water hardness and ph for my gar

[sdavis76]

hello all, i just done a water hardenss and ph check and my hardness was 180ppm { which is my strips max} and the ph was about a 6 is this bad for my gar just wondering cause i had them with some really big crawfish and the crawfish just died one night in their log. i dont wanna lose my other pets thanks for all ur info !

 

[xander]

sounds like a swing, 6 is a tad low, mantaining yr pH at a stable 7 seems to work bset for regular gars. you can use aragonite or crushed coral to achieve this effect

 

[E_americanus]

pH at 7 or somewhat higher works best for buffering against chemical spikes (up or down). hardness isn't really that important. i would do a water change to stabilize your system and make sure you remove all the dead organisms as well. re-test your pH after the water change and then keep checking for a week or two to establish what your baseline is. from there you can figure out if you need to put a buffer compound in (like aragonite, etc). --
--solomon

 

[Lepisosteus platyrhincus]

i keep my gar at 6.5 ph. 6 is a bit low though