Water Changes with Acidic Well Water?

[shad_rak]

Hello Everyone!

I have a newbie question. I have a 20 gallon tank with a nitrate reading of 40 ppm. Time for a water change! Here's the "catch". My well water is very acidic, probably around 5.5 PH. The PH of my tank is around 6.8, and I added a PH fix tab about 2 weeks ago.

My concern is adding 10 - 25 % of acidic water will swing the PH and kill my fish. I have thought about adding baking soda to the new water. I'm kind of lost here.

Any help I can get here is much appreciated!

Thanks!!

 

[Rivercats]

You need to be doing weekly WC's. Nitrates should be kept at 20ppm or lower. If it were my tank I'd use RO for WC's and use a reconstitioning agent like Seachems Replenish or Equailibrium. If your tank is planted I believe you need Equailibrium and if a fish only tank then I believe Replenish. This will add the chemicals back into the RO water to keep your tank at a steady Ph/Gh/Kh. If you use the well water you are going to have to raise the Ph before using it for WC's. Using baking soda all the time IMO is going to be rather harsh for the fish. You might want to email Seachem and ask if the two products above could be used with your well water. This is about all the advice I can give you.

 

[shad_rak]

RO Water

Thanks Rivercats! Your post was super helpful! After a bit of research I think RO is (reverse osmosis water). I will email Seachem, but I think I might be going the RO water route.

 

[shad_rak]

Email to Seachem

Here is the email I sent to Seachem, per Rivercats advice.

Good Day,

I have very acidic well water, around 5.5 PH, KH 40ppm, GH 25 ppm. My tank's current PH is 7.5, GH 75 ppm, and the KH is around 100 ppm. I have only one plant in my tank. A user on the aquarium advice forums recommended your Equilibrium product. Can I add this to my well water? If not I might go the RO Water route.


I welcome any further advice from members here.

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[shad_rak]

Solved!!

I just let the treated water sit overnight in a 5 gallon bucket. I also had a small air pump with an air rock in the water.

Shazam!! PH jumped to 7.2!

 

[aqua_chem]

As a rule, I never listen to the advice of anyone that wants to sell me something. I recommend you consider that as well.

First thing I would look at is checking the pH of your well water after leaving it out for a while less than before. You could have a variety of things at work that could be throwing off your data, such as high CO2 levels in you water that will dissipate within hours. Also, what's your tap KH? Where did you get your current numbers from?

Also, where did your current tank water come from?

You could always try to do an experiment. Mix together ratios of tap and tank water and see what the resulting pH is. That should give you some indication of what options your have.

Edit: didn't see your last post for some reason, so some of this post is irrelevant.