ph 11+

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Goliath Tigerfish
MFK Member
May 7, 2013
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New filter to iron and sulfur (AIO and non chemical regen) but it spiked my ph like the title. How worried should I be to do another water change, the first one killed 4 in the Q T but all the adults survived. I dropped some peat in and called my water guy out to adjust the regen cycle.

Tl;dr
Is ph 11-12 going to kill my fish soon
 
My average hardness in Milwaukee was @ 250ppm, and I would never consider using softened water for my fish.
That said, I would never try to keep soft water species.
I also don't consider iron rich water a detriment, in fact for keeping aquatic plants, it is a plus. If it were me, heavily planted tanks, or sumps would be my choice for using up that soluble iron, and if i were in your shoes, I'd use the "non-softened tap" in the house for water changes.
This is of course, with the limited info I have, you may have other more pertinent info that may alter that opinion.
 
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Thanks for the responses, I agree that using source water for greater stability of the parameters is the best, my concern is the crazy high reading I am getting right now and whether it will kill my stock off before I get a handle on the ph issue
 
What is your stock?
I see the dilemma with a Ph of 11 yeah that's pretty high.
I know there are some species that have adapted to extreme environment with Ph reading in the high 9s but if I were you I would definitely try to get that down before adding any to the tank.
Can you store some water and adjust the ph before doing anymore water changes?
 
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I understand the ultimate goal would be to use your source water.
Have you considered adding an RO unit?
You could run some RO water and mix back in some of your tap water to adjust ph and hardness/minerals. It's a little more work but it would solve most of these issues.
 
pH 11+ is borderline lethal to most if not all fish. (I assume some have evolved in very high pH, but that's probably quite rare.) Some fish will die at something lower than that (10-10.5 for example will kill some species), but few species will survive 96 hours in water that is sustained at 11 or more. Reports I have consider 10.5+ to be maximums for sustained exposure.

Salmonids, carp, goldfish, pike for example will die at 10.5-11.0. Trout will handle 10.7.

It needs to be lower. 9.5 is a feasible maximum level to target for catfish, and numerous other species, although I have no information on balas or SDs.

The lethality is typically measured as LD50 (lethal does where 50% die) for some defined period (e.g., 96 hours.) I don't have information on a pH of 11.5 for example for 3 hours. Possibly no one does.
 
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The peat has dropped the tank to 8.6 and I haven't had any more losses but the tap water is still above the high range limit of my test kit
 
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