How to drop pH

[Mrs. Nicky]

Driftwood or peat moss

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[PDRed302]

Howdy

I guess the main question is: why do you want to lower the pH? Many if not most fish can tolerate a stable pH better than short-term fluctuations, which are inevitable as you try to adjust it with every water change (especially large tanks). Also, many fish encounter seasonal pH swings, eg during raining season or migrations.

Unless you are trying to breed softwater fish, I'd reconsider and go into our species forums to see what success other members have with respective fish in high pH water. I'm sure you'll find that you're not alone with that situation.

If you find that you will indeed need to lower pH, then you will have to provide us with the kH and gH hardness of your water. Those will fundamentally determine what measure of acidification might be successful

Good luck
HarleyK


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+1

A stable PH level is definitely most important.

 

[David R]

If you find that you will indeed need to lower pH, then you will have to provide us with the kH and gH hardness of your water. Those will fundamentally determine what measure of acidification might be successful

Bingo. You really have two options;
A: chuck in some peat/IAL/oak leaves and see what happens, if it lowers it then great, if there is little change you probably have fairly hard water and will be pushing s*** up hill to try lower it and keep it stable with anything other than RO or rain water.
B: Spend a few bucks on GH/KH test kits and a TDS meter, do a little reading on water chemistry and find out what you're dealing with.

When most people say they "need" lower pH for their fish, what they really mean is they need softer water. In habitat low pH is usually associated with water with low mineral content (eg; blackwater streams), and high pH associated with hard water (eg; Lake Tanganyika), and because of this the aquarium hobby has seemed to latch on to pH as though it is the only water parameter to worry about (other than temp). In reality, so long as rapid changes are avoided pH doesn't matter anywhere near as much as the mineral content of the water. I had problems with HITH in Geophagus in a tank with a high mineral content at a pH ~7.4-7.6. I moved them to another tank (without the cement background) with a smiliar pH but about half the TDS and had no further problems. If you have water with high levels of calcium and salts, you can add all the peat and IAL in the world and it won't get any softer, and the benefit to your fish will be minimal.

 

[Hope_WA]

You could titrate with crystalline ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) but add the other posters said, make the changes gradual.