can the fish really tell the difference? does it really matter all that much? does it effect health?
Is PH really that important?
- Thread starter messiner
- Start date
Most people seem to agree as long as your ph is stable its best to acclimate your fish to your local water than to try to mess with chemistry.between 6-8 most fish will be ok you may need to more closely match thier native conditions to get them to breed.
pH in the water your are using in your water changes is important. Not what the pH is recommended for the fish, F that.
Unless your water is radically off center or you have one of the few very sensitive fish I agree that it is safer to go with what you have. There is an exception in that several fish either won't breed in water that is not in the correct range or need a ph change to trigger breeding or the eggs and fry will not survive in the wrong range of ph.
If you are not breeding the fish or keeping those few fish, (like a couple of the mormydids) that waste away outside of their required range just try for consistancy, the same goes for water hardness. An example is the desert pupfish, 78 degrees F and fairly hard water (15dh) and a ph of about 8.2 is perfect to keep them in but to trigger spawning you take about a week to bump the temp to about 86 degrees and the ph to around 8.5 with a dh of 17, then in one day drop the temp back to about 78, the ph to around 7.8, and the dh down to about 12. they will spawn within a day or two. Of course that kind of rapid change would kill most fish.
If you are not breeding the fish or keeping those few fish, (like a couple of the mormydids) that waste away outside of their required range just try for consistancy, the same goes for water hardness. An example is the desert pupfish, 78 degrees F and fairly hard water (15dh) and a ph of about 8.2 is perfect to keep them in but to trigger spawning you take about a week to bump the temp to about 86 degrees and the ph to around 8.5 with a dh of 17, then in one day drop the temp back to about 78, the ph to around 7.8, and the dh down to about 12. they will spawn within a day or two. Of course that kind of rapid change would kill most fish.
messiner said:
Howdy,
One thing you have to keep in mind: pH is on a logarithmic scale. What you only see as a difference of 1 actually is a difference of 10 to the power of one (i.e. 10). A difference of 2 in the pH value is 100 fold!
What that means is that water with a pH of 6.5 is ten times more acidic than water with a pH of 7.5. As guppy said: Some are sensitive, some aren't. Just remember that it's logarithmic.
HarleyK
at my LFS that I work @ we keep discus in anywhere from 8.2-8.5 obviously don't spawn but if you know what you are doing it does not matter that much...
Some fishes require a high ph and some require a low ph... but most of them will just adapt to whatever ph is already in the tank. Just introduce them very slowly. Don't go using chemicals to adjust the ph to much... that will only shock your fishes and can be very harmful.
A very constant, stable PH is much more important than trying to duplicate the ph value of where a fish is indegous to. THis is true to both wild caught and captive bred fish. It is also very important to slowly adjust a fish from one ph to another. This is espcially true if your are going from basic to acid. I suggest avoiding extreems (high or low). Most of my fish are maintained in high 7's to low 8's. If they came from water with a radically differant ph value I will take anywhere from hours or even a full day adjusting them to the new value. I very slowly drip water from my tanks to thier water to make the adjustment. As mentioned by others, this practice works well for maintaining most fish but some may not spawn or produce viable eggs in ph value way off of thier natural ph. THis is my experiance with fish, plants seem to be differant. Many plants do not do well in water that is hard and/or has a high ph. That is not true with all plants, like jungle val for example does well in hard alkaline water but many others don't. That's a whole another subject....
The PH in one of my tanks is at ~5.4-5.7 
It has been like that for months and the fish are fine (there is a slowly dissolving mystery snail in there though!) Of course I dont like the PH being this low so I have been trying things to buffer the water and bring it up but havent had much success lately. I think its because of some really old pieces of driftwood in the tank? Whatever the reason I'm not too concerned because the fish seem fine and like has been said, better to have a stable PH than to have it fluctuating around all over the place!
It has been like that for months and the fish are fine (there is a slowly dissolving mystery snail in there though!) Of course I dont like the PH being this low so I have been trying things to buffer the water and bring it up but havent had much success lately. I think its because of some really old pieces of driftwood in the tank? Whatever the reason I'm not too concerned because the fish seem fine and like has been said, better to have a stable PH than to have it fluctuating around all over the place!
hardb0iled said:The PH in one of my tanks is at ~5.4-5.7
It has been like that for months and the fish are fine (there is a slowly dissolving mystery snail in there though!) Of course I dont like the PH being this low so I have been trying things to buffer the water and bring it up but havent had much success lately. I think its because of some really old pieces of driftwood in the tank? Whatever the reason I'm not too concerned because the fish seem fine and like has been said, better to have a stable PH than to have it fluctuating around all over the place!
You should lower the pH some more and go for breeding Neons!
