Been away from the hobby for awhile.

[chasgood]

6 years back I got rid of my 30 and 45 gal tanks. Just got a new 37 gal and will be ready to add fish in a few days. Glad to find a forum I can turn to in case of trouble.

37 gal Eclipse deluxe combo on my old 45 gal stand.
natural gravel with some larger black rocks added.
A U shaped chunk of lava rock with a place for fish to hide.
7 plastic plants.

My city, Moore Oklahoma uses well water. It is very hard (GH around 200 and KH about 300 ppm) with a high PH that is very hard to bring down. PH is off the scale with the jungle test strip from the tap. Years ago with another test kit it was 9.2. I could get it to about 8.0 with some effort back then.
I was still able to keep Neons, black skirted, head&tail light, tiger barbs, angels and others alive for several years with this water.
Is it worth the effort to bring down the PH or should I just let the fish get used to the high PH level?

 

[Menagerie]

[center:b6bda712f8] Welcome to AA, chasgood! [/center:b6bda712f8]

That is some water you have there! I don't recommend using chemicals to bring the water pH and hardness down. There is a natural way using peat to soften and lower the pH, but getting it to pH of 8 will probably be the best you can do.
The other option is find fish that like your water. Also, any fish bred locally in the same water conditions will be fine.

 

[oscarbreeder]

Welcome to Aquarium Advice.

WOW!!!

A ph of 9.2 now that is HIGH.
I agree on not using chemicals to bring down the ph.
I also use peat in my canister filter to lower my ph.
It seems to work great.

 

[Atari]

Welcome to the forum mate

This post may get more responses in another forum?

 

[fishfreek]

Yes the advice aspect will get more attention in other forums.

My tidbit would be to use a RO filter and then adjust your PH where it needs to be for what ever you want to keep. The RO unit should effectivly give you a PH near 7.0 as a starting point.

 

[TankGirl]

Welcome to Aquarium Advice, and glad to have you back in the hobby!

Definitely post this question in General FW, but I would just keep livebearers, or boy would African cichlids love your water!

 

[chasgood]

Thanks for the welcome and advice.
I used to use RO or distilled water from the local store for evaporation topoffs. Will see about using 20 to 25% RO for water changes. Bottles can be refilled at the RO machine that cut down costs.
Peat is something I used years ago. It did cut down the amount of chemicals used. The tint it gave the water looked more natural look I thought.

Thanks again.