Waterdrop?

[LionessN3cubs]

Im left feeling like I dont understand something...and I dont like it when that happens. Could you look at my issue/logic and tell me if Im wrong please.

If my tap KH is 0 and my tap PH is ALWAYS 6.0...then I could just buy fish that like that water quality correct? There would be no issue correct? I understand this to be okay because even if the PH drops from 6.0 its not going to drop MUCH more, and while there are fish in there, they will acclimate themselves to that because it happens slowly. If I do a water change and again the PH is 6.0, the fish will still be okay because the change wont be THAT different.

If however I have a tap KH of zero, and my tap PH swings wildly (it does). Then I have a situation that looks like this:

Tank was filled with 7.6 ph 0 KH water. 2 weeks goes by and the PH in the tank slowly falls to 6.0. Thats okay because the fish are acclimated to that. Water change day comes and water I draw for a 50% change comes out of the tap at 7.6 again. I put dechlorinator in and the PH hikes to 8.4. I dump that 50% 8.4 PH water into a tank that is 50% 6.0 and the fish are going from 6.0 to say 7.4 in an instant. My numbers are just guesstimates..I dont know what the PH would technically be if you mixed 50% 6.0 and 50% 8.4...we'll use the difference between 6.0 and 7.4 in a seconds time as an example.

Am I really wrong in thinking this is what could have killed my fish? Am I wrong for trying to boost the KH so that I dont get such wild swings in the tank PH every time I do a water change? I mean, if I can keep the tank at 7.6 ph, and I draw a water change that is ph 6.0 out of the tap, Im adding dechlorinator that ALWAYS hikes the PH up a point...every time...so I could keep the PH stable that way regardless of what comes out of my tap.

Also, I have never heard anyone talking about how the dechlorinator hikes the PH...is this unusual or what?

 

[K-Holed]

Have you tried drawing a bucket of water, adding dechlorenator then leaving the water 24 hours and testing the pH?

 

[Bobtastic]

As I understand it the KH is the waters ability to hold a steady pH. The pH of water will change when different/addtional elements are introduced to it (ammonia, nitrites, etc). So if your water have a KH of 0 it has no ability to "buffer" against changes to its chemistry.

My water from the tap has a pH of 6 with a slightly higher KH (i think around 3-4) and it doen't seem to go up by any when I introduce a dechlorinator/conditioner. It seems to remain pretty constant (tho I have tried to add a pH buffer which has increase it steability).

Don't think that just cos your pH water testing kit only goes as low as 5-5.5 that the pH of water can drop further. The pH scale goes from 0 - 14.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Lioness,

I have seen your post and even read it a couple times. Too busy with work stuff at the mo to attempt a proper response but will hope to get back to it later.

One interesting starting point might be the bit about conditioner raising pH. Maybe some other members could comment on whether that's common. I have no direct experience as I've never measured that because I use a Python and dump my Prime directly into the tank.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[LionessN3cubs]

Have you tried drawing a bucket of water, adding dechlorenator then leaving the water 24 hours and testing the pH?

No I haven't tried this...I know I should at least try it, but unfortunately it is NEVER a good idea for me to have buckets of water sitting anywhere in my house.

 

[K-Holed]

That's fair enough. It's just a shot in the dark, it may be of no benefit to you whatsoever.

 

[LionessN3cubs]

That's fair enough. It's just a shot in the dark, it may be of no benefit to you whatsoever.

I just get worried about an open container of water like that LOL. I have an autism spectrum child...the things he could/might do with a bucket of water the second my back is turned :::shudder:::

 

[waterdrop]

OK, I'm going to attempt to make some statements. I hate this stuff because every time I think I more or less know something, it can end up seeming like I don't know anything. Know what I mean, lol?

