My PH refuses to go down any suggestions?

[mattman0182]

Well my PH is 7.6...been that way for 3 weeks. I have tried 7.0 balancer powder and it had zero affect. Next I tried PH down liquid at the advice of a pet store associate..still reading around 7.6. I am frustrated..is it normal or should those things have worked faster? It just seems like it would be fairly expensive to use bottled water.

 

[fort384]

Why do you need to lower it? 7.6 should be fine. pH altering chemicals are bad. They can cause algae and other issues. Fish can adapt to a wide range of pH values. What is bad for them is pH fluctuations, so if you have to continually add chemicals to get your pH at your "target" then you are going to cause undue stress to your fish.

What is the GH and KH values of your water? My guess would be the powder you are using isn't working because you have a lot of buffering capacity, which makes it difficult to bring the pH down.

 

[missileman]

My PH holds steady at 7.4 to 7.5 all the time. I have a very wide selection of fish and they all thrive.
7.6 is fine, leave it alone.

 

[joy13]

Your tank information says no fish. Are you cycling your tank now? I notice when I cycle my tank the PH will vary, once it is cycled it stays about the same and the fish seem to adapt.

 

[BillD]

The above advice to leave well enough alone is good. That pH is fine for almost all fish you are likely to keep.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

Agreed, leave the pH alone. pH altering chemicals do not work. They temporarily adjust the pH but eventually it starts a fluctuation. Fluctuating pH causes stress to the fish. If you want to naturally reduce the pH you can use peat moss, RO water, or tons of driftwood. But honestly, 7.6 isn't bad, I'd leave it as is.

 

[booginish]

7.6 is just fine as stated by the other posters, i would never use the ph adjusters because they mask serious issues in your tank, and thats the last thing you want to do. Fish can adapt to all sorts of conditions, you should only seek adjustment if your water gets to acidic or to basic, unless the fish your keeping prefer it.

 

[LesPaulPlayer]

You could put Peat in the filter trap to lower PH, I haven't tried it yet though.

 

[mattman0182]

Thanks for all the replies. But this brings another question. If fish from the store with 7.0...and I put them in my tank at 7.6...could that potentially kill them? The people at the pet store seem persistant about me not getting anything until I lower my PH.

 

[booginish]

that could be a bit of an issue. but pestore employees have no idea what they are talking about, if you asked them what ph stands for and what it even means they be scratching there heads, they rarely no what they are talking about and alomst always give wrong advice, they are never a good source of information. I have had tons of fish from my LFS and our ph s are always different, and not one of the fish died from ph difference, it is stressful on fish but they will adapt, but imagine the tank your taking them from, its dirty, its cramped, and definately experiences ph swings all the time, in a way your probly saving the fishes lifes by taking them away from the store, even with your ph difference they are definately better off with you than with them.

 

[Ruadh]

Can you say "CaChing!!"
Ever notice that the car dealership wants you to buy their floor mats, telling you that theirs are far better, even though the ones down at Pep Boys are the same?

It's the all mighty dollar, for the most part.
While there are knowledgeable fish store employees, the vast majority are one step above 7-11 clerks and only know what the boss has told them.
While their advice is usually with the best intentions, one needs to look at several opinions to make up ones mind.

Now, taking any advice is, of course, your prerogative but there are a lot of very smart folks on this board and a lot of good results are arrived at through a group effort.

Your Ph will go up and down a full point or more over the course af the day and night, so .6 is nothing to worry about.

 

[mattman0182]

Wow!! Thanks for all of your replies. There is something at the pet store the dude said was some type of pillow that goes into the filter. I just have hard water at my house so thats why it is being stubborn. I take your advice to heart, but I was wondering if I should take one last crack at the PH problem with this pillow thing. Does anyone know about it. Since there are no fish in there yet..I figured now would be the time to try things. The only problem is that the pet store is 27 miles from my home so I cant take hundreds of trips there. And Lowes always gives me that stupid mid-day shift so I cant do anything unless I am off. Walmart really doesnt have anything decent for tanks.

