Water softening and lowering pH...a journey of frustration...

[ShadowMac]

I have been using a pH adjuster (seachem acid buffer) with my tank for five months in order to make my water more accommodating to my EBR's and cardinal tetras. I have a couple questions regarding this kind of water treatment.

1) is it necessary to modify the water in this way? will fish adjust, particularly those types mentioned, to local water?

2)what are the best methods to adjust these parameters? I've seen buffers, ph downs, RO/DI water, peat, black water extracts, etc. I'm assuming RO water is ideal, but expensive and difficult to implement.

3) my buffer doesn't seem to hold and I believe its because it isn't overcoming the buffering capacity already in the water. It seems I would have to add large amounts and risk a pH crash at every water change. This doesn't seem like a good approach. Could my seiryu stones limit the pH buffer in regards to kH changes? Could the buffer be reducing pH and kH in the water, but the stones over time counteract that effect? the seachem buffer lowers kH and releases CO2.

Last night I did a water change and decided to skip the buffer since its effects do not appear to be lasting and I thought it may not be beneficial. I ended up losing one cardinal within 20 minutes of the water change and an EBR today. The EBR i lost had been in the tanks, happy and healthy for months during most of that time I was adding buffer. The new rams (in the tank for a week) didn't seem stressed at all. This was their first water change. I feel like I did something stupid by not adding the buffer and adding a Tetra Black water extract instead. I have a regular GBR in another tank that I don't buffer or add anything at all and he is just fine, same for another who I recently gave to a friend, no problems with them in water as is out of the tap. Am i overcomplicating this? Am I making adjustments that aren't necessary and playing too much with the chemistry of the water which can have more of a detrimental effect on fish than the actual water pH and hardness itself?

someone please help me out

I will test and post my tap parameters tonight ASAP.

thanks to all.

 

[Gerryd]

Hi,

Not sure if this will help but...

IMO, the less we add to the water the better. It always seemed easiest to me to try and keep fish/plants that could adapt to my tap water than the other way around...and many fish/plants/critters can adapt fairly well. Some need more acclimation time than say common guppies or minnows

IMO/IME I can say that cardinals and many other fish will adapt to different than 'natural' water conditions from their place of origin. That being said, they may not BREED in such water, but may live happy and long lives.

You can get some organic peat to lower ph, soften the water, and add tannins similar to the blackwater....I know you can use peat to condition water for cardinal breeding and that is documented...

You won't get blackwater, but you can save a lot of $.

Not sure what happened at water change time and the fish dying (sorry btw) but I have found that some individual fish handle changes in water chemistry better than others, even within a species...

Hope some of this helps...

 

[ShadowMac]

thanks, Gerryd.

Its been frustrating to say the least.

I tested my parameters using a redsea freshtest kit. dGH=12; dKh=4 or 5; here is the kicker...pH=8.1 according to my pH probe; 8.6 according to the freshtest kit. UGH! guess I should be keeping African cichlids...but i don't like them...

Is RO water my only solution to this high pH? I've thought about trying to build some kind of filter to fit onto my garden hose that I use to fill the tank. Would something like that be a good idea?

 

[Cyclesafe]

It could be that your fish succumbed when ammonium (NH4OH) was converted to the more toxic ammonia (NH3) as you introduced the higher pH tap water. Another possibility is that some chloramine or chlorine slipped in. Of course the ammonia is probably long gone by now, so testing now won't tell you anything.

Your water is fine. You ought to be able to keep almost anything without fighting your water. At higher pH's, however, you'll need to be sure that ammonia is efficiently utilized by plants or quickly oxidized to nitrate (NO3). Tank circulation is very important for the considerable oxygen required for the nitrogen cycle.

The descrepency in pH between your meter and the pH test kit is significant. You might want to recalibrate the former. Also 8.6 is the top of the range of the "high end" pH test kit. That means that it could be reading well above 8.6. What does your water company report say?

We have read about the supposed importance of pH and fish for ages and I think the reason is that it is something that sounds useful and is easy to measure. By itself, it may not be so important - other than the ammonium to ammonia conversion at basic pH's alluded to above. There's plenty of discussion on this site about the alleged importance of pH. I think the conclusion is that it's important to acclimatize fish to new pH's and the best way for anyone to do this is to get them accustomed to the local tap water.

The rocks in your tank, if they are calcium carbonate, will only have an effect on the water at pH < 7.0 and even then if you change your water frequently, that effect will be slight.

BTW, I'm partial to Africans.....