[disclaimer: I'm a strange combo of hobbyist who had a lot of tanks years ago, did a lot of reading back then but never really lucked in to having a real mentor, so didn't really learn the hobby like some people knew it. I then happened back into the hobby recently and found it fascinating that lots more info was much more easily accessible. I call this being a "Re-Beginner" and I like to think that one "useful" thing from a person like me who gets very interested, is to be a bit of a scribe, transferring and discussing bits of learned info and trying to be open and hopefully accurate about it, but perhaps that's what we all do here, lol. I do not have anywhere near the experience of many of what I think of as the experienced hobbyists here like the moderators, OM47, MW, BTT, Colin_T, the "planted guys" and many others who have many years of recent tank maintenance experience. Yes, I'm a bit sciency but there are many here who are smarter than me in those kinds of areas too, so just take my stuff with a grain of salt, like we all should for all of this.]

>If my tap KH is 0 and my tap PH is ALWAYS 6.0...then I could just buy fish that like that water quality correct? There would be no issue correct? I understand this to be okay >because even if the PH drops from 6.0 its not going to drop MUCH more, and while there are fish in there, they will acclimate themselves to that because it happens slowly. If I do >a water change and again the PH is 6.0, the fish will still be okay because the change wont be THAT different.

Yes, if you went for neons/cardinals, rasboras, angelfish(if your tank were taller), and many other fish that either naturally like soft,acid water or are so captivity-bred that they are tolerant of this range as well as other ranges, then I'd expect your hypothesis to be correct, that you'd have success and these fish would behave happily and live long.

>If however I have a tap KH of zero, and my tap PH swings wildly (it does). Then I have a situation that looks like this:
>Tank was filled with 7.6 ph 0 KH water. 2 weeks goes by and the PH in the tank slowly falls to 6.0. Thats okay because the fish are acclimated to that. Water change day comes >and water I draw for a 50% change comes out of the tap at 7.6 again. I put dechlorinator in and the PH hikes to 8.4. I dump that 50% 8.4 PH water into a tank that is 50% 6.0 >and the fish are going from 6.0 to say 7.4 in an instant. My numbers are just guesstimates..I dont know what the PH would technically be if you mixed 50% 6.0 and 50% >8.4...we'll use the difference between 6.0 and 7.4 in a seconds time as an example.
>Am I really wrong in thinking this is what could have killed my fish?

To be honest, I really don't know. There are statements out there at both ends of this argument. I've seen statements that quick pH changes of several tenths of a full point will kill some species of fish. I've also seen statements that pH shouldn't matter that much, especially if the underlying GH/KH don't vary too quickly, which would seem the case if its staying close to zero in this example. I really should chart my own case, as I believe I've had some pretty large/quick pH changes to go along with my zero KH, but I've not lost fish. There are so many unknowns. Why might you and I have different results? I suppose a smaller tank like a ten gallon might really be a factor, but I'm not sure even of that. Perhaps we're not comparible because we've not kept the same species, or that my tank is bigger and has a bigger filter, who knows? There's of course always the possibility that you are just getting diseased fish that don't exhibit symptoms prior to dying, sad but possible I suppose.

>Am I wrong for trying to boost the KH so that I dont get such wild swings in the tank PH every time I do a water change? I mean, if I can keep the tank at 7.6 ph, and I draw a >water change that is ph 6.0 out of the tap, Im adding dechlorinator that ALWAYS hikes the PH up a point...every time...so I could keep the PH stable that way regardless of what >comes out of my tap.

I think drobbyb has written pretty well about this (as an example) that if you're willing to accept the precautions (that if you were to miss a weekend water change then at 2 weeks the KH/pH might have climbed enough that the water change would be a bigger adjustment and so perhaps smaller ones should be done) then this seems, at least to me, to be a pretty reasonable direction to go in. You might never know as a true experiment (because you'd now be using a new batch of fish and they might be -not-diseased this time) but maybe you should just try it and see if the fish do better this time. That's about all any of us can do ultimately anyway.

>Also, I have never heard anyone talking about how the dechlorinator hikes the PH...is this unusual or what?
As I said earlier, still interested to hear from others on this one!

