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Our test kits are showing our tap water to have
PH: 8.4, Hardness: 150 GH (8.4dH), Alkalinity: 300 KH ppm

We have been having a little chemistry experiment here with 2/3 distilled water to 1/3 tap and the results are:

PH: 7.8, Hardness: 50 GH (2.8dH), Alkalinity: 150 KH ppm

Here's our question: What is more important to the fish? PH or Hardness? As we lower the PH w/distilled water we also are lowering the hardness (almost too low?).

The kind of fish we want to have are: Dwarf Gouramis, Long-finned Rosy Barb, Bristlenose Catfish, Swordtails and Corydoras. The FishProfile optimal water perameters stated that we needed PH: 7.1, Hardess 13dH.

Sidenote: we did notice that the Swordtails like harder water and higher pH and we were wondering if we should not add them to this mix.......

Stability is the name of the game with PH and hardness. If its not to much trouble you can keep going with 2/3 distilled. All those fish can easily adapt to different conditions. Very few fish anymore will require a specific ph.

Thanks Greenmonkey for your reply

So will a PH of 8.4 kill the fish that I've selected or can they adapt to a PH that high? We can certainly buy distilled water, especially if it is better for the fish, but if they will adapt to the tap, that would be easier.

I would appreciate anybodys opinion

Thanks,
Tinfil

Tin,

You certainly have rocks in your water.

The fish that you have chosen will adapt to the pH and the hardness of your water. They may not thrive but they will do OK. You will find that the barbs and the swordtails should do very well.

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

8.4 is a little high but all the fish you chose are hardy. Diluting it with 1/3 or 2/3 distilled would probably make the water just about right. The lower gh won't harm them and the lower ph might be better but it's not necessary to do that. If you really want to mess with the water you can buy something like seachem's equilibrium to raise gh and continue diluting the alkilinity and lowering the ph using the distilled water. My water gets up to 9.0 ph so I switched to using all reverse osmosis water and then adding back in the hardness and alkalinity using equilibrium and kent's ph stable. You can go through all that effort but the fish you have won't mind if you just leave the water alone and when you start changing the water you have to make sure to mix it the same everytime. Stable hard water is better than ending up with changing water values everytime you do a water change.

Last edited by sham at 30-Nov-2005 14:23

Whatever you can easily maintain on a day to day basis is what you should shoot for.

If it's a lot of work to stay at a lower pH and softer water, and if you miss a day or so here and there causing the water parameters to rise again, it's probably best for you to just leave your water as is, and get fish that are suitable for your normal water.

I speak from experience, if your the type that goes away for more then one day at a time often, and you don't have a shown and reliable person to care for your fish in case of an emergency, you don't want to have extra water problems to worry about!
Every time I leave for a holiday I come back to half of my fish dead because of ill care takers, no matter how many times I go over things with them, or how well I pay them.

While yes hardness will play a large factor on a fishes over all health and longevity. Some people question if the "pH Shock" even exists.
Lets pretend it does, and realize that a slip from 7.5 to 8.0 is a BIG deal when changed suddenly.
You will have to be on top of yourself constantly to make sure the levels of your new bucket of water, match what is already in your tank.

A fish that gets stressed out from the initial "shock" one time is one thing, most fish will live through it, only the ill or already weakened ones will typically die.
However repeated stress will kill just about any fish.

Do you have the time and patience to assure proper water parameters every week or more often if needs be?

OK, I'm done rambling =p

Thanks Angel,

Yes, I think we are willing to mess with the water...I think we have to.....our water is just too toxic. Last Fri. we got a male and female sword to cycle the tank. The male is dead already and the female is barely hanging on. We discovered that we have ammonia already present in our tap water. We are thinking that is the main problem.

Our uncertainty lies in whether to just doctor our tap water or complicating the matter and doctoring both tap water and distilled water.

Tinfil

Hmm, it sounds like you have a little more investigating to do, before getting anymore fish.

Seems you need a good water conditioner, I would recommend Seachem's Prime. It's what I use and gets rid of virtually everything that might be in your tap water, and otherwise completely evaporates with in 24 hours.

You have to treat your water each time so that it's no longer toxic, before you can put fish in it.

Why not try out a fishless cycle.
I prefer to use some enzyme product like Cycle or "NIC" and "feed" my tank a couple times a day.
Other people like to use Bio-Spira which supposidly instantly cycles your tank, provided that it was stored properly before getting to you, and you then use it properly.
Then there is the type of fishless cycle which includes using ammonia.

Do you know how to acclimate fish, specially more fragile species, or ones that will be coming from a drastically different water from yours? (FYI most fish/pet stores run at about pH 7.0)

we took a water sample to the LFS to see what they thought........they were surprised/alarmed at the amount of ammonia in our water and told us to call the water company. SOOOO.....our LFS guy told us to try to acclimate the fish to our tap after we get rid of ammonia and put in biozyme, which has nitifying bacteria and enzymes in it. We also picked up a few danios to help cycle the tank and they are doing well so far. Very active today.

Angel or others, how do you go about acclimating your fish? especially the more fragile ones??

Thanks again for all the info
Tinfil

Hi,
Once you get the fish home, float the bag in the tank
that they are going into for at least a half hour so the
temperature in the bag reaches that of the tank.
Then set the bag in a container with the mouth open, and
using a piece of air line with a shut off valve, syphon
the tank water into the bag at a steady rate of a few
drops/second. Should the bag fill up, and you are still
not ready to transfer the fish, remove some of the bag
water (a little) and continue dripping the tank into
the bag.
Its called the drip method and will work for all fish,
and especially the more sensitive ones.

