Centralized filtration vs fish's preferred pH

[ScreamingDingo]

I know that seems like an odd title, but here is what I am up against: I have about 400 gallons capacity spread among 14 tanks that I am currently working on getting set up. Some are old tanks, some are new. I am going to add more, but I need to get what I have now up and running first. Build what i have now, add more later.

I would really like to reduce my daily maintenance needs to focus more on the fish and less on the manual labor. So I was considering a drip system for continual water changes. I am also considering a centralized filter to leverage the total system for stability (this is freshwater, by the way).

I have been doing some research, and I see a number of people stating that pH stability is more important than the actual pH itself. I also see where some are actually breeding discus and other supposedly finicky fish in ranges outside their "optimum" pH.

I don't currently have a hardness tester, but my area's water reports seem to indicate that the hardness runs from 125-180. I have tested the pH and it fluctuates between 7.4-7.6 typically.

So, here's my question: If I am getting back into the hobby, and want to pursue a variety of fish (and have breeding species tanks), how important is the pH, really? Am I doomed to continually muck with the pH to try and get it aligned for each species that does not prefer what comes out of the tap? Is it a mistake to centralize the filter for fish that have different pH in the wild in order to have more stable water?

Thanks for you comments!

 

[David R]

Forget the pH, conductivity/TDS/hardness are more what affect your fish (so long as the extremes of pH are avoided). What kind of fish are you keeping? If you're trying to keep a huge range covering soft water species and Tanganyikan cichlids [for example] then you'd be better off with a couple of banks of tanks working on their own sumps so you can tailor the water (not just hardness, but temp, flow etc) to the species being kept. Figure out roughly what you want to keep and how many gallons you want to dedicate to soft water vs hard water, then you can plumb certain tanks together to benefit from the larger volume and central filter system while still maintaining closer to ideal parameters for the fish.