 

[bs6749]

The water softening pillows will be ineffective for the most part and will need to be recharged with solution every few days if you have really hard water. You say Walmart doesn't have anything decent for tanks and I tend to disagree. I'd wager that they have the one thing you need to reduce the general hardness and carbonate hardness of your water. That thing is pure water. I'm talking about the setup where you are able to fill your own 1g jugs and the cost is around thirty cents per gallon or so. If you have hard water with 300 ppm hardness (each of GH and KH) and a pH of 8.0 and you change half of the water in your tank with pure water with a pH of 6.0 you will be looking at considerably softer water with a pH of 7.0 for example. What is preventing you from lowering the pH of the water is the KH or carbonate hardness. Once this is removed there is less "buffering" or resistance to change of the pH. This will allow you to more easily adjust the pH, however it also makes the water more susceptible to pH swings which can kill fish by converting unharmful ammonium back into harmful ammonia. In short, your pH is perfectly fine where it is. I have fish that "should" have soft and acidic water and they breed for me in a pH of 8.0 and a hardness of 300ppm when they are found in a pH of 5.5 and a GH of ~80ppm in the wild. Shows you exactly how much pH really matters in the grand scheme of things.

 

[missileman]

OK large rapid changes in PH, temp ect...?
Happens all the time in tropical fishes natural habitats.
It will rain suddenly with literal downpours changing the water temp and ph drastically in a matter of minutes.
A change from petstore water to your water will have very little effect on them.
You can keep chasing that PH around but you will have to deal with it every time you do a water change.

 

[bs6749]

OK large rapid changes in PH, temp ect...?
Happens all the time in tropical fishes natural habitats.
It will rain suddenly with literal downpours changing the water temp and ph drastically in a matter of minutes.

Not true. The volume of water in their natural habitats is so great that any changes from rain would be minimal. A temperature drop of 2-3 degrees may be commonplace after a rainstorm but that's hardly drastic and the process isn't rapid. There would also be buffers present naturally to resist the pH changes and if the water is lacking any buffers it is already at an acidic pH of 5.0-6.5 and rainwater is at 5.5-6.0 at the most acidic, so it's not going to change anything there.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

A pH change of .6 isn't going to harm the fish. They tell you it must be 7.0 so they can refuse the return if they die. I had a pleco die once and the lfs refused to refund my money because the pH was 7.2 and they said it must be 7.0 for the fish to live. They just didn't want to refund my pleco.

 

[missileman]

Not true. The volume of water in their natural habitats is so great that any changes from rain would be minimal. A temperature drop of 2-3 degrees may be commonplace after a rainstorm but that's hardly drastic and the process isn't rapid. There would also be buffers present naturally to resist the pH changes and if the water is lacking any buffers it is already at an acidic pH of 5.0-6.5 and rainwater is at 5.5-6.0 at the most acidic, so it's not going to change anything there.

It is true
Many of the tropical fish we keep come from streams, rivers and smaller lakes that are indeed rapidly and drastically changed by tropical rain storms.
Granted there are species that do come from vast lakes and rapid change would not happen.
I guess we will just have to dissagree.
Couple of random facts:
Lake Victoria
85% of its volume is from April through June rain and that 85% is lost due to evaporation.
the Blue Nile is affected by the tremendous runoff from the rains on the Ethiopian Plateau. The annual floods in Egypt are a direct result of this increase in the river's water volume.

 

[bs6749]

I didn't think you'd believe me so here are some numbers to consider.

Say you have a lake that is exactly 1 acre or 43,560 ft^2 and that the lake is 10 ft deep on average. That means the volume of this lake in gallons is 3,258,288 gallons (7.48gal/ft^3). Say this lake has a pH of 8.0, a general hardness of 300 ppm and a carbonate hardness of 300ppm. Now say that it rains and the amount of rain is determined to be 1 ft in 1 hour, which is incredibly unrealistic. Say the composition of the rain is a pH of 5.0, GH of 0 and KH of 0 for ease of calculations, though there would be some measurable amounts.That means the pH of the lake would change from 8.0 to 7.73, assuming no buffering capacity. However, there would be sufficient buffering capacity that would probably keep the pH in the 7.95 range or even higher. That is hardly ANY change to say the least and how often do you think it rains 12 inches at a given time? More realistically it might rain 2 inches. The KH and GH would be lowered very slightly as well. These are considerably insignificant amounts.

