Safest, most stable way to raise pH between water changes?

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knifegill

knifegill

Peacock Bass
MFK Member
Sep 19, 2005
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Oscar Tummy
My 7" wild-caught Oscar is in a 75 or 80 gallon tank with three different HOB-style filters. One giant Aquaclear 500 with two massive sponges (good flow-through/around in there, it never clogs and I rarely touch it) for biofiltration, a Magnum HOT with mesh for mechanical filtration and a Penguin 300 for both. I do a once-weekly 50% change. I tested my tap today and it is 7.2+. The tank is 6.6! That means a huge pH swing every Satuday! His eye get cloudy as the week goes on, likely from the low pH (that was my clue). My question is, what is the gentlest way to raise or buffer the water? I know to make all changes gradually. Will a few seashells in a filter stabilize things well enough or am I doomed to add Bicarbonate to each bucketfull?

Ammonia-0
Nitrite-0
Nitrates-below ten
 
I had the same problem. I use a small box filter from petland with some crushed coral, and filter floss. My PH now stays at a steady 7.5.
 
Probably about a pint or a quart or so. Remember to have two bags of it, one that you take out and dry periodically, because the bacterial growth on this kind of stuff can sometimes block the carbonate from being released. Cycle the bags, one drying out, while the other is in the tank. Change em out at every water change, just remember to rinse the dried out one well.
 
Baking soda....Added in small increments until you reach the desired ph. (mine is 2 teaspoons/ 50 gallons)......I just dissolve it in a glass of water and adding it as the tank fills up. That brings it from 6.2 to 7.5 . Check your tap water ph beforehand.
 
I like to use the african cichlid substrate that you can buy at any lfs. I think its the same as crushed coral. I just mix a little bit in with my normal substrate and it works as a good buffer it your pH is always falling after water changes. mine use to drop to about 6.0 and with a few scoops of this, it kept my pH at a stable 7.

as for this approach. id add some and see where your pH is after a few days and then add more if the pH isnt high enough.

i find this to be a nice simple approach. and you dont have to worry about adding more bakign soda after every water change. just my 2 cents tho.
 
Wait if it's a wild caught Oscar why would you want your pH to be 7.0 or higher? The native waters would be around 6.5. Both the baking soda and crushed coral technique will work, having used both the crushed coral will introduce calcium bicarbonate and baking soda is sodium bicarb. Not sure which one is better but in nature lime stone (fossilized coral chunks) is used to buffer rivers and lakes. You could also just float a bag of the crushed coral in the tank till the desired pH is reached, saves on the cost of the box filter and an air pump.
 
Vladfloroff has a very good point... the waters Oscars naturally come from are quite soft with a lower PH...

That being said, a stable PH is still more important than a specific #...

My first suggestion... put a couple of gallons of tap water in a bucket and let it sit for 6 hours or so... I can't explain all of the chemistry behind thus, but as tap water sits the PH sometimes drops. The "PH " reading we get straight out of the tap is influenced by other factors and is not the actual PH of our tap water... the PH reading we get after letting it sit for a few hours is the actual Ph of our water...

If... you do that and the PH of the tap water is still 7.#, then I suggest you follow the above advice (coral or baking soda, both work).
 
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