I have been cycling my new 400 gallon tank for nearly two weeks now and am anxious to move my monsters (Silver Aro, PB, Clownknife, and Bichir) from their growout. I’ve got 20 Giant Danios in their as cycle stock and haven’t lost any. Tested the water and everything (Ammonia, Nitrate and Nitrate) all look good at 0, 0, and 5 respectively. My only concern is the PH in the new tank is 8.2 (which matches my tap water unfortunately) whereas the growout is 6.8. Is that too big of a difference to move? I could drop acclimate, but my concern is the Aro hurting himself trying to jump out of a transport tote.
PH Variance Safe to Move Fish?
- Thread starter gatormfk
- Start date
Can always slowly buffer the original tank for a week before the move
I have tap water of 6.8 and Lake T. shell dwellers at 9.0. I have dropped fish directly into the tank with no adverse effects.
Why not just remove some water from the grow out tank every day, and add tap water to replace it, until they equalize.
I just lost 2 Albino heckelii from PH shock. I have over 100 cichlid on my tank most of them were just floted and dumped. I have 3 heckelii from one lfs and they were just fine I got 2 more from another lfs and they died with in hours both times from PH. They went from 7.0 to 8.2 and I Drip acclimated the 2nd one on the 2nd day. I put 30+ fish in the same qt tank and not one other fish had a problem. So what I am saying is buffer the tank up and drip Acclimate just to be safe. You have the luxury of the fish has not been sitting in a bag for 1 to 30 hours so you have time to do it slow and right. Every fish is different just like people some get very sick from covid-19 some are asymptomatic
I worry a little about dripping my Arowana. Last time I “tote’d” him he jumped against the lid a bunch and really want to avoid injury if I can. My other fish should have no problem with the drip.
I did a water change and it brought up the Ph in the growout a little bit two days later was back down to the 6.8 number. Perhaps I need to do daily water changes as you described to bring the number up
How do/did you get the grow-out pH so low? pH rising then quickly falling back indicates low carbonate hardness (lack of buffering). A simple solution would be to add small amounts of baking soda to stabilize pH at gradually higher levels-- and before anyone invokes the "playing mad scientist" notion, I've adjusted ph/carbonate hardness with baking soda for 21 years at my current residence, it's really not that big a deal. You can play it safe by doing a little at a time and checking the results for a couple of days before adding more-- just do it gradually.
What I don't know is how an arowana or clown knife will handle 8.2 pH, some SA fish can handle that, even more can handle mid or upper 7s pH-- but some won't do so well near or over 8. I kept arowana but not in high pH, so I don't know, maybe someone else does.
As to dumping them right in, that's okay up to a certain point, but I wouldn't do a jump that big. You can't compare Tanganyikan shell dwellers that come from high pH/hard water in the first place to SA species at, near, or possibly beyond their range of comfort.
What I don't know is how an arowana or clown knife will handle 8.2 pH, some SA fish can handle that, even more can handle mid or upper 7s pH-- but some won't do so well near or over 8. I kept arowana but not in high pH, so I don't know, maybe someone else does.
As to dumping them right in, that's okay up to a certain point, but I wouldn't do a jump that big. You can't compare Tanganyikan shell dwellers that come from high pH/hard water in the first place to SA species at, near, or possibly beyond their range of comfort.
Add Some crushed coral its cheap. Put it in a media bag in the sump or canister filter this we could just pull it out. Also did you check you kH and gh because if those are really low you can be getting ph swings?