Please advise re unexpected new arrivals...

[jdsunflower]

Hi,
the saga continues...
for the heck of it I've tested my water's Ph...9.5.
Now, I know it's been suggested that I not worry about Ph, but this seems significant.
Any suggestions or reactions from the more experienced?
jd

[jsoong]

I didn't think that Ottawa's water is that hard!! <Googled Ottawa city water report .... said water is soft - though no pH value listed.>

First double check your test ... are you using a high range test? If the result is at the extreme range of your test, it won't be too accurate. If you are using a pH meter, have you calibrate it properly?

To confirm that kind of pH, you might want to do a KH & GH test ... that would tell what sort of water you have. Also, test your test .... try pH on distilled water, should read close to 7.

You might want to check the water the fish comes in .... since it is local, the water should not be too different. Test it the same way you do your tap. <Better yet, do a side by side comparasion.> If both read the same, you have nothing to worry about. <Even if your test is way off, you know both water are the same, so acclimatise as usual.>

[jdsunflower]

thanks for those suggestions.

I have recently moved, and hadn't tested the water here before. I am using a wide range Ph test.
In my last place (across town), I did have to use vinegar every time to get it down. I had a friend from out of town visiting, and without any testing, he felt that the water was very hard--he's kept and bred fish for years in Sudbury.

I've tested the hardness as you've suggested. I don't quite know what to make of this. Carbonate hardness is at 3, but General hardness, I got up to 17 drops in the test, no green! I'm thinking the test material is useless/expired (but no expiry date on the package...) Any reason to think the Carbonate hardness could be accurate and the gen. hardness test expired?

I'll follow your suggestion of testing their own Ph first. And maybe their testing materials are fresher... If I have to I can bring it down then. What do you think of the idea of adding some 'Black Water', or will that only muddy the waters? (ahem)

One last question: I've read somewhere that fish can do fine going from one extreme to the other, but only in one direction (and of course, can't remember if they do okay going from acid to alcaline, or vice versa, and would hate to guess wrong.) And while I'm at it, how much time should I take to get them used to a different Ph? I can't recall reading this anywhere. Thanks for your help!!
JD

[Devilishturtles]

I don't know much about water hardness in FW, sorry. Mine was always perfect when I tested it, so I never bothered with it much.

As for pH, the values are exponential. So for example if you have a pH value of 8 and the water you are adding the fish to is pH 9, that is a 10x difference. ph 7 to ph 9 is a 100x difference, etc. Point being, changes in pH are dramatic either way you do it. Most fish can handle small changes in pH with no problems, but it depends on the hardiness of the fish as well.

Sorry I can't help more.

[jdsunflower]

I appreciate the support--moral support too! I may be making too much of this, but it seems that an acid-type fish would likely be less stressed if in the closest to ideal ph range... I also want to have a planted aquarium, and none of the Amano tanks have this type of ph, with similar fish to the ones I've inherited...
I feel like "I'm expecting"! lol, and they say there are no gender differences.

[jsoong]

You have some strange readings .... A KH of 3 should give you a pH of 7.4 or so .... something is not quite kosher.

The ottawa water dept. reports states that the water comes from the Ottawa river, and that the water is soft. They also state that they adjust the pH to "ideal". Generally the water dept push the pH towards the high 7's to minimize corrosion ... but not into the 9's.

Some explanation of: low KH, high GH & high pH would be:
1. inaccurate tests.
2. presence of Ca(OH)2 - this is what they add in Edmonton to bump up the pH, the OH- bumps up the pH, while the Ca++ reads as high GH, leaving the HCO3- unchanged (ie your low natural KH).
3. presence of some other minerals/ions.

I wonder if this is a temporary thing (spring runoff, so they have to add tons of stuff to the water.) At any rate, the first thing to do is to let your tap water sit out for 24 hrs & let it equlibrate & see what happens. If the water co. is pushing the pH for some reason, the stuff they use is often temporary. <And atmospheric CO2 would tend to neutralize all the OH-.>

For the moment, I think you need to know what pH the fish was in to start. I would think that the other people would be using just straight tap water, so should be the same as yours. As long as there is not a big diff., you can carry on as planned, regardless of the actual pH value.

If you must re-acclimatize fish to drastically different water, then you need to do it slowly. Fish don't do too well with a drastic pH drop (ie a pH crash), but you still need to go slow even going up. The ideal <for goldies anyway> is no more than 0.4 unit change in 12 hrs. In practice, if you have to bridge a big gap, you don't have the luxury to wait days, so I'd just drip acclimatize over 4-6 hrs.

As for plants .... high pH tends to lock up nutrients in non-ionic state (esp. Fe), so those are less available to the plants. That is another reason people use injected CO2 to lower the pH. If you must fuss with pH, this is prob the way to go in a planted tank. An alternative is to mix in some de-ionized/distilled water (I just use collected rain water!). This works if you have hard water (high KH & pH like mine), but if your low KH is real, you wouldn't want to dilute that down too much. But for now, I'd leave the water alone .... you have enough to worry about!

[jdsunflower]

Thanks for your research and your help. I am very intrigued by hypothesis 2.

Right now the (private sale delivery) is perhaps in doubt. The owners of the tank did not show up and are hours late. Hopefully just running late. Given the circumstances, it might end up being a blessing in disguise...

As I mentioned, and this is the part that makes me wonder, I've always had to add vinegar to the Ottawa water to bring it down anywhere near 7 (and this over several test kits, and using the wide-range test given the tendency towards high levels), so this is not new. I think I'll have to get full water testing materials that are super-fresh, and try to get to the bottom of why the high ph is that way. Other than hardness measures, can you suggest any other tests that would help get to the bottom of this? I'm sorry, I don't know what is OH2, I think. Is there a test for this?
Again, thank you very much.

Well, I contacted the would-be sellers and they told me they'd changed their minds and were selling to someone else. It would have been appreciated to get a call and not wait around all day. Oh well, I see from other posts this happens a lot. Oh well, lots of tanks for sale!

[Devilishturtles]

That's rotten of them to not call you. If you did this from a website (ebay, craigslist, etc.) I'd make sure to leave negative feedback or else post a beware post. I hate when people do that.

[jdsunflower]

I am disappointed, but am breathing easier, and have now started a basic cycling process in a small tank (safely, without fish), so that I can kick-start part of the process. Hopefully the filter will be useful when the time comes and I have a full sized tank and plants.

I learned my lesson about impulse buying in an excited state.

Question: Does a high Ph have a significant impact on cycling (does it slow it?) Should I bring it down to 7 with vinegar?

Now to stock up on new water testing materials and some natural plants.
And I get to make my own fish choices--bonus!

Thanks for your support,
JD

[neilanh]

No, no impact. If you watch it, you'll see swings in the pH during the cycle. Don't worry about them, it's normal. I wouldn't even bother watching it, unless it's just curiousity.