High PH

[Jimr]

Hey Guys
Have moved to Ct. House has deep well. My water is around 8.2 after a day from water change. Have a trickle system installed also which doesn’t help after the C02 (Ph back up to 8.2) dissipates out. I can tell my rays aren’t happy campers. They hardly eat. Do any of you guys have your rays in that high PH? Any suggestions?
Thanks Jim

 

[Matteus]

DB junkie didn’t you have some crazy numbers coming from your source water?

 

[Jimr]

DB junkie didn’t you have some crazy numbers coming from your source water?

No
It’s 7.2 coming from faucet - which is not the true PH. After it sits and has an air stone for 24 hours it’s over 8.2. Which is what happens after CO2 dissipates out of water.

 

[Stingray Biogenetics]

My numbers out of the well are identical to yours. 7.2-7.4 out of the tap (7.2 winter, 7.4 summer). Once the CO2 dissipates out the water sits at a stable ph of 8.2. My rays are healthy, fat and breeding in a ph of 8.2. They love the “liquid rock” water, it helps stabilize the ph better in my opinion. Some advice I can give though and I noticed a big difference with the amount they ate when I started doing so is.. Rays don’t like ph fluctuations, so every time you’re changing the water the ph is going to fluctuate until the CO2 dissipates out (since you have a whole 1.0 ph difference between tap and stabilized water). There’s 2 solutions to this, what I do is when I do water changes I spray the water out of a shower head type fitting from 5ft above the aquarium water level. This allows the water to be exposed to more air, increasing O2 and decreasing CO2 before it hits the water in the aquarium. Another solution would be to age your water in a big barrel/vat to allow to ph to come up to 8.2 before doing a water change. Either way I can guarantee a ph of 8.2 is excellent for rays! Cheers!

 

[Jimr]

Thanks for the response and advice!!
Do you think a constant trickle of about 10-20% tank volume would work? Was thinking if it was constant small amount the PH wouldn’t swing too much and it’s also changing the water. I set up the drip system last week, haven’t really let it run steady yet. I just got a good PH meter so now I know what’s happening. I was pretty baffled till I set up water with air stone in it with PH before and after.

 

[Jimr]

Liquid rock water??

 

[Stingray Biogenetics]

By “liquid rock” I was just referring to the hardness of the water. My water is very hard..

My system is set up on a drip system, but I still have to do water changes due to having an Ultima II Filter that requires backwashing. The drip system doesn’t affect them or the ph, it’s only the bigger water changes that you’d have to worry about aging the water first or spraying the water from 5ft above with a shower head. But keep in mind everyone’s situation could be different, in my aquarium the drip system keeps my ph stable at 8.2, but this could also work for me because my water is very hard, high kH. The calcium carbonate is very high in my well water which helps contribute to a stable ph. Your well could be low in kH (although probably not). Everyone’s situation is different

 

[Jimr]

Thanks again. I do have a water neutralizer and just had it serviced which included adding new calcite. Think that might help??

 

[Stingray Biogenetics]

Thanks again. I do have a water neutralizer and just had it serviced which included adding new calcite. Think that might help??

Anytime! And I’ve personally never used a water neutralizer with calcite (I use a 1.5cu.ft. Kalatalox Lite Filter, to filter incoming water from the well down to 3 microns) but calcite releases calcium carbonate into your water, so yes it should help by raising you kH, it won’t however help with the CO2 in the water.

 

[Jimr]

Cool. Thanks again. Glad to find someone that understands the CO2 PH correlation.