# Stabilizing pH



## nympxzie (Feb 26, 2015)

Hey all, I'm new here ((both to the forum and the cichlid world) I also didn't see a welcome page so this is my first introduction)

I have a beautiful tank set up for some juveniles coming in for me next week. The tank is cycled, it has sand substrate tons of rocks, very warm. Everything a cichlid could want? right??? wrong...my pH is driving me *off. the. walls.*

So a few things first...
*My pH out of tap is 7.4
*Ideally these fish would like 8.2 to 8.4. I've read that they are extremely sensitive to any change in water quality to it's imperative I get this right before I can introduce them to their new home.
*I have crushed coral in my filter. Only about 2 tsp worth. This drove the pH up to 8.2.
*My water is soft, I'm waiting for a test kit to come in to find out the exact dgh.
*If I add any tap water to the tank, the entire tank drops to 7.4
*I've tried raising tap water with baking soda to 8.0 prior to adding. Once added the pH usually stays at 8.2 but then slowly rises throughout the week to 8.4 or higher.

So my question is, how am I supposed to preform a water change and keep the pH at a stable 8.2ish with no fluctuations? The rise through the week from the baking soda is concerning. Any and all help is much appreciated! I'm at my wits end and I no longer have time to play around since the fish will be here soon.


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## sumthinfishy (Jan 26, 2013)

my first question would be what kind of fish are coming? yes some fish can be sensitive, but they are sensitive to fluctuations not a specific ph. the only fish that i would worry about a specific ph number would be wild caught fish. other than that all fish are prety much bred in commercial waters and come from a variety of ph conditions depending on where u ordered from. if the fish is acclimated properly to your 7.4 ph then it will do fine in the 7.4 ph. the worst thing u can do is fight the uphill battle of constantly trying to keep ph at a higher level than it normally is. water always wants to go back to its original state, so 7.4 will always want to go back to 7.4 unless constantly adjusted. it will cost u time and money plus u will still prbably end up with fluctuations which is what will harm fish. the constant 7.4 will be great for them after u acclimate them to it. i repeat its all about consistency! consistent ph, and consistent diet are the key to a healthy happy fish. good luck and have fun


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## nympxzie (Feb 26, 2015)

sumthinfishy said:


> my first question would be what kind of fish are coming? yes some fish can be sensitive, but they are sensitive to fluctuations not a specific ph. the only fish that i would worry about a specific ph number would be wild caught fish. other than that all fish are prety much bred in commercial waters and come from a variety of ph conditions depending on where u ordered from. if the fish is acclimated properly to your 7.4 ph then it will do fine in the 7.4 ph. the worst thing u can do is fight the uphill battle of constantly trying to keep ph at a higher level than it normally is. water always wants to go back to its original state, so 7.4 will always want to go back to 7.4 unless constantly adjusted. it will cost u time and money plus u will still prbably end up with fluctuations which is what will harm fish. the constant 7.4 will be great for them after u acclimate them to it. i repeat its all about consistency! consistent ph, and consistent diet are the key to a healthy happy fish. good luck and have fun


They are captive bred for sure. Would drip acclimating them be best?


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## sumthinfishy (Jan 26, 2013)

what kind of fish? u can probably get away with 50/50 ix of your water and the water that they are coming in, but drip is def safer if fish are sensitive. (like tanganyikans for example)


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## nympxzie (Feb 26, 2015)

I believe I'm getting a pair of masked julie juvies about an inch, to grow out in the tank before moving them out.


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## sumthinfishy (Jan 26, 2013)

ok. those are tanganyikan and can be more sensitive than other africans. i would go with drip acclimation. once acclimated they will do fine in your 7.4 ph


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## nympxzie (Feb 26, 2015)

Great thank you for the help! maybe I can go return the coral now...haha!


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I don't drip acclimate. I test the water the fish are in. If the pH is different than the tank I want to put them in I modify their quarantine tank to match the sellers water. Then during their 3 weeks of quarantine the water changes usually change the pH gradually enough to be comfortable for the fish.


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## sumthinfishy (Jan 26, 2013)

also good advice, but again it comes down to proper acclimation and they will be fine in your ph.


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

nympxzie said:


> *My water is soft, I'm waiting for a test kit to come in to find out the exact dgh.


Welcome to Cichlid Forum!
KH will tell you more about your water and it's ability to maintain a certain pH. If adding baking soda, you really should be testing KH as well. (I'm assuming you're not since you didn't provide readings).
http://cichlid-forum.com/articles/water_chemistry.php


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## Loume (Dec 27, 2014)

nympxie. 
you really do need to get those test kits KH and GH. Chances may be that your water may not be as soft as you think, and the real PH could be higher and you might not even need to add much or even anything at all.
I don't know how big your tank is, but It seems strange only 2t of crushed coral raised the PH that much (from 7.4 to 8.2)? , especially if in a short period of time. How long did it take before the PH rose?

