Raising Ph...

[najanaja]

Hi all,

My pH in my plant tank is around 6.4 (most likely b/c of the driftwood), and my hardness is around 425 (very hard).

How can I raise the pH and soften the water at the same time? Won't water softener additives/filter inserts lower my pH?

Thank you for any advice!

 

[ArauraDiscus]

Not necessarily. Just get an extra large water softening pillow, it will remove a lot of Gh ppms from your tank depending on tank size. It works wonders, from experience. Also you can start adding baking soda to raise the ph. Doing so will also add to your carbonate hardness or alkalinity. This will prevent fluctuations in ph, so you could techinically have a ph of around 7.4, hardness of 50, and Kh of 300. This is close to where one of my tanks currently is.

 

[rdd1952]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

What fish do you want to keep that you need to raise the pH? For most all tropical community fish your pH is perfect as most of them prefer slightly acidic water.

If you do want to raise it, I would suggest using crushed coral in the filter or getting a piece of tufa rock. Those will raise it and eliminate the need to keep adding baking soda or other items to keep it up.

 

[ArauraDiscus]

I disagree rdd, many tropical community fish like an alkaline ph as well. It's kind of ambiguous to say that most prefer one or the other. South American fish prefer slightly acidic, and a good portion of the rest prefer slightly alkaline.

 

[rdd1952]

Ok, most of the fish I consider to be tropical community fish such as tetras, corys, angels, danios, barbs, guppies (have a very wide pH range from low to high), rasboras, rainbows, loaches and killifish prefer neutral to slightly acidic water. I say they prefer slightly acidic if the range is more to the acidic side than to the alkaline side (6.0 to 7.5 for instance) and neutral if it's a wash (6.5 to 7.5). The only common fish I consider community fish that prefer alkaline water are mollies and swordtails although I will admit that I may be missing some.

Even in that case though, as I mentioned most fish can readily adjust to a stable pH that is outside their optimal range. The swings are much more difficult for them to handle that a high or low constant pH.

 

[najanaja]

I have a pretty diverse group of fish in my tank...
Asellus puffers, black and green swordtails, a geophagus brasiliensis, yo-yo loaches (lohachata botias), two golden wonder killies, and a flying fox. Everyone seems to be doing fine but the swordtails. I lost one black and one green already

 

[rdd1952]

As for the pH, it looks as though everything you have will love the 6.4 pH of your tank. I'm certainly no expert on all the fish you have but you've definitely got some compatibility issues. The pearl cichlid is generally considered to be peaceful but should be kept with fish of it's own size. They also aren't suited for planted tanks as they like to dig and will uproot your plants. Puffers should only be kep in species tanks and aren't community fish. As they get bigger, they will eventually attack and kill other fish, even larger ones. Below are profiles on both of those fish.

South American Puffer

Pearl Cichlid