Hardness/PH question

[Mad Professor]

My fish are dying because something in my water is killing them. My master freshwater kit can't pick up whats killing my fishs in 2 tanks.

So I figure its the ph/Hardness of the water. How does one make it drop?
Current PH is 7.8 in both tanks. I think the water is hard, I have no test kit. But I do own a hydrometer, Thats What I think is how one measures the specific gravity of a liquid.

I need to make it drop from 7.8 back to 7.2 after some research on all the fishs in both tanks. The water needs to be soft.

Anyideas?
More natural ones before chemical ones please...

 

[Devilishturtles]

Add peat moss to your filter, and that will help.

7.8 isn't that high though... I'd grab a hardness kit. Like pH, most fish can adapt to hardness/softness levels. Not all, but most.

A Hydrometer measures salinity only. So are you adding salt?

What kind of fish do you have?

 

[rkilling1]

A Hydrometer measures salinity only. So are you adding salt?

A Hydrometer measures specific gravity not salinity. it may be used to determine salinity, but is reads out in specific gravity or density. so i would imagine that in harder water the density is higher and therefore you would be able to measure it with a hydrometer.

 

[Mad Professor]

Where will I find peat moss?
Somewhere in louisiana, in amist of a bog...


44 gallon: The breeding grounds
Fancy Guppies *dying randomly*
2x Cory cats.

10 gallon:
4x tiger barbs
2x black skirts
*DEAD* 1x cory cat (use to be a pair but I had a crushing incident with the second one*
This setup was working for several months. The plan was to move the stock to a planted 29 gallon.

What happen was that yesterday I took one gallon of water out and refilled to top off the tank. This morning I found the cory stuck to the filter upside down, dying slowly. I do bi-weekly PWC, This upcoming *not today* saturday is my next PWC. For right now whatever was killing my guppies 5 weeks ago is now getting to more of my hardier fishs.

 

[Voodoo Chilli]

I seriously doubt pH or hardness is the problem in your tank; your pH is fine for the vast majority of tropical fish, and IMO, you'll cause more harm than good attempting to "fix" it.

How old is the tank? What size? What's in it? Have you checked the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels of the tank? Any newly added fish? Added any chemicals to the tank recently?

 

[Mad Professor]

Well lets see done this twice now on the forum and no one couldn't figure out why.

Remember I have 2 tanks

The 44 gallon pentagon with readings of 0 ammo 0 nitrite 5-10 nitrates
About 5 weeks ago, 3 of my fish died and disappeared, so I decided to add more. 4 weeks ago I added a dozen fancy guppies to the tank 3:1 F:M ratio.More of my fish have died or still dying then the newly bought ones which seem unaffected. Which about 90% of the fish have died now and only 10% of the new ones have died. Leaving me with 2 males and 8 females and some 2 month old guppies/fry.

The 10 gallon with readings of 0 ammo 0 nitrite 15 nitrates *by next week it should read 20-25 nitrates which is normal because I know they can handle it fine.

I add stresscoat for every PWC to make sure that it has been dechlor. Thats about it..
So I'm pretty sure its something else, just don't know what that is.

EDIT:
Added pics.

Hot off the disk.

enjoy....

 

[Devilishturtles]

A Hydrometer measures salinity only. So are you adding salt?

A Hydrometer measures specific gravity not salinity. it may be used to determine salinity, but is reads out in specific gravity or density. so i would imagine that in harder water the density is higher and therefore you would be able to measure it with a hydrometer.

I know what a hydrometer does.

In aquaria use however, it's main purpose is to measure salinity. Specific gravity is the measure of density of a liquid basically, yes. Put a hydrometer in freshwater though, and it won't read anything at all. With a refractometer you may be able to pick up a slight reading, but I'd still rely on a hardness kit.

 

[Purrbox]

All of your stats sound perfectly acceptable. I'd be more likely to suspect that you are accidently introducing something to the tank that is harming the fish.

Just did a little reading on Stress Coat and it only treats for Chlorine, not Chloramine. Perhaps you water company has recently switched to using Chloramine instead of Chlorine. If so you'll need to switch to a water conditioner that treats for both. Most recommend Prime, although AmQuel is another good one.

If this isn't the problem perhaps it's your handsoap, perfume/cologne, moisturizing lotion, or something else along these lines.