Frankly I tend not to think about PH and hardness much. Recently I have been keeping Uaru and am most interested in blackwater/softwater fish. I have been looking at F1 Altums, but then realized that the tap water here is a pH of 8! The hardness I'm not sure of yet, but will call the water company tomorrow and find out. Should I be thinking about switching the types of fish I'm keeping? SA fish have done well so far and the Altums I'm looking at are currently in a pH of 7.
pH and Hardness
- Thread starter Silvertongue700
- Start date
Last years water quality report lists the hardness as CaCO3 48-66ppm, though I will call tomorrow to confirm that. How would I figure out the KH?
Get the API GH/KH liquid test kit. If it is 4 degrees or lower, natural biological conversion of ammonia to nitrates will cause the PH to go down over the course of the week.
It looks like you have high PH and soft to sightly hard water. That's good for a lot of Amazon basin South Americans.
If the water is soft with a high pH then I should do less water changes in order to allow the pH to drop?
No. Having higher nitrates/dirty water is worse than having high PH.