I would advise this for anyone, try taking a 5 gallon bucket of your tap water, add your prime or whatever if you have chlorine/chloramines, dropping an air stone in it, or otherwise well circulating it, and heating it up to aquarium temperature, waiting 24 hours, and then testing the PH out of the bucket, and compare to what comes directly out of the tap. PH might even continue to drift slightly higher after a further day or 2. Cold water and water under pressure can hold a LOT more dissolved CO2 and other gases than can water at aquarium temperatures and with little/no pressure. That dissolved CO2 presents in the H2O as carbonic acid, and drops the PH. Other excessive acidic PH lowering gases can be present also. The water may be only fully saturated with CO2/gases, while it's still cold and under pressure in the pipes, but once released of it's pressure and brought up to temperature it's said to be supersaturated- it now has alot more gas dissolved in it than the water under the present conditions can maintain.. Once these excess gases are driven off you can get a more "true" reading of your PH. Likely as your 5 gallon bucket heats up you will see some small gas bubbles form on the bucket, but especially on the heater. These are dissolved excess gases coming out of solution that the water can no longer hold in the dissolved state.

This usually happens more with water drawn from a deep well, where water is drawn deep from high pressures, but it can and does happen but usually to a smaller degree with municipal water supplies, especially in the winter. I'm not a chemist, but I would suspect in municipal water supplies there are also excess dissolved ammonia gases present that may also lower PH? Just a guess.

My water comes from a deep well, even though the water table is very high where I'm at. So drawn from water where there is alot of pressure. Measured right from the tap, I get about a 7.3 to 7.4 reading. This may sound incredible, but after driving off the excess supersaturated gases, mostly CO2 and nitrogen, and bringing up to proper temperature, my PH rises to about 8.2, and once there remains very stable. All the parameters look real good for rift lake cichlids, except the nitrates, and I don't add anything at all.


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## nympxzie (Feb 26, 2015)

Loume said:


> nympxie.
> you really do need to get those test kits KH and GH. Chances may be that your water may not be as soft as you think, and the real PH could be higher and you might not even need to add much or even anything at all.
> I don't know how big your tank is, but It seems strange only 2t of crushed coral raised the PH that much (from 7.4 to 8.2)? , especially if in a short period of time. How long did it take before the PH rose?
> 
> ...


GH/KH tests should be here Monday. The coral raised the pH very quickly, about .2 an hour until it stopped at 8.2. It's a 10 gallon tank, will be upgraded to a 55. 
I'll try heating and aerating water in a bucket tonight since my water is drawn from a well I might be in the same boat as you, I'd love to find out that my pH is actually higher than 7.4!

If 7.4 is not my true pH would I have to heat and aerate the water every time I do a water change to prevent swings?


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## Loume (Dec 27, 2014)

I didn't realize it was only 10 gallon. That small tankage would be much more apt to instability and sudden swings/changes in many parameters. Still, I really don't think crushed coral which is mostly calcium, and not much carbonates, could/would change the PH like that or that quickly. My thinking is that the PH was likely to rise on it's own anyway, or at least part way. I still suspect so.

After thinking a little about it last night, I was going to edit my post to read just few hours instead of waiting 24 hours to test. But the format only allows edits within a few minutes. Test your 5 gallon bucket after just a couple hours, with having adequate aeration first, and after being brought to temperature. DON'T add any prime or anything else to that test bucket, you shouldn't have chlorine/chloramines/ammonia in your well water anyway. I think you'd likely see a change of PH within just a few hours, most of it would degas and equalize quickly, with aeration/circulation and being brought to temp.

It would be wise to let a 5 gallon bucket or two of water, "age" for a day or two for water changes regardless. Even if you don't add aeration to it, it'll just equalize/degas/normalize/oxygenize at a slower rate, and you could stir it occaisonally help things along, but yes, at least bring it up to temp at least first. You say that your aquarium is cycled? Is it? You realize that suddenly adding several fish at once, especially to such a low volume of water, could subject your tank to ammonia and nitrite spikes, at least until an adequate bio fauna is established? You may be very dependent on very frequent water changes at least for awhile anyway, you don't want to subject the fish to any additional stress than is necessary. I'd also use and keep a bottle of a product like tetra safe start (beneficial bacteria) on hand at least until the bio fauna is well established.

If you do have gas supersaturation, not only would have to be aware of sudden PH drops using water right out of the tap, before PH rising back up, you also need to be aware of the possiblity of gas bubble disease. Those same tiny gas bubbles I talked about forming on the sides of the bucket and especially on the heater, they can also form throughout a fishes gills, preventing them from getting adequate oxygen. Gas bubbles can also form in their blood and tissues, eventually and usually manifesting first as bubbles on/behind the eyes, and in their fins, or under the skin. That's entirely bad enough, but in an acute case, it can cause larger embolisms and sudden death, possibility even suddenly wiping out near or an entire tank of fish. I often suspect these things happen more often than people realize. It happens in goldfish/koi ponds also.

But first, before going any further, test your bucket of water tonight after a couple hours aeration and heating, and report back what you've got. Then you can go from there, testing the KH and GH. if I'm wrong about suspecting gas supersaturation, and you still desire to raise your PH, KH whatever, you should still do that ahead of time in a bucket anyway, to avoid those PH swings when doing water changes.


