Water Change Advice Needed

[Chris Wright]

What do other folks do regarding water changes? My tap water is PH 8 and quite hard and has at least 10ppm nitrates, so the difference between the tank and the replacement water is minimal. I've just bought 10litres of RO water which checked out at PH7 and no nitrates.
I did a 20% water change using 5 litres of RO in my 23 litre tank. The PH hardly dropped at all but the nitrates did improve a bit.

I bought a plastic 10 litre container to keep the RO water in, and heated up some of it in the electric kettle and mixed it to the same temp as the tank, then syphoned it in gently. This is quite a palava each week.
Anyone got any answers to these questions?
1. Should I lower the PH in the tank by adding a solution and then using RO water to keep it down?
2. I've read adding oak leaves will lower the PH. Any comments on how many leaves per litre and for how long? Dry brown ones?
3. Any clever ways of actually doing these water changes in the simplest and most stress free way to the fish? Frightening them weekly is not a very nice way to treat them.

 

[erk628]

Your ph isn't terrible high! What size tank do you have and what fish? I do a 20 to 30% water change once a week. After awhile your fish will get use to you doing water changes. There are things you can add to lower he ph but I wouldnt mess with chemicals. Ill let someone else chime in on those because I'm not postive of what they are.

 

[Squid]

I would agree with Erk. A stable PH is a good thing and probably better than a fluctuating one by use of chemicals, so i guess it depends on the fish you keep. Your local fish shop probably has he same water as you too, so the environment will not be hugely different.

Bogwood often has the effect of lowering the PH, but you need a nice big knarly bit to make the difference.!

I would use standard water with weekly changes, and just keep a check on the overall nitrate figure.. The fish will get used to water changes weekly.

Squid.

 

[Chris Wright]

Thanks for the replys. To be honest, I was more worried about the Nitrate level of around 10ppm or more from my tap water than I was about the PH of 8.
So any advice about making water changes easier? I can go on buying RO water for a while and hope that once the plants have got their roots down the nitrates will be used up.

 

[arobinson1984]

Personally I wouldn't use RO water, you risk fluctuating the PH level. Most fish will adapt to a PH level of 8. A stable PH is much more important that the actual level for most fish.

Nitrates of 10ppm are absolutely fine and its quite common to have nitrates present in tap water. Unless you have any particular sensitive fish such as blue rams then most community fish are fine in levels of nitrate well over 100pm so most people aim to keep their tank below 40-50ppm

Andy

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, agree with the others and I think oldman47 gave a similar answer in your 4th thread on Dec 17th. Its much better to go with the water you have been given by your tap. The fish will likely adjust to that pH and not only will it be more stable, a non-careful water change will not suddenly kill them. The nitrate(NO3) is not important. Doesn't matter at all that your starting number is 10. What's important is that you develop good weekly maintenance habits and that those are keeping the nitrate level within about 15 or 20ppm -more- than your starting number, which for you is going to push you out somewhere around 30 to 40 ppm. Its the combo of good substrate cleaning (with the siphon cleaner) and the regularity of it being weekly (or rarely missed) that's the important thing.

Don't worry, its extremely common for beginners to worry that they need to alter the water as you've indicated in order to better match the desired fish, but its rarely the right thing to begin doing. Its confusing sometimes because one can find discussions among experienced aquarists of doing these things (eg. using RO water and adding back in minerals to customize the hardness and pH) but these are things one does perhaps after quite a few years of experience and after being pushed really strongly by problems or special desires. For aquarists with less than several years of experienced I wouldn't recommend it.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Chris Wright]

Yes, agree with the others and I think oldman47 gave a similar answer in your 4th thread on Dec 17th. Its much better to go with the water you have been given by your tap. The fish will likely adjust to that pH and not only will it be more stable, a non-careful water change will not suddenly kill them. The nitrate(NO3) is not important. Doesn't matter at all that your starting number is 10. What's important is that you develop good weekly maintenance habits and that those are keeping the nitrate level within about 15 or 20ppm -more- than your starting number, which for you is going to push you out somewhere around 30 to 40 ppm. Its the combo of good substrate cleaning (with the siphon cleaner) and the regularity of it being weekly (or rarely missed) that's the important thing.

Don't worry, its extremely common for beginners to worry that they need to alter the water as you've indicated in order to better match the desired fish, but its rarely the right thing to begin doing. Its confusing sometimes because one can find discussions among experienced aquarists of doing these things (eg. using RO water and adding back in minerals to customize the hardness and pH) but these are things one does perhaps after quite a few years of experience and after being pushed really strongly by problems or special desires. For aquarists with less than several years of experienced I wouldn't recommend it.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Chris Wright]

Excellent advice, thanks. I'll use up the remaining RO which, with the plants now getting established, should help the initial Nitrates anyway. Then I'll revert to the PH 8 filtered tap water and stop worrying!
At least my 5 Galaxy Rasboras are now eating frozen microshrimp and seem quite happy and I hope will survive being left for a week.

As a matter of interest, I was thinking about adding some Cherry (or other) shrimps, but I've read that Cherry Shrimps are very sensitive to nitrates. Does that mean I shouldn't get a couple if my nitrates are likely to run at up to say, 50ppm?

 

[waterdrop]

Remember to devise a tapering plan (ie. ease off the RO slowly) whenever making hardness changes. I'm not knowledgeable about shrimp.

~~waterdrop~~