 

[1077]

While
I agree that pH is but a number, the 12 dgh posted is not suitable for the Rams long term not withstanding those who CLAIM otherwise.
Were it me,, and I wanted to keep dwarf cichlids easily with water available, I would maybe consider Shell dwellers who would thrive in parameter's posted.
I believe fish that succumed ,could have been result of sudden increase in hardness(osmotic shock) when water change took place without the buffer that up until then, was being used.

 

[fjf888]

I agree the less we add to the water to chemically alter the parameters the better. I don't think your gH or kH is anything that should be adjusted based on your tap parameter, many work with far harder water, in fact you have good water for overall fishkeeping and fine for plants. For the rams I would keep them in a small tank 10 to 15g and mix 50/50 tap and RO.

#1. The cardinals will adjust, especially if the ones you are buy are tank raised. I have less experience with Rams, but have found them to be very sensitive to water conditions (something that actually agrees with conventional wisdom). Both fish will have major problems if there are are major KH swings, I suspect may have caused the problem. I suppose its possible if you were using a water conditioner that does not deal with chloramines, a quick pH shift and the breaking of the chlorine and ammonia bond could have caused an ammonia spike, that hit the weakest fish, but I don't think that would release enough NH3 to kill fish that fast.

#2. Chemically adjusting to me is fighting a battle you will never win when fighting your water. Keeping a high tech tank is enough work, without battling the water constantly. RO/DI water is the better answer. As far as the cost, I can get RO water for 25-50 cents a gallon from my LFS and Whole Foods. For a big tank it can get costly. Certain substrates like ADA A/S can lower the pH and hardness, I have no experience dealing with this although.

#3. That's just the nature of the acid buffer, it won't hold (if it did you wouldn't need to buy it regularly )

Like Gerry said, peat filtration will work, but you will need to change the peat very regularly.

 

[Cyclesafe]

While
I agree that pH is but a number, the 12 dgh posted is not suitable for the Rams long term not withstanding those who CLAIM otherwise.
Were it me,, and I wanted to keep dwarf cichlids easily with water available, I would maybe consider Shell dwellers who would thrive in parameter's posted.
I believe fish that succumed ,could have been result of sudden increase in hardness(osmotic shock) when water change took place without the buffer that up until then, was being used.

Yes, water hardness is another issue. When I was keeping apistos, I'd get fry only when reconstituting RO water. But I wouldn't think that Seachem Acid Buffer ameliorates GH in any way. Seachem is quite mysterious about the product, but my guess is that it's mainly sodium bisulfate.

 

[ShadowMac]

I have one EBR left, another succumbed this morning. Things were working when adding the buffer. The osmotic shock sounds like the best candidate for the cause. To me it seems like even though the buffer doesn't hold it may prevent a drastic swing in kH by reducing it as I add water. I may continue to do that and add another seachem product that is supposed to hold the pH. I've read acid buffer isn't really a buffer.


I doubt it was an ammonia or ammonium issue, i use prime and that stuff should prevent anything like that.

sodium bisulfate sounds like a good guess, its not phosphate based and I added it in the same container as my gH booster (god only knows why i use that) and I got a good fizz with a little water.

My plants are doing great, i just want a few nice fish to accompany them, afterall i started with fish before moving on to plants.

I have a portable RO system but the output is a joke. We only use it to fill a small water jug in the fridge, especially this time of year when the river floods and the tap starts to taste funny. I'm going to see if a pump will improve its output to make it practical. I have a couple jugs I can fill and store RO water in. then i'm back to lugging water instead of a nice hose.

I have this one left, I started with one she did great with the buffer, so I added more, then i shot myself in the foot by not using the buffer i think. Anyone else have those moments as a fish keeper where you feel so damn dumb?

 

[ShadowMac]

i posted this in another thread, but thought it was relevant here too.

link to my local water report: http://www.grandforksgov.com/Reports/Water_Report_2009.pdf

avg pH= 9.0!!!!

why such a high pH?

 

[clearwater]

That your fish will acclimate to your local conditions is almost always true. However, maybe you have plants that just need more carbon or they truly do need softer water. In any case the only way I have ever found to lower pH is by the use of CO2. This method is accurate, measurable, affordable. If you need to lower pH, do it with CO2. Simple as that.

 

[ShadowMac]

CO2 pH change isn't important to fish. Its more what is in the water, like salts, impacting pH that fish care about ie kH. It turns out some of my troubles with this particular water change was due to a change in water treatment this time of year due to snow melt. I probably should have upped my prime dose to neutralize the extra chlorine.

I have since started using RO water and it has been an improvement.