Dealing (or not dealing) with High pH Well Water

[The Mule]

We recently bough a house in the Hudson Valley and are now on well water. After 30+ years living in New York City, where the water is just about 100% perfect in all ways, we now have water that comes out of the tap around 8.0-8.4 pH and actually rises to around 8.6 after a few days in the tank. I'm running a few tanks here with no fish (my fish have not made the move to the country yet).

I have CA/SA cichlids and other fish that would ordinarily be considered to do best with a more neutral pH (and have all thrived in my 7.0 NYC pH). I obviously don't want to bring them up here and just drop them into much more alkaline water...

Option 1. I suppose I could gradually acclimate the fish. The CA cichlids would likely do ok. Might worry about the SA cichlids though. Not sure this is the best way to go though.

Option 2. A more "responsible" approach might be to use an RO unit and remineralize. The issue I have with this method is that I'm planning to use a continuous drip system on my tank for water changes and having to go through the RO and then remineralize would be problematic for the drip system. The tank is going to be very large - 550g. So one thought I had was to run a line from my cold water supply through the RO unit and then have that drip into the tank. Since it's a slow drip, adding straight RO wouldn't have much effect immediately and I could then dose buffer periodically to maintain proper pH. Might take a little tinkering, but I guess that might work.

Option 3. The easiest/most sensible option I suppose would be to just get a large reservoir tank, fill it with RO, mineralize it and just do big drain/fill water changes as I've always done in the past. I'll be disappointed to not be able to use the drip system, but I guess that wouldn't be that big a deal.

What would you folks do?

 

[Rio Kaiju]

If I had to choose, #3 would be it. But, I would also consider switching to salt or Africans.

 

[The Mule]

I think #3 is going to be it...

 

[jjohnwm]

I'm impressed by...and envious of...the dedication that many aquarists apply to providing water appropriate for their fish, if their tap water isn't suitable.

Personally, I wouldn't enjoy that. I try to keep fish that thrive in whatever water conditions are available to me; just don't want to fight nature.

 

[wednesday13]

U can run ur autodrips “as normal” from a large reservoir... theres a very old thread where Lei himself did just that in the MFK articles section. U just need a pump to supply ur autodrip lines rather than pulling straight from ur house water pipes. U can age the water and use any additives u need in the reservoir. I believe Lei hooked up the aging barrel straight from the source, placed a pump in the bottom and kinda “dripped” into it. Just aging the water a bit like that may b all u need with the addition of regular softner salt and maybe some media bags of crushed coral to buffer the PH before it goes in. Ive installed “whole house” type water softner units while working in the coral industry and theres really not much too them. Basically just softner salt and carbon. Id never waste money on a pre made system. U can find used pressure tanks very cheap and plumb them in urself filled with whatever media u need to drop the PH. A 5’ carbon tank lasts more than a few yrs so it ls fairly affordable in the end. Could even fill one of the large pressure tanks with crushed coral and just run through it before ur aging barrel. Other than that... my own PH out of the tap is 8-8.5 I find it drops in tank so im surprised urs is going up. With autodrips my stays at around 7.5. Ive bred stringrays for yrs in the higher ph and kept about every species imaginable. The one species that does not do well are plecos ??‍... small bristlenose do fine and breed but any larger pleco lasts about a month or two. Lots of drift wood in tank should help curb the Ph or atleast drop it a bit once its in there. I would not go back to “not dripping” lol... theres always a way ?

 

[The Mule]

Can anyone recommend a specific RO unit? Something that reliably produces 500 gallons per day?

 

[duanes]

Although many South America species prefer softer water, most Central Americans come from water with a high mineral content, and high pH.
I live in Panama, the rain water where i lie tests out at 8.2, and water in Lake Gatun can surpass pH 9.
Below is some collection point data from Mexico and Central America. Note the high pH and conductivity

Below a pH sample from my Panamanian cichlid tank.

If it were me, I would "not" be trying to adjust my water, I would be considering species that fit my water type.
There are plenty of Central American and Mexican cichlids fit that bill, the idea that Central Americans need soft low pH water is a myth.
I have kept and bred Central Americans of all kinds in high pH, high mineral content water for 6 decades in the US and now in Panama without a problem.




African rift lake species are also high pH lovers.
And even South American species from west of the Andes (Andinoacara, Mesoheros, and 3 species of Geophagus) and species south of Rio de Janiero (the Geophagus braziliensus group, Gymnogeophagus, and Australoheros) easily handle harder water.

Australoheros above, Gymnogeophagus below

My current Panamanian Andinoacara below

 

[The Mule]

Thank you, duanes. And ok! This would certainly make things simpler for me. I've pasted below a list of fish (cichlids and non cichlids) already in my possession that I would need to acclimate to this water if I kept things as they are. I imagine the bocourti, snook and acara will be ok. Do any of the others stand out as likely to have issues?

Acarichthys heckelii

Andinoacara coeruleopunctatus

Astronotus crassipinnis

Cincelichthys bocourti

Geophagus winemilleri

Heros severus

Hypselecara temporalis

Petenia splendida

Myleus rubripinnis

Myleus schomburgkii

Bagrichthys macracanthus

Calophysus macropterus

Megalechis picta

Notoglanidium macrostoma

Synodontis alberti

Synodontis soloni

Garra flavatra

 

[duanes]

Since I have never kept any of those non-cichlids, except Synodontu (they seem quite adaptable) I cannot comment on the others.
I would be hesitant to keep the winemilleri, severus, Hyscelacara, and crassipinus in your straight tap, because of their tendency to get HLLE in high conductivity tap water.
But in separate tanks from the Centrals using some sort of adjustment (such as RO) to accomadate the S americans could work.
Acararichtys are adaptable often coming from waters that change seasonally, but if you can adjust parameters I'd house them with the S Americans just to be safe.
But as you guessed all the Centrals you mention come from hard water, and should be fine in your tap.

 

[The Mule]

OK... I'd been planning to keep all of these in one big (550g) tank and would rather not adjust water for individual tanks. I could do that, but trying to keep things as simple as possible. So I suppose my options are to part with oscar, chocolate, geo & sev... Or bring them up and just see how they do. I hate to subject them to conditions that would make them pit out though (and thereby be more difficult to sell or trade to someone else). Going with RO would afford me the peace of mind knowing I could pretty much keep whatever I want going forward...

Does anyone know if the characins and catfish on my list would do ok in very hard/high pH water? I know the Synos are often kept with rift lake cichlids, but the Calophysus and others? Or Datnoids (another favorite)?

So let's say I stick with my plan to use RO in big reservoirs... Can anyone recommend a good RO unit that puts out 500 gpd and doesn't cost a ton?