new water with diff ph and hardness

[efishency]

Hello

I am receiving fish from a source where ph is 7.5 and GH <8. MY tap water is ph 8.3 and gh11. These are cyprinids, and the supplier claims that if a goldfish will live in my water, so will these guys. I do not want to deal with chemicals, and want to possibly avoid use of ro/di water.

will these guys be ok if i do a VERY gradual introduction to their new water? they are known to happily tolerate my water parameters, but im a bit worried about the change.

Thakns

 

[Spiritofthesoul]

What species of cyprinids are we talking about? Different species have different pH preferance. But the general range is between 6~8. You should acclimate any fish that goes into your tank. I suggust a drip acclimation (google search). And if you want to lower your pH without using an RO/DI unit, I suggest using peat.

 

[kdrun76]

They will acclimate just fine. Like you said, go slow. Dump the water they came in, into a bucket. Put a decoration or 2 in the bucket so that there is a place to hide, add an aerator and a heater if needed. (A super easy heater for short term use in a bucket is a soda bottle full of hot water with the lid on tight.)

Get a feel for how much water is in the bucket and add about 10% of that volume of your water to the bucket. Wait an hour and repeat. Wait an hour and repeat again. After the 3rd addition and another 1 hour wait..... drain about half that water out and add in another 10%.


So lets say 10% is 1 cup of water. Add a cup, wait an hour, add a cup, wait an hour add a cup wait an hour....dump out 50% and add a cup. By now its been about 4 hours and the fish are living in 66/33 their water and yours. Wait..... wait until you are sure all is well. That could take an hour or 12, but wait until you see no signs of stress and are content that the fish are perfectly comfortable.

When all is well... do a 25% change of the current volume in the bucket and wait some more. When all is peaceful, do a 50% and wait some more. When they are ready, net the fish out and put them into their quarantine tank.

This is the best method for any sharp pH/KH/ GH or salinity change. It is how we move anadromous and catadramous fish from full fresh to full salt and back. Your changes are pretty minor in comparison to that.


Hour zero- their water +10% your water (10:1 ratio)
hour 1- their water +10%+10% (10:2 or 5:1 ratio)
Hour 2 their water +10%+10%+10% (10:3 ratio)
Hour 3-dump out 50% of the water, add back 10% ( 2:1 ratio)

Wait

Hour ??- 25 % change (1:1 ratio)

Wait

Hour?? -50% change (1:3 ratio)

wait

Put into tank


I have done this in as little as 6-8 hours for 3 spine stickle backs (full fresh to full salt) and taken as long as a week for a pacu that had been in a rather horrific case of OTS (gross water to clean water).

 

[efishency]

extremely useful, thank you so much for that!!