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## Loume (Dec 27, 2014)

Nympxie.

when just testing this, you don't have to use a 5 gallon bucket. I was thinking in terms of a container the size of which you might want to prep first for water changes. You can use a much smaller container, gallon, etc. for aerating/heating to test. Just make sure whatever you use is clean and free from any residues, especially soap residues.


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## nympxzie (Feb 26, 2015)

I used a 5 gallon bucket, clean of residues, aerated and heated. unfortunately after a few hours it tested 7.4. It's been about 12 hours now, still 7.4.

I'll have the KH and GH results this week.

The tank has been cycled for a while. 0 am 0 nitrite around 20 nitrate, since early January.


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## Loume (Dec 27, 2014)

Hmm. the thing that baffles me most is how only 2 teaspoons of crushed coral could've raised the pH from 7.4 to 8.2 in a matter of hours. If it had gone from something like 6.6 to 7.0 over a few days, I could understand that. Am I somehow misunderstanding what you've said, did you also put baking soda in the tank to get it to 8.2?

Yeah, the next step is to test the KH, find out your waters buffering capacity, and also your GH. As mentioned by sumthinfishy, pH stability is going to matter more than an absolute pH number, although for me, 7.4 probably would not be acceptable, particularly when water has low buffering capacity.


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## nympxzie (Feb 26, 2015)

Hate to bump this again. my results are GH 3 KH 8. Tap is GH 3 KH 4. pH of tap is 7.4. Cichlid tank has been a constant 8.0 for 2 weeks with twice weekly 50% cleanings of 7.4 tap water. pH hasn't dipped so shells must be doing their job. I'll only be doing twice weekly 15% changes when the cichlids come.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I lost track of the question. Why would do change only 15% weekly?


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## nympxzie (Feb 26, 2015)

I would only do 15% as I read the cichlids are sensitive to new water. Smaller more frequent changes should avoid any large swings.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

OK. You might have to change more often than weekly then. I don't find julidochromis to be oversensitive to water changes, they are fine with 75% weekly for me. You do have to match your parameters though.

You bumped because you have an outstanding question...what is it?


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## 3000GT (Jan 18, 2014)

So, nympxzie, I'm also in CT...not sure if near you or not, but my water is similar...around 7.6. with low GH/KH (just a bit higher than yours). I debated on using chemicals or baking soda but in the end I didn't want to deal with the risk of raising ph and maintaninig it and constantly watching it so I decided not to and the fish are doing fine. I do have crushed coral in my filters, but I don't think it has raised my ph at all (maybe 0.2 or so). I'm surprised you have such a big jump. It doesn't hurt though, so I keep it there. My numbers don't seem to change over the course of a week (not sure if they would over a longer period), but I do 45% weekly water changes pretty religiously, so I think that helps make sure the parameters stay pretty constant. I also have a Julidochromis in my tank and he seems to be fine. He did seem to act differently one time after a water change of more than 50% and made me nervous so I keep the changes below that, but it could have been a fluke.


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## nympxzie (Feb 26, 2015)

3000GT said:


> So, nympxzie, I'm also in CT...not sure if near you or not, but my water is similar...around 7.6. with low GH/KH (just a bit higher than yours). I debated on using chemicals or baking soda but in the end I didn't want to deal with the risk of raising ph and maintaninig it and constantly watching it so I decided not to and the fish are doing fine. I do have crushed coral in my filters, but I don't think it has raised my ph at all (maybe 0.2 or so). I'm surprised you have such a big jump. It doesn't hurt though, so I keep it there. My numbers don't seem to change over the course of a week (not sure if they would over a longer period), but I do 45% weekly water changes pretty religiously, so I think that helps make sure the parameters stay pretty constant. I also have a Julidochromis in my tank and he seems to be fine. He did seem to act differently one time after a water change of more than 50% and made me nervous so I keep the changes below that, but it could have been a fluke.


Based on what both you and DJRansome said, I'll think I'll preform 25% changes. 
I'm probably going to do a100% change tomorrow to get any baking soda out of the water and just go back to straight tap water and stop messing around with the levels. Seems to do more harm than good in my case. 
Thank you everyone who helped! Cheers~


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Are the fish in yet? What pH are they being kept in at the seller? You do want to match initially. And once the fish are in you don't want to change more than 0.2 at a time.


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## nympxzie (Feb 26, 2015)

The fish aren't in yet thankfully. I'm expecting them Tuesday. I'd like to just drip acclimate them. I'm actually stopping in today to ask what the pH is that they are being kept in(and what they are eating). Hopefully the water chemistry is close to mine because otherwise I'll have some serious trouble trying to acclimating them by moving my pH to theirs.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

What I've done is to adapt the tank to the fish and then do water changes to lower the pH over time. I was thinking since your tank is already pH=8 it might work depending on the seller pH. And BTW test the bag they come in...I've had sellers tell me 8.0 and found 7.4 when I tested, LOL.


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