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Man, I fix one problem, and it brings another.

I added baking soda to my tanks, and now my pH is wonderfully stable-- at 8.4. My african cichlids seem to enjoy it, but the other tank has angels and apistos, which is why I worry.

Is there any way to lower the pH without peat? I don't want to tint my water or anything. I bought some chemicals, but then it says inside the bottle, after I've bought it, "do not use with live plants" ]

If you have access to reverse osmosis water, you can add that to your tank. It is as pure as water can get, and starts out with a pH of 7.0. The pH will fall however, if nothing is added to stablize it. With no minerals or additives, there is nothing to hold up the pH, which is why it will fall.

To lower your pH, you can just add R.O. water in small proportions to the tank. Every time you change your tank's water, add some tap water and some R.O. water. The pH will slowly come down to an acceptable level, without shocking your fish from a sudden change.

Many of the larger fish stores offer R.O. water, priced per gallon. At my work, it is $.36 per gallon, not a terrible price if you don't have a huge tank. If you've got access to R.O. water, try using that.

I hope I got all this right.

---

And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

CO2 will also lower ph. If the tank you want to have a lower ph has plants they'll love you for it too. Depending on the size of the tank a DIY CO2 may be all you need.
What's the PH from the tap and what's your target ph?

^_^



[hr width='40%']"There’s an emptiness inside her. And she’d do anything to fill it in.
And though it’s red blood bleeding from her now. It's more like cold blue ice in her heart.
She feels like kicking out all the windows. And setting fire to this life."

If you don't have RO water, get a few gallons of Steam Distilled water. But just watch how much you change out at a time. I wouldn't do more than 15% in any one shot. YOu don't want to go from 8.4 down to 7.8 in 30 minutes. Do a 15% change using distilled water, then test your pH and kH at least 4 hours later after it mixes well. Do it again the next day.

The kH will really tell the story too. You have increased it by adding the baking soda. I just recently did this with my 20 long, but I did it in 1/8 tsp increments, measuring kH and pH several hours after each addition. You want to make the same gradual process going backwards too.

I will try the co2 (I was planning on using it for the plants anyway), and check outt he steam distilled water (never heard of it...) since I don't have RO water.

The tank is a 55g. My tap water comes out at 6.7, but it has no buffers at all, so it fluctuates like mad once in the tank. So I add baking soda to give it a buffer, and then the pH shoots up.

Well, the value you need to know is your kH. Your pH does not need to shoot up by adding baking soda - if you do it incrementally.

One other thing you need to know is what your pH is after your tap water sits out. For example, my water comes out of the cold tap at 7.0. After sitting all night in a bucket with an airstone, it rises to 8.0. The 7.0 reading can be misleading because there are compressed gases in the water. The airstone moves the water in the bucket so that more water comes in contact with the atmosphere. After the gas in the bucket equalizes with the gas in the atmosphere, I get my true tap pH reading. This is what you need to do. If you don't have a spare bubbler, just put about a cup's worth into a shallow bowl. Agitate it any time you walk by and then check the pH the next day. Leave the bowl open. The reading should be similar to your tank's pH WITHOUT baking soda.

Once we know this true pH and your kH value, we'll know whether you should be adding any baking soda at all. You would need to get at least 5 or six bottles to make up the 10% or so, of distilled water. Pharmacies carry it, as do grocery stores in the water aisle. It tastes yucky. Basically there are no minerals in it and it will soften your water. But don't add any more baking soda for now.

Fish stores should be able to test your kH, but it will come down as the baking soda is diluted out with distilled water. I would do that once or twice, then follow up with just plain tap water changes of 10% without adding baking soda. Let the tank go where it wants to see if you need to do all this stuff or not. It will eventually change over.

You can't let water pH straight out of the tap dictate what you do. Know what it is after it sits out. I went nuts when I first filled my 20 long and got that 7.0 reading, followed by an 8.0 reading the next morning . Now i know why. With aging, that dropped to about 7.7-7.8. With co2, it has dropped to 7.2.

Your problem won't be or shouldn't be solved by adding co2. Your hardness is probably through the roof from al the added baking soda and needs to be countered.

I'd go one more step and bag some tap water and have that kH tested and compare to that of your tank's kH. It would be best if you could get yourself a kH test kit - either the Hagen or Aquarium Pharm liquid tests. The test strips aren't as good.


Last edited by Cory_Di at 02-Mar-2005 11:29

Well, my KH comes out of the tap at 0. Same for GH. pH comes out, after letting it sit, about 6.7... but once I've put it in my tank, it'll go from 5.0 to 8.0 in the course of two days (which, as you can imagine, killed 90% of my tank before I knew what was going on).

Here's the readings for the tank right now:

Nitrate: 20 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
GH: 25
KH: 120-130ish
pH: 8.0

I'd like to keep my pH around 6.5, I think. 7.0 at the highest.

