First tank - Ph Nightmare!!

[MountainFan]

Hello to everyone. I've just finished cycling a new 10g tank. I started with 3 danios (1 zebra, 1 leopard, and 1 long-finned zebra). The long-finned (the bully of the 3) died about a week into cycling. I haven't purchased a master test kit yet, instead taking my water to the LFS to have them test it. About 2 weeks ago, my zebra died. When I had the water tested, the nitrites and nitrates were both sky-high. The cycle has finally finished now. Ammonia and nitrites @ zero, nitrates okay, but Ph is off the scale!

I use well water, which the lady at the LFS store says may be the problem. I'll have my tapwater tested tomorrow afternoon. Has anyone else run into this? What options do I have? I used 3 gal of RO Water when I did a change a few days ago, but it had a negligible effect on Ph (still at 8.0). I really wish I could begin stocking some fish, but I don't want to subject any more to those water conditions. Help!

[Lady Hobbs]

What kind of subtrate are you using? If you have coral shells as subtrate, that will raise the pH.

[MountainFan]

I have basic aquarium gravel from WalMart.

[Lady Hobbs]

I take it your well water has a filtering device of some kind? Perhaps you need to replace the filter? Or again, you may just be stuck with a high pH which certainly will limit what you can have in the tank which is already limited by the size. Since you have a small tank, you may need to buy bottled water for it and use half and half.

Aerating the tank also raises the pH so if you are using a water pump, may need to get rid of it. Sorry.

[SkarloeysMom]

If you want to go the natural route, filtering your water through peat is supposed to be helpful but it would require setting up some kind of storage bucket system. I found that a couple pieces of driftwood has really helped lower the Ph tap water. I'm considering setting up a storage bucket and just throwing a big piece of driftwood in it to sit over night and test the Ph before I use it for a water change. When I set up my 20g the driftwood I put it lowered the Ph from 8.8 to 7 overnight so I know it can be done.

If you want to do it the east way and aren't going to have a planted tank you can get a Ph neutralizer to add to the water. I've used Neutral Regulator by Seachem because it removes chorine and ammonia and brings the Ph down.

I have tap water with ammonia and high Ph so I understand you're dilemma. I really feel limited as to how big a tank I can take care of practically because of my water but I'm working on a solution. It just make some time and money to figure it out

[RobbieG]

If I were you - with that size tank - I would find a cheap brand of grocery store spring water that is around 7.0 and use that instead of the well water.

In the long run this is likely to be the easiest way to maintain a constant level.

[MountainFan]

I've been told by several people to avoid adding a bunch of chemicals to the water if possible, plus that would add more cost which I'm also trying to avoid. I was afraid bottled would be the answer, but that raises a couple more questions. Do Ph levels vary much with bottled waters? Do I need to have it tested before I start using it? How do I go about switching to bottled water? Gradual water changes or one massive change? Also, will switching to the bottled water require me to do another mini-cycle?

[MountainFan]

There is no aerator, just the HOB filter. No extra filters on the well water, just stuck with high Ph there I guess. LadyHobbs, you mentioned half & half. Would that be better than 100% bottled spring water or does it still just depend on Ph?

[RobbieG]

I would use the store brand spring water from your local grocery market. That is likely to always be avaliable - and cheap.

I would double check the PH first JIC (I'm paranoid)

You can change all of the water out at once - the bacteria are in your gravel and filter.

[Chrona]

Chances are, the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate killed the fish, not the pH. Given a long acclimation process (1+ hour, 1/2 cup of tank water into the bag at a time every 5 minutes), danios should have no problems at all in very hard well water, as they are extremely resilient fish. RO/bottled water is great and all, but it's really overkill for a freshwater tank unless your well water is polluted to hell. Peat should be treated as a chemical additive for all intents and purposes. Everytime you do a water change, it'll spike the pH. With regards to pH, fish are FAR more intolerant of rapid changes in pH than a non-ideal one (which really depends on where the fish was raised as well - not just the pH from it's natural habitat) Try fishless cycling and use just your well water, imo.

[SkarloeysMom]

Peat should be treated as a chemical additive for all intents and purposes. Everytime you do a water change, it'll spike the pH.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. If you filter the water through peat and bring down the ph and then use that water to refill your tank during your water change, how will that spike the ph. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something.

[Chrona]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. If you filter the water through peat and bring down the ph and then use that water to refill your tank during your water change, how will that spike the ph. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something.

Peat/driftwood lowers pH by releasing tannic acid and neutralizing alkalinity to a degree, just like an chemical acid buffer would, only much slower. Thus, when you do a water change, you remove that acid and introduce a higher kH (and thus pH) water.

