Water Stats

[always4lora]

Hi' All, i was checking my water for nitrate as advised by Truckasaurus in another thread and thought i'd test everything else wile im at it .

The nitrate was very low, between 0 and 5.0 (took the plants out after the gold ram died last week would this make the reading go down?)
and the PH was at 7.4-7.6 , i've recently moved about 15minutes away from my last house and there it was 6. something.

the ammonia and nitrite were at 0.

Just curious if the nitrate reading and the PH is ok? Got south amaerican cichlids in there atm. from what ive read you get so far to one end of the Ph scale and you're looking at african cichlids?

 

[drobbyb]

Your new pH readings aren't considered bad for most fish. Just because a fish comes from an area with a low pH dosen't mean that it can't live in slightly alkaline waters as well. Stability is far more important.

My brother keeps blue rams in his tank with african cichlid type substrate. He has no problems with his rams in a high pH hard water enviornment.

 

[always4lora]

Thats good to know noticed they have all the Ph Up and down stuff in shops was dreading having to buy that stuff if i needed lower ph

 

[drobbyb]

I would avoid the pH up and pH down. They are temporary fixes.

 

[OldMan47]

I used to use that Ph up and down stuff when I was last in the hobby. Actually I only ever used the down. My fish would die after I had them for maybe 6 months or less and almost none ever had a good survival rate. When I got back into the hobby a few years back I decided that the fish could darned well learn to live in the water that I have. My angel is about 5 years old, my rasboras are only about 4 years, the mollies in that tank are about 3 years, the rainbow cichlids came from my son who has very different water than me and have been in my tank for about a year. My pH runs about 7.8 and the water is hard but the fish no longer die off quickly. My experience is telling me that it is better to leave that pH down stuff that came with my pH test kit sealed in the original bottle and make believe that I don't have any.