your case a pH in the 8's. Swishing it around for a short time only will still result in a pH in the 8's, but it will just be stable for a shorter period of time.

I think you should look at the option of RO water, which would have a pH of 7.0. You can either purchase your own RO water or some stores offer it for sale. You will need to remineralize it as pure water isn't healthy for life, but there are remineralization kits/mixes out there.