[ashm5]

I'm sort f having the same problem as this, I use tap water for my tank and it's a very big tank so changing the pH in another storage tank would be very difficult as I would need alot (about 60L) and so no matter how cheap bottled water is it's going to cost alot too! my water is very hard so it's almost impossible to change it with chemicals, I also had very bad ammonia/nitrate/nitrite levels so I decided to take all my fish out and put them in a temporary tank whilst I refilled my tank and used some "safestart" which is supposed to immediately cycle the tank and reduce all of those levels but after doing a test.. it doesn't seem to have done much :S at the moment I have some low pH fish in my tank anyway but they seem to be doing fine apart from them no breeding any other suggestions?

[Lady Hobbs]

There is no aerator, just the HOB filter. No extra filters on the well water, just stuck with high Ph there I guess. LadyHobbs, you mentioned half & half. Would that be better than 100% bottled spring water or does it still just depend on Ph?

When you do your water changes, why not just change out with bottled water since your tank is small. You won't have a rapid decrease in pH but a partical decline. Some groceries have the water filling stations and you can refill your empties for 25 cents so it won't be a big expensive....just a pain in the neck. You can use rain water too. Just don't use run off from your roof.

I think with a higher pH as you have, you should just go with fish that can tolerate what you have. Most fish are pretty adaptable. But if you go with a large tank one of these days, stick with a cichlid tank that likes that higher pH. (You just know you want cichlids anyway.) :c3:

[jessie]

I also had the problem of having a higher pH and hard water (not well water though). I tried several methods such as driftwood and adding peat granules to my canister filter. I really didn't see much results with these. I opted to go with fish that can tolerate (or thrive in) harder water and a higher pH. My Malawi cichlids are doing great. You may want to look at getting some of the livebearers (platies, guppies, mollies, etc..,), as they tend to do very well in this type of water if you are unable to get things adjusted safely.

(yes, I have to put in my two cents about cichlids....you can get so many different colors and variety).

[Kuli_Loach]

Driftwood helps with lowering pH and you may just have to look into fish that like high alkalinities in the water.

[ashm5]

I have the same problem, how easy are cichlids to keep? are they more expensive and what can I do with my other fish? I have quite a few any advice on switching to cihlids? i.e decoration, temp, plants etc...

[Jason87]

Generally with Ciclids I would stray away from plants, and would use alot of rocks in fact my 55 gallon is nothing but lace rock. I would imagine there is about 100lbs of it actually. Gravel or Sand is fine, but naturally I think the lake beds are made of sand. And it sounds like your water perameteres are fine to support them.

[zackish]

I would use the store brand spring water from your local grocery market. That is likely to always be avaliable - and cheap.

I would double check the PH first JIC (I'm paranoid)

You can change all of the water out at once - the bacteria are in your gravel and filter.

Ya, water is under $1.00 so to even fill your tank it won't even cost $10.
If your PH is only at 8.0 you could just get whatever fish like a slightly basic PH and acclimate them for a long timel....several hours.

[ashm5]

looks very much like it'll be cichlids in one tank and a third tank for me then :D lol my tank isn't gonna crakc with all those rocks in it is it? :S

[MountainFan]

Friday I took samples of my tank water and my tap water to the LFS. My tap pH was about 7.8, but my tank was at 8.1. The "fish guru" at the store was at a loss for an explanation. He said all the natural processes going on should all work to lower the pH, not raise it. All I have in my tank other than fish is 15 lbs of aquarium gravel from WalMart (before anyone asks, it's for freshwater...WM doesn't carry saltwater supplies), 3 plastic plants, and 2 resin ornaments. Nothing in there that should be affecting pH. I'm hesitant to make any decisions on what type of fish to go with until I figure out what is causing my pH to skyrocket. Right now I'm doing 15-20% water changes every other day with distilled water to see if I can get the pH down to acceptable levels to keep a community tank just because I can keep more fish that way. I've been told I could go with 3 or 4 of the dwarf type cichlids with the high pH levels, but even then, I need to know what is causing the pH levels so I can maintain them at high levels.

Another guy at the store suggested upgrading the filter on my tank. I’m currently using the HOB filter that came with the starter kit from WalMart. He said when he used that same filter in the past, he had weird chemistry readings until he upgraded the filter. Anyone else run into anything like this or was he just feeding me BS to sell an overpriced filter?

[Kuli_Loach]

Lots of driftwood is the only think I know to do. I would want it as close as possible to 7.0. Mine went from 7.8 to 7.2 by adding a small piece of driftwood to it.

[SkarloeysMom]

Like Kuli, I used driftwood too and it worked very fast. My pH is 8.8 out of the tap and after sitting in the tank with 2 pieces of driftwood overnight the pH was 7.0.

It might be helpful to find out the Kh and Gh of your tap water too. If I understand those two correctly if the Kh is high then your water will be very resistant to pH changes.