~~waterdrop~~
edit: oh well, yuk, my little "greater than signs" didn't format out at the line beginnings so guess I should have used the quote mechanism, sorry!

 

[OldMan47]

Let me try out your dilemma and see where we end up Lioness.
If you have a very low KH, you are likely to see wide swings in pH. You are absolutely correct in that. Something that you need to be aware of is that fish that seem to like a low pH are often just fish that like a low mineral content in their water. What that means is that you want to try to test for either the GH or the TDS of your water. If it is consistently low, I would go out on a limb and tell you that the pH itself does not matter much. When you consider the real world that fish live in, the pH can vary a large amount from day to night just based on the CO2 that builds up when the plants in their environment are in the dark. The daily pH swings are a thing that they are accustomed to dealing with in a wild habitat so it won't affect them much. The dissolved minerals in their water will move slowly based on rainy season vs. dry season effects and similar slow changes so a constant TDS is better for the fish. As long as the total mineral content, not the KH, is fairly constant, I would just keep an eye on the fish and not worry too much about the chemistry.

 

[LionessN3cubs]

Let me try out your dilemma and see where we end up Lioness.
If you have a very low KH, you are likely to see wide swings in pH. You are absolutely correct in that. Something that you need to be aware of is that fish that seem to like a low pH are often just fish that like a low mineral content in their water. What that means is that you want to try to test for either the GH or the TDS of your water. If it is consistently low, I would go out on a limb and tell you that the pH itself does not matter much. When you consider the real world that fish live in, the pH can vary a large amount from day to night just based on the CO2 that builds up when the plants in their environment are in the dark. The daily pH swings are a thing that they are accustomed to dealing with in a wild habitat so it won't affect them much. The dissolved minerals in their water will move slowly based on rainy season vs. dry season effects and similar slow changes so a constant TDS is better for the fish. As long as the total mineral content, not the KH, is fairly constant, I would just keep an eye on the fish and not worry too much about the chemistry.

::::sigh::::: I can accept this...I just dont wanna. This means that something else probably killed all 30+ of my fish over the last year, and it might happen again even after I changed substrate completely, put a new filter media in, and re-cycle this tank. If its a parasite that did it UGH although I dont think a parasite makes much sense since it took almost a year for it to make the rounds in all of the fish? UGH

 

[Mikaila31]

Wouldn't adding baking soda help keep the tank more stable? Or am I thinking of the wrong thing here .

 

[LionessN3cubs]

Wouldn't adding baking soda help keep the tank more stable? Or am I thinking of the wrong thing here .

yes baking soda does keep it more stable and is suggested during cycling to keep the PH up...its just not suggested for when fish are in, and thats what Im worrying about.

 

[OldMan47]

Baking soda is fine if you take enough care using it and if you have fish that like their water with a higher KH and pH. It would be great for me and my fish because I have almost exclusively fish that like liquid rock to swim around in. The fairly common South American type fish are soft water fish and would not appreciate it one bit.

 

[waterdrop]

I speculate sometimes that the mild negative of baking soda is that the live plants in the tank don't appreciate getting a dose of sodium when the baking soda goes in the water and separates into sodium and bicarb. I don't know how significant or insignificant this is, but it seems one of the things that makes baking soda less desirable in a "fish & plant tank" as opposed to a "bare, fishless cycling tank."

~~waterdrop~~

 

[aaronnorth]

I speculate sometimes that the mild negative of baking soda is that the live plants in the tank don't appreciate getting a dose of sodium when the baking soda goes in the water and separates into sodium and bicarb. I don't know how significant or insignificant this is, but it seems one of the things that makes baking soda less desirable in a "fish & plant tank" as opposed to a "bare, fishless cycling tank."

~~waterdrop~~

it is very significant, Sodium interfers with the movement of other elements and replaces other positive ions (mainly potassium) which is a major macronutrient and the plant dies.