Are you by any chance using a reverse osmosis unit? I don't know how else you could get a reading of zero for kH and gH, unless the water was stripped of minerals through such a process.

To get degrees of hardness on kH, simply multiply the kH ppm by 0.056. Let's use 125 since it splits your 120-130. 125 x 0.056 = 7 degrees of carbonate hardness.

If your tap truly has zero on kH, you can simply continue doing water changes of 15% or so to gradually bring the pH down, along with the kH. I would see where you are when your kH hits about 70, which is about 4 degrees. I'm going to estimate you will find yourself around 7.8 with that. I used this co2 calculator to play around with some numbers. http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_co2chart.htm

The input I used was your 125ppm and 8.0 pH. That revealed a co2 level of 2.1. If I fudge the kH down to 70 and the pH down to 7.8, I'm still close to the 2.1 reading. This is why I think you want to add co2 to bring it down any further. However, how do African's deal with lower pH. You are right in that he is probably happy at that level. I don't know if I've ever seen anyone mix the two . 7.8 may be a good compromise. If you want to maintain a higher kH, such as the 7 you have now, then just leave that lone and add co2 to drop your pH.

How low do you want to go? I've kept fish at that level for two years. If you really wanted to go lower, I'd maintain the 4 degrees and add co2 to drop it more. A simple DIY yeast device, or a purchased Hagen device will lower it with co2 gas.

Last edited by Cory_Di at 03-Mar-2005 17:29

Ohhh, no, the africans and soft-water fish aren't in the same tanks! THAT would be difficult. The africans are in one tank, which I'm keeping the pH high in, the other fish are in another tank.

Anyway... we run R/O water. I think it's very strange too... I didn't know water could HAVE that reading out of the tap (I've owned tanks in other states, too). It may be that our water softener has an R/O system attatched, or something?

Also... small water changes to bring down the pH/kH... but what about when it starts going too low again?

I usually do 40-50% water changes, so once it's at the right level, I'm bound to change the water again for maintenance reasons.. do I just put baking soda back in? Wouldn't it make the pH bounce around too much to do that? Paranoid about pH fluctuations after losing so many fish to it...

I'm confused by your first statement. YOu mentiont that you do run your water through RO, then it sounds like you aren't sure . Do you know? It has to be because any kH reading of zero is completely stripped of that which buffers.

We need to identify current parameters on each tank, and desired parameters on each tank, as I'm confused there too .

People with RO water often add something back to buffer it, like this:

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=4128&Ntt=ro%20right&Ntk=All&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Np=1&N=2004&Nty=1

I've not used it and I don't have RO water. If your tank is planted, then even the plants will benefit from adding back these essential elements as they are stripped during the process.

You will need to find a balance so that each time you do your water change, you know just how much baking soda or RO right to add back in.

Since others have to do this regular, you may want to get some attention with a new post and put RO Right in the thread. YOu can link that one to this one so people can see the issue. I'm thinking you may need more help than I can give. I don't deal with RO water and thought you may have a tap issue.


Last edited by Cory_Di at 03-Mar-2005 19:42

I don't think I said I used RO water..? If I did, it must've been a mistake. I WISH I had RO water, dechlorinating is a pain... either way, I'm quite sure I don't.

The african tank does not have an issue, and I'm keeping it as is.

The other tank is the one we're dealing with. The planted community, whatever it is. 55g, the parameters I posted last time are its CURRENT parameters. My target pH ideally is 6.5

I'm very baffled as to how any tap water can have a zero reading for kH. That is too strange.

Either way, if your tap has zero kH, then you may just need to find a balance with each water change. Tough thing to figure. Maybe someone else will have a better idea. I'm thinking you may not get new attention with this long thread. If you put hardness and pH in the title, then you may get the right traffic in here where experienced people have dealt with a similar situation. I've used baking soda, but only for marginal changes. YOu have a different situation and I would hate to steer you wrong.

Smantzer, you mentioned having a water softener system. If you do have one, you know why your water are so soft.

Anyway, to the issue at hand. As Cory_Di suggested, first bring down your KH to 4 degrees. Do it gradually, of course, as your pH will go down as well.

Now, if you are going for a pressurised co2 system, I think that even lower KH could be suitable as they're more stable regarding their output. DIY co2 and those hagen systems are not, and with lower KH, the larger the pH swings. Even with pressurised system, start with 4 dKH and then go down slowly while keeping an eye on the ever so important pH.

By the way, are you doing all this to be able to breed the apistogrammas you have? If that is so you will have to think about your TDS (total dissolved solids) too.

I'm not trying to breed my apistos, just trying to make all the fish happy (angels, apistos, rainbows, otos, and some weird mystery fish).

This is more simple than I thought, and I'll try to do it with water changes. I'm not gonna be using DIY or hagen co2, though I can't remember what it's called at this point... we just need to get the cylinder.

By the way, I forgot to mention it... You don't need to buy any water, just use yours as it has no KH whatsoever.

Last edited by untitled at 04-Mar-2005 11:35