Lake Victoria has 85% of it's water evaporated between April and June, is that what you are saying? If so, I don't see what you are trying to get at there. Are you implying that there will be a greater GH and KH? The water those fish live in is "liquid rock" and there is as much carbonate dissolved in the water as there is going to be. The fish have adapted to those conditions as well, just as they have evolved into the thousands of different species present from a few or single species to start with.

Lake are more dangerous to fish than rivers because more often than not rivers allow fish somewhere to go when the water parameters become unfavorable. It's not like these changes happen all at once. The fish are able to pick up on the cues and they act accordingly whether it means heading to a lake or staying if they are well adapted to the changing environment. If the fish can't adapt they will die. Clearly the fish in Lake Victoria are adapted to the seasonal changes.

 

[missileman]

Lake Victoria has 85% of it's water evaporated between April and June, is that what you are saying?

No, the evaporation occurs over the course of the year. April through June is the rainy season when the water is replenished.
Also, most lakes that fill via rainwater fill mostly from tributaries, direct rainwater infusion is only a small percentage.
Lets take your 1' of rain scenario, the mass of the water from that rain will fall in a vast area many times the size of the lake itself and then run into the lake via those tributaries that feed it so the net effect is not 1' of water but many feet and not mixed evenly but more concentrated in certain areas of the lake.
The influx of water near the mouths of the tributaries can be imense and cause large changes in the water.
You, being in Michigan, just recently saw the effects of the snow melts and rain last week as we had flooding all over SE MI.. That is kids stuff compaired to tropical rains.

 

[bs6749]

Okay, there are several things I'd like to address. First, in my hypothetical model, which I may have oversimplified, the 1ft of water per acre was supposed to be inclusive of the runoff. I didn't know whether I wanted to explain it with or without the runoff in the model presented and I indeed confused myself since I did say that it'd be rare to rain 12" in a short period of time. I was going to have it rain 1" in my hypothetical situation over an area of 12 acres, which would provide the equivalent volume, however the composition of the runoff water would be different than it would be had it rained directly over my hypothetical lake because the runoff would have accumulated nitrogen containing compounds, salts, wastes, etc. and I thought it would be too difficult for most people to understand and for myself to keep track of. Boy was I right lol.

Next, what you should also consider is that water seeks the lowest point. I'm sure you understand this but think of the consequences involved. If a lake is the drainage point of all of the runoff in a large given area it is going to be a deep lake with a small surface area, a shallow lake with a large surface area, or somewhere in between the two extremes. The respective volumes will be the same, and the shape of the lake will be determined by the geography of the surrounding area. This means that my hypothetical lake may be 100 times the volume I gave it for example, if it is the source of drainage for many acres of land. What I'm trying to say is that the volume of the lake will be proportional to the volume of the runoff rainwater and groundwater (drainage to the lake). You could say that the lake deals with hundreds of square miles of drainage of surface water, but if you do so you would have to understand that the lake would be larger in volume to start with. Do you understand what I'm trying to say here? My point is that the changes aren't immediate and drastic like you are trying to say they are because if a large volume of water is heading downstream to a lake, that lake is going to be large anyway so it won't have a large impact on the lake.

You are correct that near the mouth of the river and where it empties into a lake/sea/ocean the water will be different. I think freshwater stretches 1 mile or more out into the ocean where the mouth of the Amazon pours in. However, there isn't an solid "border" so to speak where one side is FW and the other is SW. It gradually increases in salinity from the mouth of the Amazon to the middle of the ocean further away from the mouth of the river.