What Water To Use Doing Partial Changes

[pobster]

Hello everybody!!
I`m a newbie with a question. My tap water has a high ph value (just over 8) and i`m wondering what other water i could use to help lower this. I have been told rain water would help as it is pure, also my LFS said use RO water (whats this?). It got me thinking I could use de-mineralised water (de-ionised) as I can get this cheap through work. Could I do this?? Any answers or advise would be gratefully received. Thanks for your time!
Cheers
Paul

 

[ChaseTheBetta]

I wouldn't use Deionized water. Fish need the stuff that's in normal water. You could buy bottled spring water and test the ph of that, and if it's adequate, use that.

 

[Christine1014]

What's the PH of your tap, and what's the PH preference of the fish you keep?
Fish can adjust pretty easily to a higher or lower PH (within reason of course). What you DON'T want is to use the various powders or solutions that claim to raise or lower or "balance" your PH. That will just cause regular PH swings that are far more harmful to your fish than if they just adapt to what your tap is.

 

[pobster]

What's the PH of your tap, and what's the PH preference of the fish you keep?
Fish can adjust pretty easily to a higher or lower PH (within reason of course). What you DON'T want is to use the various powders or solutions that claim to raise or lower or "balance" your PH. That will just cause regular PH swings that are far more harmful to your fish than if they just adapt to what your tap is.

The ph of my tap water is 8. The fish I keep are recommended to be 7>7.5 but they all seem very happy in the water they are in. All of them have brilliant colour, feed well and swim well. I wouldn`t use all the powders as the water has a strong buffer.

 

[Christine1014]

My personal opinion would be to leave well-enough alone. If you had fish that wanted a ph of 6 and you had them in 8, maybe that would be an issue, but 7.5 - 8 doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

 

[pobster]

My personal opinion would be to leave well-enough alone. If you had fish that wanted a ph of 6 and you had them in 8, maybe that would be an issue, but 7.5 - 8 doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

Thanks very much for the advise.