Can anyone tell me how to lower my pH?!

[jabsthetank]

Put some peat pellets in a mesh bag and put the bag in the filter or the tank.

Back in the day when I kept Discus, I used peat just as joe jaskot has posted as I'm not a fan of using the PH Up or Down products (or chemicals of any type). With my goldies, the PH is typically pretty stable, but the water where I live has a low PH & KH right from the tap, so I use baking soda to keep the PH where it needs to be.

I actually already mentioned that I have added peat to my tank already.
It's in one of my canisters. Baking soda? Does that work with fish? What does it keep the water at?

Product info: "SeaChem Neutral Regulator™ adjusts pH to neutral (pH 7.0) from either a low or high pH and maintains it there. It softens water by precipitating calcium and magnesium while removing any chlorine, chloramine, or ammonia. The use of Neutral Regulator™ makes other conditioning unnecessary."

I have not used this, but heard people mention it. when used regularly and with all water changes, it is supposed to just maintain a level ph, without swings.
The "ph Up" and "ph Down" products are not a healthy approach. Neutral ph, being non drastic is safer because it is self limiting.
but may not be best for spawning really soft water species, especially wild caught.
ph changes should be gradual.

This seems very promising. Sounds like the perfect solution. So there are really good reviews on it?

 

[KrazEDesigns]

Baking soda? Does that work with fish? What does it keep the water at?

This is totally dependant on the KH, so I use this website to do the calculations for me: http://dataguru.org/misc/aquarium/calKH.asp

 

[vanman]

Everybody here is correct. Reverse osmosis is cheaper then using chemicals though these products do work temporarily. Eventually the chemicals wear off and the calcium and other minerals so the ph start creeping up again. The only permanent solution is reverse osmosis to create a stable low ph environment. I live in the Seattle area. At my previous home the water came in at 8.6 I battled it for some time with chemicals. It did not make any sense to me as we have soft water supplies in the NW. I called the water Co. and they told me they put volitel chemicals in the water that keep the PH high that reduce the affect of chlorine on the copper pipes. Sense they said they were volitel chemicals I tried letting the water stand for several days in a large vat. The PH then dropped on its own in 24 hours and another benefit was the chlorine also evaporated. The difficult thing about water is that is varies greatly by location. Calling your water company for a bit of advice might be a good place to start. If your LFS is using the same water the fish are now acclimated to it. Something to think about.....

 

[bill_396]

My tap well water has a ph of about 7.8 and is also very hard. After years of struggling with this especially because I wanted to keep SA river fishes I went to totally using RO water in my tanks. I have 110 gal poly tanks in my attic and basement for holding tanks because you make RO water so slowly and on my 180s I like to change a lot when I finally get around to it. I use the water straight for my geophagus and they are very happy with ph in the upper sixes. For my centrals i buffer with baking soda and add minerals as required wich brings the ph back up to the high sevens. Only problem there is that the buffering will go away after a while and if I don't catch it the ph drops and the fish become noticeably bummed. Took a bit to set up but it did end years of water related problems.

 

[jrthor_85]

Using peat and wood in tank will help lower the ph, but the problem is the amount of buffer materials in your tap. Temporarily lowering your ph isn't hard with those chemical buffers but it will ~ALWAYS~ try to jump right back after a water change. The chemical used to lower ph is Sulfuric Acid. I don't know about you, but I don't really want that in my tank.

I would suggest using Reverse Osmosis water, and rather than buffering the RO with chemicals, buffer it with your own tap water. It should be much more stable than any chemical modifier can keep it. I have 7.8 tap, and was keeping discus. I would do water changes with 75% RO 25% tap, and that kept the ph around 6.8. With Peat and 1 small piece of wood, the ph would stay steady at about 6.5.

Another option would be to add a CO2 diffuser system (like for planted tanks). That will also lower ph. Using a simple soda bottle CO2 generator, it lowered my 6.5ph tank to <6ph. Can't be more specific than that cause I don't have a kit that reads that low. The only problem with using CO2 is that if you run out of CO2 or your homemade generator dies, the ph can go a little wacky.