Adding New Fish to a Tank with A High PH

[Sunshine1010]

So i've had this 30 gal tank going for about 5 months now.
Ran the tank fishless for a whole 24 hours (i know ) then added 2 glofish which have been thriving since (lucked up).
Everytime i wanted to add more fish, water conditions weren't right so i held off.
All the planets seemed to have aligned within the last month or so, so i gathered up my young children and to the fish store we went to pick out new fish.
Long story short, walked out fishless and my children's hopes & dreams crushed because once i told the worker that my water keeps a high ph because that's how it comes out the tap, she was dang-near positive that i would instantly kill the fish; and went as far as saying that now that she knew, if they did die they would not be able to replace them.
The mom & pop shop i bought the 1st 2 fish from told me that we all live in the same area, everyone's water has a high ph & as long as i slowly acclimated the fish to my tank water, they should be fine. Well obviously they were right...
The lady @ the big box store also suggested that i use pre-treated or distilled water for all my water changes going forward. That seems like an awful lot of work!
So i'm coming to the experts - will slow acclimation significantly reduce the chances that i'll kill the new fish when adding them to my tank that consistently has a ph between 7.4 - 8.0 if the fish store's ph hovers around 7.2?

 

[King Fisher]

Text book type advice but not exactly true. Fish acclimate to pH. There's two schools of thought about this. First, you drip acclimate the fish with your water. So you remove some of the water from the bag they come in and add a little bit of your tank or tap water every 20 minutes or so then put them in the tank.

Secondly, you just temperature acclimate them by floating the bag they're in, in the tank then simply put the fish in your tank. No acclimating. The idea is that one pH swing doesn't harm a fish but constant pH swings is what kills a fish.

I've personally done both and I never lost a fish from either method and my pH is 8.2. Your local fish guy is correct that fish stores generally use the same tap as you do in your town so the fish are hardly experiencing a difference.