water ph question
- Thread starter Richard203
- Start date
Your fish will be fine. Don't forget as well that during a water change you're not changing "all" the water, you're only partially changing it, so you've got some of the "old" 7.5 water left in the tank for your 8.5 tap water to be further diluted in.
The last thing you want to be doing is changing the ph of your water before it's even been added to your tank.
If your pH drops significantly in the tank as opposed to the tap, it may be that you are not doing enough, or frequent enough partial water changes, or cleaning gunk from filters.
Testing for pH is one of the ways we gauge how often water changes need to be done.
If tap water pH is 8.5, and in two weeks it has dropped to 7.5, it may mean that with your current water change schedule is not sufficient and you need to do a water change once per week.
A drop in pH is usually an indication that the acids from fish waste (or other metabolism) are overwhelming the system.
Vacuuming the substrate and cleaning mechanical media regularly can also help with this.
There are other factors that can also influence pH.
Is your tank heavily planted? A heavily planted tank often has a slightly lower pH in the morning as plant use O2 at night and give off CO2 at night.
Throughout the day plants use CO2 and give off O2, raising pH. The difference can often be pH 7.8 in the morning, 8.2 in the evening.
If your rap water is low in alkalinity (buffering capacity), your pH may drop from 8.5 to 7.5 in two days, this , may mean, to maintain stability, a partial water change may be needed every two days, to maintain pH longer wthout doing as many water changes, it may mean you may have too many, or too large a fish for that amount of water and its buffering capacity in the tank.
Testing for pH is one of the ways we gauge how often water changes need to be done.
If tap water pH is 8.5, and in two weeks it has dropped to 7.5, it may mean that with your current water change schedule is not sufficient and you need to do a water change once per week.
A drop in pH is usually an indication that the acids from fish waste (or other metabolism) are overwhelming the system.
Vacuuming the substrate and cleaning mechanical media regularly can also help with this.
There are other factors that can also influence pH.
Is your tank heavily planted? A heavily planted tank often has a slightly lower pH in the morning as plant use O2 at night and give off CO2 at night.
Throughout the day plants use CO2 and give off O2, raising pH. The difference can often be pH 7.8 in the morning, 8.2 in the evening.
If your rap water is low in alkalinity (buffering capacity), your pH may drop from 8.5 to 7.5 in two days, this , may mean, to maintain stability, a partial water change may be needed every two days, to maintain pH longer wthout doing as many water changes, it may mean you may have too many, or too large a fish for that amount of water and its buffering capacity in the tank.
my tap water coming out is at 8.5ph then you wait couple days in a bucket of water it will drop to 5-6ph iits the chemical in the tap water that makes it high at first.
