pH help!

[Posanmi]

Hello!

A little back story I had a higher pH of 8.4 and I had gotten Rams. 2/3 died and the local fish owner said it was probably bc my pH was a little high. The ones he gets are bred local so they should be okay in a mid-7 pH.

After working for a few weeks, I was able to maintain a pH of 7.6! However, after getting a new ram everything fell apart. I noticed my fish had ich so I raised the temp and did ich treatment. I was able to rid the ich but my pH has been unstable ever since.

I have a low kh and gh so I imagine this is why my pH keeps raising. It’s now back up to 8.0-8.2. All the fish now are doing good but I don’t like my pH up so high. The new ram ended up dying (a mixture of maybe the pH, ich, and the old ram kept bullying him).

I added a piece of mopani wood and a bag of peat moss a week ago. I have seen NO changes in pH. I have well water which naturally has a pH of 7.5 so I don’t understand how something in my tank keeps maintaining it at 8+. I don’t know what else to do.

Other info:
29 gallon tank
3 roselines sharks, 1 red tail shark, 1 ram, 1 sword tail, 2 mollies, zebra danio, pleco
Most recent parameters: ammonia 0, pH 8.2, nitrites 0, nitrates 5

 

[Aiken Drum]

Have you tried leaving your water to sit 24 hours before testing pH? You need to do that for tap water so the disolved gasses have chance to find equilibrium with atmospheric gasses. Not 100% sure that its necessary with well water, but its worth checking. It could be your well water pH is higher than you think.

What substrate or rocks do you have? Anything limestone for instance will increase your pH.

What is your KH and GH at?

Low KH wont cause pH to rise. KH will absorb acid. If KH is low it cant do this and acid will cause pH to crash. It doesnt work the other way round.

What kind of ram was it? If it was a blue ram they need the water hot. Much hotter than the other fish you are keeping are comfortable at. If it was a blue ram i would speculate that it was a water temperature issue rather than water pH issue.

If your other fish are happy with the water why do you want to mess about with the pH? If the fish are happy and healthy leave the water parameters alone

 

[ColdKoi]

I agree. Try to verify the ph is the cause of the issue. About the worst thing you can do in the hobby is start chasing water parameters around trying to make it what it doesn’t want to be! It just ends up causing a lot of work and leaves room for errors or issues in the future

Of course if it’s something placed in the tank that is causing the rise, that can easily be resolved, but if your other critters are happy at that ph, and that’s where your water wants to be, it’s best to leave it alone and find a different tank mate.

One other thing that’s been discussed is the fact that a lot of critters are well adaptable to different water parameters (outside of their typical comfort zone) as long as they aren’t shocked with a drastic change. You could dry starting rams out in a separate quarantine tank that you slowly raise the ph over the course of a few weeks before adding them to the main tank. Much more controllable and at the end of the day you’ve got a hospital/quarantine tank set up and ready to go for the future.

 

[Posanmi]

Thank you both so much for your input! I’ve heard so many people say my pH is too high but others have also said to stop chasing pH. So I think I’m going to stop and leave it be. Idk why the rams keep dying but obviously I’m just going to avoid that breed and stick with something else. Thank you!