Depending upon how sensitive they are, or how great the
differences between the tank and the bag, you can adjust
the drip rate to take days. Be sure to add a small,
lightly powered airstone, if you are taking days.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

The LFS you went to, and where you live, are they relatively near each other? My concern is that if you are close, as in the same town, you should have the same water conditions. That is, if you are on the same water company. And/or you get your water from the same source as they do. If so, I would be wondering where the ammonia in your tap is coming from?

My origianl thought, was what you are doing to the tap before you are testing it? As my thoughts at first where Chloramine in your water. Which is a combination of Chlorine and Ammonia. I know that some test kits will read the ammonia if treated with some things before testing the water. Are you treating the tap before testing it? Or testing the tap water directly. Also, how long are you letting the tap sit before testing it? You should let the tap water sit for several hours before testing it. This could change the readings.

There are some areas in the US where they do add ammonia to the water. Though they are rare. This may just be the case in your situation. If so, you will need to watch your fish tank levels closely. And do smaller more often water changes. Thus, giving the cycle time to catch up with the additional ammonia levels, and being able to convert them.

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There is always a bigger fish...

Frank, thanks for the info on the drip method. I have never heard of that and it's something I would like to try. That is once I get the equipment.......this is one expensive hobby

AcidRain - The lfs is about 30 minutes away. They do not have an ammonia problem like we do but they do have a pretty high pH, so most of the fish would be already used to that. I called the water company today and asked about the water and he said we have higher ammonia because our water is ground water and is very hard. and then he mentioned something with the softners but I didn't understand it. He said it was ok for people, passed EPA standards, just happens to be that way for our town.

We have always tested the water straight from the tap when got the high readings and had not treated it with anything. I have never let it sit for over an hour. I can certainly try that. The lfs guy recommended AmQuel+ last night which removes nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, chlorine and chloramines. He also recommended Biozyme which adds nitifying bacteria and enzymes.

What do you think now?

tinfil

tinfil: I am also quiet concerned if you have very high amounts of ammonia in your tap water.

For future reference if you ever bring water in to a pet/fish store to be tested, check if they use a strip test (no no) or a liquid regent test (yes). And make sure you get the exact numbers. Just hearing "Your ammonia is very high" isn't going to help you much.

Are you by chance using any Ammonia Removing products in your tank currently?

Here is a test you can do, and make sure you write it down in your tank log, so you can always have it, this way if your tap water changes you'll know. And it shows how effective your water conditioner is for your water supply.
I know it's similar to what I repeated above but I think it's something every hobbiest should do, and it can easily be done at home.

Take 2 CLEAN gallon jugs of water (no soap residue, etc).
Fill them up to the 1 gallon line.
Set one aside (no top on it) for 24 hours.
Take the other one and put the correct amount of water conditioner in it (aka however many ml per gallon of water, or drops per gallon of water.)
After about 1 minute perform these test on the "treated" water jug.
Ammonia
NitrItes
NitrAtes
pH
Hardness

In 24 hours, take your other jug that has been sitting out all night, and perform all the same tests.

Also, take a small sample of your tap water (let it run for a second) and run all the above tests on your straight tap water, don't let it sit and don't add anything to it.
Make sure you document all of this and save it some where.


As far as acclimating your fish goes, Frank definetly has the right idea. However if your house is colder and you have them sitting in a seperate container for a long time, you might need to reacclimate them to the tanks tempurature again.
Me, I put all my fish in a bucket (unless it's a very hardy, small quantity of fish). Acclimate them slowly, once the levels are matched I bag them up and float them in the tank so it reaches the same temp, and then net them and place them in the tank.
You don't want to put the bag/fish store water in your tank!

There are other tests you can preform to get more specific readings on your water, and I'm sure theirs either a website or a phone number you can call to ask questions about your local water supply.
Check out Seachem's Prime, they sell this water conditioner every where, it's in a red and white bottle. Here is a link to their site, it should take care of everything for you.

If this is not something with the water supply itself, then you should look into other things leaching into your water supply via some route, perhaps your pipes, etc. In that case it's probably not safe for your fish, let alone you and should have a professional check it out.

Prime:
http://www.seachem.com/products/product_pages/Prime.html

Op, just see you posted again.

I personally would recommend something like Bio-Spira over the BioZyme thing, or NIC (Cycle, or New Improved Cycle) though you will need a full understanding of how both of them really work in order to use them properly.

I would use the Prime over the AmQuel+, but that's my experience.

For further knowledge;
The Amquel does not remove those things from the water. It binds to them to make them not harmful to the fish. However, there is a lot of debate over how this changes the cycle speed and such, as well as how they end up getting removed in the end.

You may have to "season" your water before doing water changes. As the gases then have a chance to escape, including chlorine and some others. This may also help. Get a rubber garbage can, or something clean and new that can/will hold the amount of water you want to change. Then the night before you do the water changes, fill it up with water, put an air stone in it (keeps it aerated as well as makes current to stir the water around for you), and don't add any chemicals.

Another trick you might try, but could be more expensive, and yet will be enjoyable. Set up another tank, and make it strictly a plant tank. Heavily planted. After it is established well, you can change the water in the fish tank with the water out of the plant tank. The plants will/should uptake all the ammonia. As well the plant tank will have its own cycle going which will be converting the ammonia to nitrites to nitrates of which the plants will love! Then after you take the water from this tank for the fish tank. Just add new water from the tap to the plant tank. Instant ferts, lol.

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There is always a bigger fish...