How to lower pH level in tank

[duanes]

As a former chemist, I loved Gabe's video (great delivery), and it might be something I would do, if so inclined.
But I figured it was much easier to choose fish that enjoyed my tap water rather than mess around trying to change it.
When I worked as a chemist I had plenty of hole filled shirts, pants, and shoes, and some red spots on the skin, that proved his point.

 

[Rocksor]

Find out the buffering capacity of your water (KH value). If this value is high, it can take a lot of peat to reduce the KH, GH and PH value. It took me 1 cup of sphagnum peat to lower 24 cups of water with a KH of 8 degrees, GH 22 and a PH of 7.8 to around a KH of 4 degrees, GH 11 and a PH 6.8.

 

[Sanman]

I never tried that myself and if anyone goes to try it watch the whole video .. Gabe’s videos are good I’m glad he’s putting them out there .. He’s been living the discus life forever it seems now

 

[Hank82]

I definitely want the Tiger Oscars. So would drift wood make a big difference?

 

[Rocksor]

I definitely want the Tiger Oscars. So would drift wood make a big difference?

Depends on your KH value. You need to get a GH/KH liquid test and find out the buffering capacity. Typically high PH comes with hard water and high buffering capacity, and if your water is like this, then the amount of driftwood needed to lower the PH wouldn't give your adult oscars any room to swim. The only exceptions are like in places near agriculture communities where they can have high PH and very soft water.

 

[duanes]

If you really want oscars with 8.4 pH water it can be done, and its not that hard, you just need to be willing to put in the extra time, and effort.
I kept them in high pH water, but I found to ward off the type bacteria that thrive in hard water, and the stress that extra osmotic pressure allow bacteria to infect oscars with chronic dieases, I just had to change a lot of water, 30 to 40% every other day. Once i realized what they needed, HLLE was not a problem for them or other cichlids. Tannins help, and you'd get a little with wood, but more, buy soaking leaves, or peat and adding that tannin stained water to your water changes.
Another help, is not using feeder fish which are usually chronic disease carriers, and feeding only a high quality pellet, and terrestrial insects.

 

[Coryloach]

It is also not just the pH value that matters. Soft water fish come from habitats with extremely low conductivity/TDS, lacking much mineral content. Providing you get RO unit or use rain water, you can try to replicate their natural waters and you might be more successful that way but it is still practically almost impossible to create the same water......

For breeding purposes, one can temporarily lower the pH by methods already suggested here but for long term care there's no point really messing up with the pH. Best is to pick fish that come from waters closest to the that of your tap. Then again you've got to do some extensive testing on your tap and get some literature on the fish natural environment to guide you, if available at all, or it's all a big empty guess.

 

[tiger15]

I myself have never tried this but if you don’t want to get an ro unit you could try this at your own risk ..

It's too easy to be true!

I am skeptical that dosing phosphoric acid to lower the pH is the same as truly softening water. It's an ion exchange reaction to substitute PO4 for CaCO3 and MgCO3. At the end, there is no reduction in TDS, which is different from using peat filtration or RO/rain water mixing. I doubt you can use such water to breed blackwater fish or keep them healthy. Too much PO4 can be harmful to fish or trigger algal bloom.

 

[babybetta]

I will be using vinegar to lower the PH. My water PH is 8.2. I collect the water in a Brute container and add 5% distilled vinegar. I will measure the PH daily, therefore I will know how much Vinegar I need to put into the 20 gallons until the PH reaches down to 7.1-7.4

 

[petcokidd77]

Warm water will help