Moving fish from high PH to low PH

[Barney]

I live it a very hard water area with a Tap water PH of just under 8 and very high hardness.

With CO2 and ADA substrate I'm expecting my PH to drop to somewhere between 6-7 (only just set up so not measuring anything yet).

The problem is my LFS uses the local tap water so how well are fish going to deal with the sudden shift in PH and what is the best way to acclimitise them?

Ideally I know a 2nd tank would always be the best bet but I dont really have space for it at the moment. Is this going to be the only way to do it though (have a 2nd tank with tap water PH then over the course of a couple of weeks lower the PH and hardness)?

I have read in some places that a change of PH will not cause any long term damage to your fish and just going through the normal process will be fine. But then I have read elsewhere that a PH shift of more then 1PH will stress a lot of fish close to death.

I think what would probably be worse then the change in PH would be the change in hardness (doesnt this change the osmetic pressure?)

Any advice would be great as i cant seem to find two sources that agree at the moment

 

[SpongeBob SquarePlants]

Well here is what I do when I buy fish from the store.

First, my tap water here is about 7.1 ph using a drop test kit. The LFS has about the same PH for their fish tanks. I run my CO2 non stop now using a manual adjusted bubble counter for 11 hours a day. I do have a Pinpoint PH controller but no equipment is attached to it anymore. The PH controller will read about 6.10 PH at the start of the day and levels off at 5.60 PH by late afternoon. I know this seem like REALLY acidic water but I have alot of surface movement and large CO2 return spray bar in the tank (130g). I see fish stress when the PH reads close to

 

[Barney]

Thanks for the reply. This is pretty much what I do anyway when I introduce fish and its good to know that I should be able to do it without having to set up a second tank. I will do a couple of test runs first without fish just to get a feel for how much the PH changes and how quickly

 

[SnakeIce]

I think what would probably be worse then the change in PH would be the change in hardness (doesnt this change the osmetic pressure?)

Any advice would be great as i cant seem to find two sources that agree at the moment

This is correct. Fish do not read ph, they read TDS of which hardness is a part of. Your aquasoil will soften the water more when first used and decline after that. A drip every second or two into an open container that the fish are in untill the water volume has doubled or tripled will make the transition the easyest on them. If the trip has been very long, ie shipped to you, you will need stuff on hand to neutralize ammonia so the aclimation process doesn't prolong their contact with that.


I just took some apistos from the store's reconstituted RO water to my liquid rock useing this method and had no signs of stress beyond normal for bringing fish home.